Necessary Sue

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I’ve always wanted to leave town on an old train carrying a battered suitcase and wearing a forlorn look. Maybe it’s raining and I’m standing on a platform, my hair wet having ran across the parking lot. Maybe the platform is dimly lit, the naked back overhead flickering. Maybe the wind blows wet leaflets of yesterday’s newspapers, history, past the platform. Maybe the train I’m getting on has no destination. It just goes and goes, blowing smoke over hills and through tunnels, chugging along to nowhere. 

I think of this train sometimes.

But I’m not getting on a plane, I’m getting on a jet plane as they used to say in the 70s. Gloriah here will hold forte this week. 

See you soon.

Don’t forget to always look up at the red moon.  

***

By Gloriah Amondi.

“It was during those December holidays that, when you are a child, seem gloriously endless. We were going to Nanyuki to pay a visit to a shamba my parents had bought there and see how the warus we were farming were doing. It was that El Nino season of the mid-1990s; it had rained so badly, the roads were impassable. We decided to go back to Nanyuki town to spend the night, then try again the following morning, to see if the floods on the road had subsided. The hotel room my parents booked had two beds. They shared one, and I shared the other one with my small sister. I don’t know what woke me up in the middle of the night, probably the need to pee, but I caught my parents doing it – doggy-style.”

It must be- I believe– a common thing to find oneself a bit perplexed, and admittedly judgmental, whenever you are talking to someone a little, or a lot, unconventional. The interview happens on a Wednesday afternoon, and we (my guest, our host and myself) are on the balcony of our mutual friend’s house. The two of them (from what I gather) have known each other for years, and quite well. Perhaps even in the Biblical sense.  Our friend lives in a fairly quiet neighbourhood, in a small tidy apartment on a seven-storey building which- by his own description- “gives him a good view of the city and of his ex-wife’s apartment” (although he swears that he had no idea she lived there when he moved into the neighbourhood).

Her name is Necessary Sue.

Years ago, before Necessary Sue was Sue or a necessity, she was just a girl, a 13-year-old girl who went for a 16-year-old’s birthday party in Lang’ata during April school holidays and was molested by a boy with raging hormones, who had just finished 4th Form, in the Master Bedroom upstairs as the unsupervised “Sweet Sixteen” birthday bash went on merrily downstairs. “I went to the loo in the Master en suite, came out, and he had locked the door behind him.”

Before then, she had not known what sex was, not even when she had caught her parents at it. She just remembers that it was very fast. And that she felt a little naughty, and a lot embarrassed.

At 17, while in college, she had her first (consensual) sex experience with a man, a Tanzanian called Zakayo. That same year, she fell in love with some other man, whom she got married to two years later, but at the time, Zakayo cut out the bedsheet fabric with the patch of her virginal blood – turns out the 18-year-old molester hadn’t penetrated her hymen four years earlier – and kept it in his wallet (which he creepily showed her years later, in 2016, when they randomly met in town, right outside the 20th Century building on Mama Ngina Street).

I was 19 and he was 22 when we got married.”

“To Zakayo?”

“No, to the boy I was two-timing the Tanzanian with.  I had known him from high school. His mother was in London. He insisted that she had said we get married and so we did. He was my first love, plus I was already living with him. One morning, we went to the AG’s Office. I was in 2nd year at the time. I didn’t wear white, but I was in a dress. It was a sexy floral dress, the type you wear to the beach, when you don’t want to be in a bikini. He was in a suit, a shiny black one that, in later years, made me think he looked like the under-age undertaker director of a small-time funeral home. Now that I think of it, it is hilarious. My parents were there, so were his sisters. When we left the AG’s, we went home to a small celebration. Then to an after party in Sohos.

One day, about two years into their marriage, she got back home from a week of completing final year exams in school and he was not there. He had disappeared with all of their mattress savings- partly from the upkeep his mother had been sending them, and partly from what she had been earning teaching performance poetry at an international school. He wasn’t replying to calls, and nobody knew where he was. It wasn’t yet the proper social media era where one could put out viral alerts. The man had ghosted her before ghosting was a verb.

