Racheal.... Part One.

Timi finds the badge and is clipping it onto his lapel when he notices her. She is standing outside the building in front of him, a mere ten feet away, cigarette smoke trailing upwards from her right hand which is held at an angle across her bust. She is tiny in stature, dressed in light blue scrubs with a white turtle-neck inside. She is looking at him.

He stares back at her broody eyes, somewhat obscured by her bangs which are combed towards one side. There is a trace of a smile at the corner of her tiny mouth but not in the eyes. She continues to look at him for a moment longer before drawing deeply on her cigarette then blowing a white plume of smoke straight at him. So straight on he ducks reflexively.... She smiles as she stumps out the cigarette on the wall, then turns around and walks into the building.

He sits there a moment longer not sure if she was real or if his mind was playing games with him. He grabs his jacket as he gets out to walk to his building. He catches a whiff of the menthol cig she was smoking mingled with a sweeter fruity scent. He holds his breath, savoring it for as long as he can and walks slowly to his building.

"Hi Timi!" Sheila, the elderly lady behind the desk smiles genuinely.

"Hey Sheils...." he answers, a little distracted as he fumbles with his badge, before swiping it against the reader on the wall so that he can enter Fort Knox as they jokingly refer to their work-place.

"How did it go?" She asks, genuinely concerned, "is everything alright?"

"Yes!" He turns to her as he answers and smiles widely...

"Couldn't be better." He adds as he pulls open the door and lets himself into the receiving room of the online movie library he works for.

**********

By five o'clock work is done, and Timi is anxious to get out of there. He finds JB at the front lobby as he's heading out.

"Goodnight." He nods at him.

"Goodnight man." JB replies putting down the paper he had been reading. "Thanks for staying late... Much appreciated."

"No problem!" Timi replies as he heads for the door, then as a thought occurs to him.. "can I have that paper? You done with it?"

"Sure thing man!" JB folds the paper before handing it to him...."running out of reading material?"

Timi smiles and takes the paper thanking him as he walks out the door. There is still some light outside. As sure a sign as any that Winter is coming to an end. It is by far his worst season. He hates walking out of the building into pitch darkness. He walks briskly towards where he left his car. As he gets around the next building so that his car is now in sight, he catches a glimpse of her, the girl from earlier on.

He's sure he recognizes the tiny figure walking between two other ladies in the opposite direction. He watches as they walk towards a bunch of cars and as she separates from the other two and walks towards a small dark jeep.

"Goodnight Rachael," One of them calls after her.

She raises her right hand to wave acknowledgment as she digs her other hand into her pocket book, probably looking for her keys. He notices the red glow coming from her raised hand and he's sure he can smell the minty smoke from before. He continues to watch as he walks to his car, his pace having slowed...

"Rachael.... huh?" He muses as he opens his car door and gets in, catching the red lights of her brake lights in his rear-view mirror as she shifts into drive and takes off.

*******

It takes them a little more than an hour to get to the 'Laughin Times Cafe' where Dj Sheez Nit was spinning the best of Bongo and Genge. Mo had laughed when Timi pleaded ignorance to the Bongo flava phenomena that had apparently taken the Kenyan music scene by storm these past few years. Timi had shrugged helplessly and let Mo, who supposedly had been here 'thau' times and was giving directions, lose them for close to twenty minutes before they ran into a carful of loud kids that was heading to the same place.

It had been rather tricky getting rid of Kerry. Mo's plan had been clumsy at best and Timi was left wondering how he managed to get the playa reputation that he had. Maybe the girls were so taken with his looks, they lost their common sense.

"How do you tell a girl that you have to take your friend who you found in a drunken stupor to pick up his grandmother from the airport?" Timi muses as he remembers standing there and trying to keep a straight face as Mo pleaded his case and how sorry he had felt for the girl who surely must have known she was being lied to.

They get to the place and the first thing that strikes him is the number of late model cars parked outside which, looking at the outside facade of 'laughing times', are clearly out of place. The flash of anxiety that had first caught him as he sought a parking spot on the street disappears as he realizes that only a fool would take his old bimma when there is that much of a better choice to pick from.

They walk in and the first floor apparently, is the 'cafe'. Actually in this case it is a bar that has been converted into a dance hall by clearing the tables to one side. There is loud reggae music blaring from enormous speakers and someone is toasting loudly in Jamaican patois over it. Timi figures it must be since he can barely hear what they are saying yet it all sounds familiar, like what he'd heard once when a rasta friend had token him to Club MonteCarlo back in Nairobi.

As he follows Mo across the dance floor he notices that only girls are on the dance-floor, about eight of them, in rather flashy colors. The guys are all standing to the sides and he is very conscious of their stares and the barely disguised hostility behind them. They come to a staircase that is just past a couple of pool tables and he follows Mo as he bounds up them, rather relieved that the Reggae dancehall back there was not their destination.

At the top of the staircase, a door opens outwards as they approach and a barely dressed bundle tumbles out and almost topples down the stairs. Luckily, Mo is close enough and reaches out and steadies her.

"Oh! My God!" She exclaims in a deep husky voice as she holds on to him. She steadies herself then tilts her head up and to the side to take a good look at him.

