#LockdownZim Day 8: A Loving Letter to the Side Chicks in Coronavirus Solitary

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Dear Sidechick, it is the eighth day since the outside world has been ruled out due to the takeover of the whirlwind and badass Miss “Rona. We just thought of you, sis, as most of the places that he used to take you to have been cancelled like a virulent culture. The closeted movie houses and terrace restaurants? Cancelled. “Til-Dawn-Do-Us-Part” bae holidays? Cancelled. Unplugged, Cookout, First Fridays, raunch music gigs, discotheques and social gatherings? C-A-N-C-E-L-L-E-D!

We are truly concerned about you. Unlike those other side pieces who don’t know their place, who spent their nights in holding cells for the destruction of property, disturbing tranquillity, or assault and battery, you know that you had to wait your turn. You’ve been in the house for like forever now, forlorn, fighting back tears and pondering on the “what ifs and what could have beens” of life or if you have said yes to that Kombi hwindi who kinda hit you with, hey I’m feeling you like that.

There’s a third empty bottle of vodka and a shot glass on your nightstand. Your sappy, Fuck-Him-I-Don’t-Need-Him playlist made up by moody Western broads with B.O.Bs in their closets is still playing gently in the background. But your fucks-giving level shoots up as your phone vibrates and you want so bad to check your notifications hoping he might have slunk into the bathroom to text that he’s on the way over.

Checking your breath, you smell like you had a make-out session with a shit-breathing dragon. You look in the mirror and see peach cobbler crust in the corner of your mouth and your eyes. Time is spiralling down, and you only have about thirty to forty minutes before that key enters the lock to your home, and you have to be ready.

You want to leap into the shower to wash the liquor and misery from your skin. Get out and brush the hot damn from your tongue. Rip off your bonnet and pull your flexirods from your hair, slay your face at a lightning speed, use his preferred bath and body works lotion and body spray, and slip on a robe he bought you a couple of weeks ago. Then you tumble down your hallway just in time to be sitting on the lounge, flipping through the channels, casually, when the door opens, with your “I woke up like this” turned to the max.

He would come in with a bag of breakfast from the trolling-ass Chicken Hut and sets it on the counter, strides over to kiss your cheek, but you veer your face away, feigning disgust. You can’t make it that simple. His “hey booboo” and “I missed you” fall on deaf ears as he pulls out the fast cuisine, or at least you pretend they do. But your grizzly bear stomach growl betrays you. Hoping he didn’t hear it, like a kid who just passed gas in a room full of his peers, you grimace and turn around, seeing him smiling at you.

The smile will just weaken you like that. Every part of you. He smiles like a flaky-ass teenager as he makes his way over to you with his hands behind his back. You eagerly anticipate the epiphany. You lead him to your bedroom. You sexy pose against the nightstand, slick sliding it closed, and wait for him to come to you, blushing because he’s standing there, militantly admiring your ravaging beauty like a soldier who just made it out alive from Sudan. He walks over and pulls the tie loose on your robe, his eyes indicating his ratification of your pick of lingerie, and kisses you like you’re the only woman for him… The rest, we know.

After you’ve sweated out your hard press, messed up your weave, or thumped the curls out of your head on the headboard and possibly gargled a few of his future generations, you’re back on the couch, eating microwave heated eggs and French sausage. Watching some mushy-ass film, snuggled up like lovers until…his phone signals like a honking car alarm.

The reality is made known that your time is up. He’s got to go back to her, and no sheer amount of imploring, appealing or nagging is going to change that. So, maybe after one further back bender, you suck it up, observe him go shower and redress. Then you put on a brave smile and see him out, go back to a hollow, dishevelled bed. Breathing the scent of his Hugo in your sheets only makes you cry harder but it’s only a few days or weeks before he visits again. He says he’s sorry and that he loves you.

And the cycle continues…

Well, this is all playing out in your head as we begin the second week of the 21 days lockdown. Before your mad dash to the bathroom for your hygiene regiment, you reach out to your phone, gratified that it’s him. You open the message. Morosely, it’s not from him. It’s from your mum, checking on you to see how you holding up in these murky waters and if you’re staying indoors. Instead of being thrilled that at least someone who genuinely cares for you actually reaches out, you’re shuttered that it’s not him.

The man he’s and how canny he’s, normally he’d crawl out of his shack and family under the guise of going for a long-ass fuel queue but with the security forces roaming around and whipping the crap out of rolling stones, it’s the least risk he craves to take.

Which really got me to my next issue: Why do women do this to themselves? Is it the ratio of heterosexual women to men and the way you outnumber them, making “a good man” had to find, and easy to share? Is it a self-esteem issue? Is it a cyclical thing that comes from a lengthy line of “other women”?

The issue has been up for debate for sometime, and I’ve already broken enough of the code of silence writing this piece. I wanted to share this limited snoop into the world of the sidepiece, the most demonised woman in existence. A woman in love with the wrong man.

Being a side chick is like being in solitary confinement with a phantom of abstract love. Imagine how that must feel going through twenty-fucking-one-days without hearing from him because his kids and wife always have his gadget. The thought of what if he comes out of the quarantine period and says, I can’t do this anymore.

It’s traumatic and downright emotionally draining.

Happy eighth day of lockdown to all our side-piece sisters out there. If no one else loves you, #ENTHUSE does.

Openly Black

Openly Black

Critic At Large in Culture | Disruptor-in-Chief | Prolific Serial Tweeter | Foul-Mouth Creative | Free Speech Absolutist... And All That Jazz

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