She moved back home with her parents.

When her husband disappeared, she immersed herself into a religious period of church going, and exorcisms, and of sisters and brothers-in-Christ and throwing away satanic things she had owned before like body spray and jewelry. But mostly, she was experiencing Revelations, which is to say that she could hear voices, and was seeing things, mostly supernatural beings, some with horns, others with wings, that nobody else could see. Or, in other words, she was hallucinating.

The husband came back a year later, and she ran back into his arms despite everyone else’s discomfiture, and the visions disappeared, but then he left again after six months for South Sudan.

“I will be here for two years, as per my contract,” he texted, not even having told her he was going to be working in South Sudan. “I guess I’ll see you someday.”

They were done!

“He left me in a BIG mess again. I had to quit my job where I was working at the time. I had no friends and I was seeing things again. The voices were really the most agonizing. I could hear conversations people had in their own minds. When it all cooled, I traveled around Tanzania for two months with a loose music band, and I almost settled there.”

“With Zakayo?” I ask.

She laughs at that for a while.

That was years ago. Today, she is in a small, black dress with terrific cleavage, showing off boobage, drinking vodka and occasionally, flirting lightly (to their delight) with the Somali lads passing on the street three floors below us, blowing kisses at them, that kind of thing. She is really a reflexive seductress.  As the afternoon advances, and the mood gets lighter and sensual (because of the alcohol and because the daylight is slowly fading), she reads from a copy of her new poetry book collection, which she brought for me to review:

/Those like her are spoken of in low tones; Yet dialed-upon days before the vows;

                                              Or just for girl-talk/

Then,

/…Taking in her bedroom lessons; Her waterfalls, her scents

…contributing to more bedroom joys; The wetness, the light, the heat

Paradise, in solo or couple’s beds/

 Necessary Sue became Necessary Sue when she started hosting the Erotica Open Mic events and later (not too long after), the sex parties. Sue is the name she performs under, which also forms part of the title of the poem she has just read: Necessary Sue.

The sex parties didn’t start as sex parties. Initially, they were just Erotica Open Mic Events for erotic poetry, art, music, dance, fashion or anything anyone could think of in that line, really. That was in 2018. They picked up faster than she had imagined. They were always full, and people would pay whatever amount they were charging, often in the Shs. 2,500 range. People not only came there to be entertained, but also to express themselves, and be scandalized.

At the time, she was also working as a sex guide, in collaboration with a sex therapist we’ll call Matthew, whom she had met while organizing a Stag party for a friend.

“Matt called me and asked whether I wanted to earn some money. The task was simple- I was going to orgasm in front of women. I worked with him for many years. It was easy- all I had to do was open my legs and show women how to orgasm. In the 2010s, getting women to orgasm was suddenly all the rage.”

Kachabali is the only import that Uganda has given to Kenya,” our host interjects, dryly.

“We had sessions for individuals, couples and groups,” Necessary Sue goes on. “Sometimes we would perform for solo women, sometimes married women with their husbands, but most often, it would be a group of women. We were invited for bridal showers, to Chamas, to women’s nights out and to bachelorette and hen parties. It was a golden period. Sometimes, though, Matt would organize his own events. We taught the women how to achieve orgasm, but other times, we also showed them sex positions. I remember being five months pregnant, and performing before a bunch of women. Also, live sex is not as scary as you might think. Once you get into it, you forget where you are, and you come back only after climaxing. But humans are complicated – they will pay to see you orgasm, then they’ll judge you for it. Performing for couples is the most sensitive. I have had a lot of women trying to fight me, even in the course of doing a performance they asked for.”

The first sex party was almost accidental. She had held one of the erotica events in Malindi, hosted by a German friend in his villa. At the after-party, which was intended to be a bikini party, people got free and a lot of things happened, “openly and delightfully” as she puts it, with a naughty smile.  After that, she started having the open mics and the sex parties on a monthly basis.