"Thank you handsome, I swear these people are trying to kill me." She lets go of him and starts to continue down the stairs before something occurs to her and she turns back towards Mo who's already heading towards the door, "Hey, handsome, you wouldn't happen to have a cigarette now, would you?"

Mo, without turning or missing a step, throws over his shoulder, " I quit last night, sorry." And goes into the club.

There is something strikingly familiar about her to Timi and he's trying to figure out what it is when she turns around and gingerly starts to walk down the steps, carefully looking down before stepping down. It's only when she's but a step before him, and their heads are almost level that she turns and looks at him, and then it hits him.

"Do you smoke?" The voice is even deeper at this range.

Timi is too stunned to answer and shakes his head, negative, then watches as after thanking him anyway, she feels her way down the staircase and disappears around the bend.

"Rachael? No. It couldn't be." But he's positive it is her, the girl from the parking lot the other day.

********

..........It must be Mo, he figures. That was the only person they had ran into a couple of times, he and his brother Ma, now that he thinks about it. There is no way of avoiding those two, they are everywhere. Just about then, as if on cue, Ma comes walking in. With him is a tall, dark, strikingly beautiful girl, in a green blouse that seems to be barely hanging on to her huge bust.

Right behind them, the girl that had been dancing with Tony earlier and Rachael, her black high heels in her hands. She's wearing a tiny brown dress that's reaching way above her knees and that's open at the shoulders. She is walking gingerly on her tiny feet and he can't tell if it's because she's high as a kite or because she's barefoot.

Timi watches as the four of them start to make their way across the nearly empty dance-floor heading in their direction. Rachael seems a little unsteady on her feet. He wonders how much she has been drinking and if she's even going to make it across the dance-floor. She doesn't.

While they are about halfway across, the track that's been playing comes to an end and as the beginning notes of the next one start, the crooning of the singer seems to electrify the whole room. Suddenly there is a mad dash to the middle of the dance-floor, as just about everybody, singles and couples both, arms, beers, purses and what not all up in the air, heads thrown back in some form of ecstasy, and it's apparent to Timi that everyone but him knows the the song.

The DJ, probably knowing to expect this reaction, is stopping and rewinding the track after the first few notes as if to tease the dancers, and he is not disappointed as they yell at him to keep it going. Timi can't help smiling at the excitement as everyone, it seems, sings along to the unfamiliar song, "Ooo.. Ooo... ooo oh! Mara ya mwisho kuonana..." mostly off key, and swing to the smooth beat of the song. Most of them only know some of the words and he can hear them singing louder as the hook comes about so that he only catches a few words. "... Kigoma.... ya weh ya weh.... aitwa Cindarella"

"Shit man!" Tony had exclaimed as he put down his beer, " This joint is hot" before disappearing into the madness.

Timi had lost sight of Rachael when the stampede to the floor began. Now as he looks into the mass, wondering if she had managed to retain her footing or if she had fallen and been trampled by this crazy people, he catches sight of her, very much alive. She is holding a shoe in each hand, half-raised to her side, dancing. She is half turned towards him, slightly bent forward at the waist, backed up against the midriff of the girl she came in with, who's got both her hands around Rachael's waist and her head leaning back against Tony's chest, who is dancing close behind her.

Timi stares , aghast, at the sensual threesome. Their movements start to conjure up some rather disturbing thoughts in his head so he decides to focus on Rachael. Her face is turned up and tilted to the side, the weave falling over to that side and completely covering that eye. The eye that's exposed is closed and her mouth is slightly open; in a half-smile that gives her face a strange sedated appearance, as if she is high on something and is experiencing a peace that is out of this world.

He realizes, as he watches, that the only part of her body that is really moving is her pelvis; slow and deliberate; up, down, in and out in a sensual-ness that is carrying from her pelvic bone, down to her feet and up to her shoulders. Watching her dance, transfixed even, Timi feels something stir within him. He has the urge to walk up and get in between the two girls. He is certain she wouldn't mind, probably wouldn't even notice.

Sipping on his drink to brace himself, he mentally calculates how many steps will get him there and how he is going to step in between them. But before he sets off, the 'Cinderalla' song comes to an end and though most of the people continue to dance, Timi watches, crestfallen, as Rachael slumps off and slowly makes her way to the table right next to his.

For the first time though, he is able to see her up close as she walks by. She is really short, he notes, with her shoes off; hardly more than five feet tall. Her body is stoutish for her height, but still on the smaller side. The little brown dress she is wearing exposes the milky brown round shoulders, is loose around the back, and tight at the waist and around what must be the fullest buttocks Timi has ever seen. He's not sure if it's due to the smallness of the rest of her body, or the way the hem of the little dress gathers just below where the curvature of her buttocks ends.

Perhaps he is drunk, he figures as, mersmirized, he watches as she hoists herself up on the tall stool across from him.

**********************

"Brrrrrrr! It is so damn cold.... brrrrrrrr!"
Timi looks in the direction of the voice as he steps out of the doorway into the grey light of dawn and sees Rachael, seated in a plastic deck chair smoking. She is wearing a puffy jacket with a furry brim around the hem of the hat, but her uncoverd thighs are tightly squeezed together in an attempt to keep them warm.

TO BE CONTINUED........