“Kudinyana*” by Linda Musita

After eating all the ndare, lugus, and matomoko they could for a day, they usually sat on the trees, bored, passing soft smelly air hoping it did not turn into black, yellow, and white diarrhea. Very ripe fruits were sweet and evil, and diarrhea was not good for what was coming next.

Pete’s idea: “Twende tukadinyane.”

The boys went behind Mr. Orina’s house first. They took off their shorts and trousers and waited for the girls.

“Today I am picking Betty,” Pete called.

“You always pick her,” Wallace said.

“Yeah, because she is mine and when we grow up I will marry her and touch her breasts anytime I feel like it. How cool is that? Have you seen how they are growing? One big, the other bigger. They look like how balloons with warm water feel. I bet by the time we are married they will be huge enough for me to squeeze until they burst mahira. I even gave her my big brown teddy bear. So she knows I have booked her.”

“Is that why your mum beat you up on Sunday?”

“The teddy bear?”

“Yes?”

“Yeah, I told her I took it out to play and it got lost. She was so annoyed.”

“You scream like a girl when you are beaten. We heard you all the way at our house. ‘Yiiii mami naomba msamaha. Yiiiiii. Yiiiii. Yiiiii sitarudia. Uuuuu mami mimi ni mjinga.’”

“Like how your mother screams when your father gives her kei in her mkundu mnuko. Kuma ya mamako na makende zimestunya.”

“What do you know about my mother when yours kamatanas with Popsy. That dog always barks loud and long when she goes out to give it food. Do you want me to show you how she puts Popsy on its back, parts its back legs, sits on its penis, holds its front legs and starts bouncing up and down? ”

“Eh, ni cha hicho sasa?”

“We are even, now. Say something else and I will be the dog your mother chases every night.”

Pete smacked Wallace’s head.

“Now we are even. Stupid.”

“You guys are weird,” Banju said.

“Anyway, I will pick Ndundus today,” Wallace said.

“Ndundus is so fat,” Pete said.

“Piggy, piggy, can’t you see, sometimes your farts just hypnotise me. And I just love your fatty ways nenenenenenenen-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne,” Banju couldn’t help himself.

“Piggy is your mother,” Wallace said.

“You guy you need to stop with my mother or we will cut friendship.” Banju held out his little finger and waited. No one wanted to stop being friends.

Now that Pete and Wallace had chosen, Banju had to pick between Schola and Pinky. Or maybe take both, one after the other…

“Or together? But how would that work?”

“What?” Pete said.

“You have chosen Betty. Wallace has chosen Ndundus. I have to choose between Schola and my sister. I was wondering if I can dinya both of them at the same time.”

“You are greedy, aren’t you? I don’t think that is possible. You only have one kanyamo. How are you going to put it in two girls at the same time?”

“Good question.”

“Ah you guys, I am starting to think we will get caught by Orina. What is taking the girls so long?” Wallace said.

Nothing.

Betty, Ndundus, Schola and Pinky appeared with their dresses wrapped around their waists, their panties tucked in their collars. Heaven forfend that the panties got lost and they went home without them.

They spread their pullovers on the ground, lay down on their backs, and waited.

Betty prayed so hard that Pete would not pick her again. He smelled of dust all the time and chewed on his sweater’s sleeve while he dinyad her. The sound of his teeth gnawing on his sweater really irritated her ears and teeth. Creaky doors had nothing on his racket.

Plus his penis was too short for a twelve year old. It was as small as her kid brother’s. When she washed Kim in the evening and got to his private parts, all she saw was Pete dangling his short rubber stick before kneeling and forcing  it into her lady-hole. Kim was just three years old. Pete on the other hand…sometimes his penis did not even enter her properly or at all. It rubbed on the upper part of her genitals. Other times, he rubbed the wrong place so hard and bruised things after which she could barely urinate without crying. Fujo nyingi na hata hajui kutombana. Betty was not sure about Pete. He did not seem to know how people dinyana even though it was always his idea.

Why was Pete’s penis too short for a boy his age? Because Banju had a bigger one and he was also twelve. But he always picked last, because Pete was the main guy. He decided on everything including how long they would all have sex.

Betty liked Banju so much. She did not like how Pete made things impossible. So she just lay there as he chewed on his sweater and made her vagina feel like graphite on paper being erased by a rubber band.

Kerew, kerew, kerew

Pfuuuut

Kerew kerew kerew

Pfuuuut

Kerew kerew kerew

Pfuuuut

She was eleven but she knew that she should be feeling something nice. She just knew it. But there was nothing. Just rubbing and very cold air. There was so much space between his penis and the walls of her vagina.  Betty always thought that it should fit like the big new lollipops did in her mouth and not like a straw in a bottle.

Pete should never have picked her in the first place. But one day, she would carry him up a tree and stick his stupid rubber dong into a beehive. Maybe it would swell and finally be useful to her.

Next to them, Banju was makudinyana with Schola, and Pinky was watching.

Schola was just nine. Betty knew that she did not deserve Banju—lying there looking at the sky like she had never seen it before. That one should just be kicked out of the play gang. She was still a baby. No breasts. No menstruation. No sexiness. Nothing. Yet she got the best guy.

Banju was very brown. His buttocks moved super fast. Betty liked to look at the ripples go down his thighs to his knees, which scrubbed the ground so vigorously he lost some skin. He was so into this sex thing that he even made short hooting sounds while doing it. Like he was enjoying Schola’s hole, dipping his kinyamo into Schola like Betty’s dad dipped his fat forefinger into bones to pull out juicy marrow.