I can remember 2019 well, with all the posters and WhatsApp notices of sex parties going down, mostly in Kilimani, and it hits me I have finally met their Fairy God Mother – Necessary Sue

“2019 was crazy,” she says, taking a sip of her drink, her eyes shining with the memory of that year. “The first party we held in Nairobi in 2019 was wild. There were over fifty people in the 3-bedroom apartment we had hired in Kilimani. I remember we collected so many condoms, bras and underwear the morning after. After that, they grew popular amongst certain circles in Nairobi. The parties were generally open to anyone. I charged 5K per person admission for BDSM and the open-ended ones cost 10K. Later, I separated the parties because I got requests to have some of them apart. So, every month, the BDSM would start, then ‘Ladies Only’ the weekend that followed, then Swingers’ parties, then open-ended (orgy) would close the month. I would still perform in these parties. I remember performing in one of them, and two of my sisters (one had brought the boyfriend) watching in the audience. My brother was in-charge of the door and taking pictures of my performance. There are no rules in my parties, the only rule is that you don’t come in with the phones. My brother collects them all at the door.”

“Your let your siblings came to your sex parties?” I ask, and the moment the words come out, I realise too late how judgmental I sounded.

Sue shrugs, her shoulders doing the “so what’s the big deal?” thing.

“We are open minded,” she says.

Sex parties, she says, are about ‘vibing’ and being open to trying new things. Not everyone who gets in gets laid. Some chicken out, others just want to watch like voyeurs, and there are others who get no request to participate. It depends on the vibe you give.

Her strangest experience is of people falling in love during these parties, something which even her, hardened as she is, has been a victim of.

At some point during the interview, her phone rings, and she excuses herself to pick it but does not leave. It’s her seven-year-old daughter whom she named after a luxurious, Italian car brand.

Mama, remember tomorrow something something Esther will something something?” the little voice asks from the other end of the phone.

Suddenly, her voice and face transform from the carelessly merry tone to a soft, gentler almost child-like manner. A transformation that not only perplexes me but also leaves me feeling like an imposter, like a ghost – hollow and insubstantial, hovering between the world of the two phone-and-soul connected beings – the merry and jaded, and the innocent on the other end to whom she is just ‘mama.’

Later, she will tell me about a 50-year-old corporate woman she once lived with when she was 28, who told her how she had struggled with trying to get a child in her late thirties after her career was on the up-and-up, and who without knowing, ignited a crazy baby fever in her.

“Before the fifty-year old corporate mathe, whom I left for being way too possessive over me and my time, making me report my movements like those peeps told to report to the police station thrice every week, I was with a very sweet young man whom one day when we were on holiday in Malindi, I walk in on being snogged by a mzungu in the same holiday apartments. I dumped him.”

After the corporate woman, and now on the cusp of thirty, she describes how she, whilst living with a biker boyfriend who at the time had just survived a near-fatal accident (on his way to see some other woman) decided to have a baby.

Since her biker boyfriend was not-as-regular in performance in that department after his near-death accident, she ‘asked’ their neighbor (Necessary Sue code for ‘seduced the helpless jirani’)- a pretty, mixed race half-Belgian half-Kenyan man- to father her child, and he “agreed.”  After a six-month affair, she finally got pregnant. However, a few months into the pregnancy, her biker fiancé (who had assumed the baby was his) was arrested together with some part of his family for a huge hacking scheme in the USA (you might have heard of the story). How the gender of the baby was initially misidentified, and how she had a whole baby shower with boy stuff; and how, finally (but with a lot of pain and poop), she gave birth to her girl, seven years ago

But what about the sex parties of 2019?

“The last one happened on the Saturday of March 14th, 2020, because of Covid-19. I had fifty bookings, but overnight, almost everyone canceled. Only five people came. During the long Covid-19 period that followed, Necessary Sue finally put her poetry collection together. Then recently published it. In fact, it was what she’d come over to talk about at first.

She has a poem she really likes by a guy she calls a real ‘literary gangster’ that she reads to us.

“Last night I dreamt I was at the party/ where I was conceived.

Mother had Dad straddled/ on a hippie chair made of cloth.

It was a Saturday/It was August/ It was 1984.

I walked in on them, on me, through the burnished door.

Mom shyly looked over her shoulder/ attempted to cover her breasts.

Dad yelled: Don’t interrupt us, boy, when you’re about to be born …”

 

 

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96 Comments
  1. Zakayo could make a fitting serial killer. All he needs to do is either become a lawyer, or learn how to live the life of a lawyer. Dahmer won’t be remembered!
    A good read Gloriah. You had me at doggy style and now I want to have someone in that position. Maybe before I turn 25 I will. Maybe before 28th October. Or maybe I will keep writing at https://markalphy.wordpress.com/ but not about doggy style.!

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  2. Nice. Get on an old train and come to Coast. But before that know about the region on www.coastbusiness.co.ke. Upate uhondo wa pwani!

  3. Now I have to go back right to the beginning and read again coz I kept getting lost. Concentration, why do you evade me so?

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  4. Everytime Gloriah writes i feel like am watching a Netflix movie which have to introduce the Gay/Lesbian agenda. Kindly Biko don’t leave us in the hands of Gloriah again

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      1. Only a content creator understands what these negative messages do to someone’s progress. Those who only consume content have the fastest fingers for telling someone off. Gloria will win big one day, and they will be all over bragging how they supported her journey.

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  5. Please Biko Please. This writing scene usually has a depth that Eddy almost reached, but one that Gloriah is tbh, is struggling to scratch the surface.
    I also second another commentary that felt she always sneaks in LGBT “like’ hints. Maybe it’s just me, but previously the stories told were relevant to all readers.
    My humble opinion.

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  6. Brave of y’all to tell Steve who he can let write in here. Do you suppose that you care for his blog more than him? Do you have his vision? Do you think Gloria posted this without his consent? Honestly guys imagine it’s absolutely okay to not like everything but si you just move along until you find what works for you. We may not relate with all stories but they are real stories belonging to real people regardless.

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  7. Necessary Sue has lived the fantasy of many people hahhahaha…. Must be liberating to be such a free spirited soul. Great read Biko but now my mind is in the gutters , are her parties back ? Asking for a friend of a friend of a friend…….

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  8. No, please,just read comments wanting Eddy back, I hardly could read Eddy. I often got lost, maybe it was his style. But Gloriah, she has something, she clearly is writing for a different kind of audience and age group.

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  9. I believe it would be better to just keep quiet whenever one feels that a story wasn’t that good.
    Biko don’t be letting us know who did a story. that way people wont read stories with a “…lets see if todays writer will do a good story” kind of attittude.

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  10. Creative writing at its best.I think not all stories are for everyone, skip if this is not your cup of tea. Gloriah has touched on a messy subject that yall ignore ,instead of saying..ohhh Eddy back with your invisible matawi to our Wise Chocolate Man.Think of it this way. These are the what the millennials are doing now, this story is relevant to our time .Be informed so as to advice your teens and peers on safe sex and changes in sexual behaviors,to be open minded is not a sin. Know that its risky to be isolated with a strange man when no one is watching.Be mentally present and aware that what she writes has an in depth look at how our culture is changing ,dont just type Gloriah with a H is pushing an agenda or whatever,People are out here living fake lives with gender identity crisis .Depression is at its peak now due to lack of information,understanding and empathy .Be open minded ,learn on the fly.You have done well Biko.I love the in between banter ,Keep up Gloriah, Demagogues thrive in dim light.

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    1. Yap!! Gloriah is writing for an age group that most of Biko’s readers have past. Jakshon..I see what you are doing there, you have learnt well watching relays……
      Please read Gloriah’s writing and then ask yourself this question… is my 17 yr old thinking, doing or experiencing this?