“Shut up you owl! Someone will hear you,” Pete had told Banju so many times since their orgies started. Banju had learned to block him out of his experience.

“You shut up and finish,” Betty always wanted to tell Pete.

Banju finished with Schola and asked Pinky if she wanted to lie down.

“No. But can I touch it?”

“What?”

“Can I touch it?”

“My kanyamo?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you want to do that? It is for mdinyano not being touched. Silly girl.”

“Just let me touch it a bit.”

“No.”

“Why are you like that? I am just touching!”

“No. You either let me dinya you or forget it. This thing is not for touching.”

“If you don’t let me touch it, I will tell mummy and daddy.”

“Tell them what?”

“That you did bad manners with Schola.”

“Okay, okay…touch it then.”

Pinky squatted and looked at her brother’s kanyamo.

“Haiya, do you want to look or touch?”

She took hold of it and started squeezing, bending, feeling for bones and flesh.

“Why is it even between your legs? Why is it not behind like a dog’s tail?”

“How would I know?” Banju said.

“Why do you use it for kudinyana when it is meant for susuing? So what happens when you want to susu and you are doing it with me or Schola? Do you susu in us?”

“I have never felt like urinating but If I ever did I guess I would just have to urinate in you. That is the sensible thing to do. I can’t remove my kanyamo, can I?”

“But then that will add more susu in us. And make us so pressed till we susu on ourselves.”

“Pinky, you are just six years old, you don’t know anything.”

“Do you know anything?”

“Of course I do, I am way older than you and you should listen to me.”

“Okay.”

Pinky started pulling at Banju’s penis, trying to smooth the creases.

“It looks like cold sausage, Banju. Yuck.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yes it does. Look how it looks. Look.”

Banju slapped her hand off and looked at his kanyamo. It did look like what his baby sister said it was.

“Well it looks like I will not dinya you today, you silly girl.”

“No it doesn’t; it looks like cold sausage. We can even show mummy when we go home and ask her what it looks like. I bet she will say it does not look like you will not dinya me. She will say it looks like cold sausage. Hey, can I peel the skin off?”

“Stupid! No! And if you tell mummy anything I will never bring you out to play,” Banju told his sister as he got up to put on his trousers.

He caught Betty looking at him.

“Pete, Betty is looking at me funny.”

Pete stopped his rubbing and looked at Betty. Her eyes were closed.

“Banju, you are such a liar. Stop spoiling my moment. If you have finished, take your baby sister home. Leave us alone.”

“The liar is you, idiot.”

Banju stood aside and watched Wallace lie still on top of Ndundus.

“Hey Wallace, what’s wrong with the two of you?”

“I am trying. She won’t open her legs.”

“Ndundus stop being selfish,” Banju said.

“He smells like poop and he refuses to get off me. He is so disgusting.”

“Wallace, did anything seep out while you were farting?” Banju started giggling.

“Yes, but what has that to do with anything? It’s not like my kanyamo is the one that let out some of that stuff. This girl is just stupid and fat.”

“I am not stupid. Get off me or I will scream till people come and find us,” Ndundus told Wallace.

“No. Panua miguu.”

“Sipanui.”

“Panua ama nitagugonga kichwa.”

“Sipanui.”

Wallace poked his fingers into her eyes.

Ndundus screamed so loudly that panties, shorts, and trousers went up legs that ran away very fast as Mr. Orina asked questions from his house.

“What is happening there? Who is screaming?”

“It is me, Ndundus.”

“What is wrong?”

“Wallace poked me in the eyes. I can’t see. I can’t see. It hurts. Woi mami, I can’t see.”

Mr. Orina opened his door and found a fat and ripe little girl, her dress wrapped around her waist, brown panties tucked in collar. She was rubbing her eyes and struggling to sit up.

How delightful!

Wonderful predicament.

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Kiswahili (in English)

• Kudinyana – What kids in the 90s called sex.

• Ndare, lugus, and matomoko – Raspberries, Loquats and Custard Apples.

• Mahira – pus.

• Eh, ni cha hicho sasa – It’s like that now?

• Kanyamo/kinyamo – penis.

• Your father gives her kei in her mkundu mnuko. Kuma ya mamako na makende zimestunya – Your father fucks her in her smelly asshole. Your mother’s vagina and your father’s testicles are muscular.

• Fujo nyingi na hata hajui kutombana – Too much exertion and he doesn’t even know how to fuck.

• Panua miguu – Open your legs.

• Sipanui – I am not opening my legs.

• Ama nitakugonga kichwa – Or I will hit your head.

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Linda Christabel Akhatenje Musita @ivorypunk is a writer, editor, and lawyer.

She works as a literary agent at Lelsleigh Inc in Nairobi and is an editor at The Star newspaper.

Linda began writing when she was fourteen years old and her first story was published in an anthology, African Children Speak, published by Thomas S Gale.

Her fiction has been published on the Storymoja publishers’ blog and the Daily Nation. Linda has also written some pieces on literature and art in Kenya, which have been published on the Daily Nation, The Star and Brainstorm Kenya.

She is an avid reader and her favourite authors are David Maillu, Edgar Allan Poe, Lewis Carroll, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, David Mitchell, Aravind Adiga and Michael Logan. She reckons the best book/novella she has read so far is “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Marquez.

Linda is currently working on her first novel, whose working title is “Papoose”.

She is a Storymoja Hay Festival 2012/13 fellow being mentored by 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing shortlisted author, Lily Mabura, and assistant mentor Michael Don. Linda and other fellows in the program are working on several short stories and ideas for novellas.

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