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  11. I wish I could find my parents doing it- doggy style, but I’m out of my parents house, maybe I can fulfill this wish by letting my kids have it( not intentional though)

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  12. Gloriah is an amazing writer who I would love to meet one day
    Always looking forward to when it’s your turn to write!!! More than I look forward to bikos tbh

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    1. Are you this Gloriah’s fake account? You would have to be blind not to see the agenda in her writing. You can’t call these “real people stories”, unless they all know her, and she’s their spokesperson. Back to the agenda.

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  13. I prefer Gloriah’s writing to Eddy’s, I used to get lost somewhere in Eddy’s stories, so everyone has their preference. This story is shocking, tumefika hapa, I thought these things only happened in the West, Necessary Sue has guts.

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  14. Dope Gloria. Love your voice and the diversity you bring to this blog. ‍♂️ here picked you for a reason. I personally find your writing very unique and intriguing. Eager to witness your literary evolution.

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  15. Gloria-H, don’t get drunk over people’s comments. There will be many and most of them won’t be nice. Who needs nice. Not my line of story but I think you write well. You will grow, just make sure the water gets to the roots and you get enough sunshine. All the best and hugs from Accra, Ghana

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  16. There is no topic that is relatable or relevant with all the audience of Biko’s blog. All writers have different topics and writing styles so don’t ask for Eddy and embrace change and accept Gloriah’s too.

    So Gloria, props to you and leave the naysayers. Perfecto

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  17. Good different kind of read and not what i was expecting but i liked the story. It’s a good change up from Biko.

    Keeep it up!
    Barikiwa

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  18. Sound paid by the west to further the agenda for the group that has grabbed all the alphabets. Biko this girl is not fit for the blog.

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    1. You do know the LGBTQIA agenda existed in Africa way before colonization, I mean the Merus had a male spiritual leader who cross dressed and lay with other men. Just one example

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      1. LUI, don’t us tradition to justify the LGBTQ-etc agenda. Which Merus are you talking about? Do not assume monpoly of the Meru traditions on this forum. You are lying, or were lied to.

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        1. ooof….dear President Kingston,
          Who is lying to me? This is a fact that we as Africans’ don’t want to accept. Research on Mugwe, their spiritual leader. Kipsigis people, I don’t know if all Kalengins did this, but allowed women to take other women as their wives, Live under their roof, and any children the wives could have they claimed it as their own, as men do. Actually in Nandi and Tugen it is still practiced. In Uganda, the Baganda head warriors took male partners especially during war. In Kikuyu community, in an instance that only daughters were born, one of them would remain in the homestead, take a wife and any children born will take the family name. In Mali and most of the spiritual leaders crossdressed and danced with the gods.
          You get where I am going with this.
          The community is us. It is only after colonization that we went and embraced christianity claiming that our gods are not the right god. in the process forgot about our culture and what we believed in. Don’t get me wrong, I am a christian. but dig a little deeper.
          Regards,
          Lui

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  19. We will camp here every Tuesday whether its Biko, Eddy, Gloria or Wepukhulu. This is a great read. Critique to a creative write is actually liberating. Lets give Gloria a chance. And lets support her. She has Biko’s stamp of approval.

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  20. Gloriah you’re an amazing writer, your creative acuity and the audacity to publish this story is unmatched.

    Most people raged with fear have seen their dreams die. Take criticism positively and scale your writing career to another level.

    The time is ripe to create your own blog and tell your own stories. You have a top-notch story telling abilities. Unleash your writing Arsenal today and be an indomitable brand.

    Congratulations girl. You write as you see it. Thank you Mr. Chocolate man for giving young souls an opportunity to shine. Asante

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  21. Gloriah you’re an amazing writer, your creative acuity and the audacity to publish this story is unmatched.

    Most people raged with fear have seen their dreams die. Take criticism positively and scale your writing career to another level.

    The time is ripe to create your own blog and tell your own stories. You have a top-notch story telling abilities. Unleash your writing Arsenal today and be an indomitable brand.

    Congratulations girl. You write as you see it. Thank you Mr. Chocolate man for giving young souls an opportunity to shine. Asante

  22. Your comments are actually making me, a person who barely comments, to leave a comment. Some of you clearly skipped the class on what the words you facelessly leave can do to a person.
    If the writing is not your cup of tea, just stop reading and move on with the rest of your day. You don’t have to leave mean comments about it. As to the author’s writing style, writing is a skill that is honed through practice. Instead of reading stories to leave nasty comments about, use that time to go back to the start of the blog and notice the evolution in Biko’s writing. It’s a talent and a skill and skills are honed through practice. Ps, that thing you are good at today, you have not always been as good at it. You have improved over time. Give other people to also become better at what they are already good at.
    I genuinely liked the piece. It was different. It intrigued me. And I like the authors style. Different taste. So, next time remember the rest of us, fortunately don’t benchmark our taste of yours so if it today’s meal does not make you happy come back when they are serving what you like. Don’t try to get the restaurant to shut down for all patrons even those of us who like the menu options today.

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  23. One needs to be critically reflexive to deconstruct the “in between the lines”. Common sense is not common.

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  24. This was an exciting read !

    Ignore the elders Gloriah….. I bet they are reading this multiple times because it was dope.

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  25. i really enjoyed this read i dont know what these prudes are complianing about,Great job Gloriah i enjoy your writting every time you are on here. infact to me Eddy seems like he tries too hard to write like Biko. you have your own unique voice.keep it up girl.

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  26. so Gloria’s agenda is one to piss us off the conservatives and to also drive the LGBTQ whatever subtly and sneakingly.
    Bravo!!
    Disgusting read.

  27. Gloriah, take this as a skin thickening experience, character development if you like. If you hold fast you’ll certainly come out the other side a better, stronger and more focussed writer and indeed human being.

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  28. Is Biko subtly introducing LGBT on his blog….through Gloriah?? Not first time that I am reading this since Gloriah arrived.

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  29. I didn’t even realize i was done reading the story… That’s how good Gloria is. I can equate her story with morning glory, at first you’re not sure you want to do it, then it really flows well and then think about it all day and probably every day after that. Stuffy Kenyans have so much against sex i suspect most are not getting enough

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  30. Gloriah, the fact that people are here criticizing your writing, means that you are doing something great, its amazing that you are being compared, and they even read to the last sentence, c’mon…. you are writing uniquely as you. It was an awesome read, keep at it. Blessings.

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  31. Yaani, everyone in the comment section is fixated on talking about Gloriah with h’s writing. Still, no one is yet to attempt or even explain why Zakayo kept the bedsheet fabric patch with Sue’s virginal blood. The fvck is that sh*t, to be honest?

    Nonetheless, keep doing your thing, Gloriah. I might disagree with your subject, but everyone has a bloody story, and I want to read such stories. Actually, isn’t that the whole point of this blog? Heck, should you and baldy even decide to set up a podcast and narrate some of these stories, I’ll still tune in.

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  32. Sometimes its good to accept criticism and avoid encouraging mediocrity. I’m sure most readers don’t know Gloria as a person so most of the criticisms isn’t personal. If she is wise she will know where to improve, if not she will flow with those who encourage you even when they know you are not in the right track.

    1. So for you this brilliant piece of honest and very well told writing is ‘mediocrity.’ Meg? Lay off the megalomania – and the keg. Let’s be objective – this is a necessary Nairobi/ Kilimani story. Gloria (with an ‘H’) just brought us Sue’s story.
      If it makes you uncomfortable, skip … or sue!

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  33. This got me thinking- i had to relook at my evolution in the sex world, If I was to be sincere and narrate all that I did, OMG! Thanks to necessary Sue and Gloriah for courage to come out. How can we know if it is not told. . This is real, It is happening to many youths, and they are very secretive. This is the new topic for discussion with your Teens . God help us.