Loli Sanders

It was since yesterday that Thomas had given Tanatswa the directions to his house, directions that barely passed as sufficient information to guide anyone unfamiliar with the neighbourhood. Fortunately for him, he was graced with a good sense of direction and place. Trotting past the suburban houses that had intermittent moments of activity, Tanatswa seriously wondered whether or not he would have to knock on every single gate to find out where Thomas lived. Wishing to not draw any attention to himself, he decided to chance it on the first two tries. The first house he interacted with was a state of the art household with an electric garage, durawall with matching custom made bricks that went hand in hand with the tiles and mansion like establishment that lay inside the confines of its barricaded fort. Twitching his eyes and churning his brain, he couldn’t help but think, “I guess his family is really well off?” As far he was concerned, this was probably too good to be true. Tanatswa went through the process of ringing the intercom and having to wait to be finally met by a plump young man, barefooted and wearing a summer T-shirt and a track bottom. Seeing the complexion and overall demeanour of the man who stood before him, everything about the guy didn’t register with what he expected from a Thomas family member. The man at the gate then asked, “Who are you here to see?” Gulping down some saliva, he then answered, “I am here to see Thomas Sanders.” The young plump man immediately darted his head out, like a peacock and then pointed at the neighbouring house. The house was just adjacent to where the plump man stayed. At that moment, Tanatswa felt relieved that his friend wasn’t posted at this mammoth of household. The thought of there being a huge difference in social standing between himself and Thomas was something he didn’t really want to dabble into. Moving on, and not committing to memory the face of the guy who had just directed him to the right home, he trotted away until he reached the designated checkpoint. It was an upstairs, quite a large house but not as polished as the one before. The durawall wall had cracks and crevices, the kind that reflected a lack of concern for exterior household maintenance. The paint peeled off, sparsely at certain sections. The grass wasn’t as well maintained and some sections of the large house weren’t entirely finished. The colour choice of the house’s exterior paint seemed to range from pink to peach, a colour choice that baffled his mind. As he had thought to himself, this seemed more fitting, for a household where Thomas would live. Closing in on the gate, he proceeded to knock as he glanced through the key hole to see whether or not they owned any dogs. Upon realising that no howling of hounds accompanied the cacophony of his knuckles bashing the rusty gate, he felt an inflated sense of ease. Tanatswa waited for about 3minutes, wondering whether or not he had come at a good time. As he began to contemplate a departure from his goal, vicarious sounds of movement began to stir up beyond the gate before him. The sound of a sliding door echoed beyond his boundary and soon he could hear the steps of someone coming over to meet him. Tanatswa braced himself and prepared to reiterate the standard, “I am here to meet Thomas” statement. Then just as he had set his mind on the calculated response, an effeminate voice answered, “Who is it?” Tanatswa began to think to himself, “Is this Thomas’s maid or sister?” With him considering the possibilities, there was a slight delay in his much expected response. Tanatswa then went on to say, “I am here to see Thomas” The girl ended up telling him, “He hasn’t come back from his university..., but... if you like, you can wait for him inside. I think he will be back in the next 30 or so minutes.” As she delivered the disappointing news, Tanatswa noticed that there was a nuanced whimsical giddiness in her voice after her pause as she suggested for him to wait for Thomas inside. He peeked through the keyhole, trying to get a look at the person behind the voice and noticed the lower half of their body. It was a petite short girl, wearing white shorts that revealed stunning shaved legs, bare feet and a bit of her shirt that covered her upper body. The immediate conclusion that sufficed his imagination was that the girl was probably Thomas’ sister. Not wanting to familiarise with his friend’s family just yet, he dismissed the offer to stay and wait for the elusive Thomas and decided to leave. He couldn’t help but notice a slight sound of disappointment in her tone of voice, but didn’t think much of it. He ended up telling her, “Tell him Tanatswa came by, I will see him, maybe, tomorrow, I guess around 17:00.” Tanatswa then abruptly departed from the estate, which in comparison to the neighbouring house seemed like a sloppy second, but was sadly way better than his own home as far as the exterior and in addition, its upstairs. His obsession with the outward appearance of homes wasn’t out of some stark appreciation in the cynicism of architecture, but rather a habit of gauging the social standing and possible behaviour of those he would deal with from said assessed homes. It was rather, strange, to a certain extent that he couldn’t help the urge to have a conception about how people would be like based on the forts that protected their privacy. He was sure to come tomorrow, later into the day to meet his friend, but what Tanatswa didn’t anticipate was the possibility of the brief encounter with the petite girl behind the gate amounting to something that would change his life. Peeking through the gate and disappointed by the now walking away Tanatswa, the petite figure who had darted at him from the top window without him noticing was none other than Dionne Sanders, Thomas’ sister. She was curious about the tall slim built guy who just happened to be dressed in stylish denim blue jeans, brown loafers, and a grey white tart shirt which was accompanied with well combed shaggy hair. After hearing that he just happened to be looking for her brother and considering that he wasn’t bad looking at all; not exactly a Brad Pitt or Chris Hemsworth, but having the height despite lacking the brawn, her day was at least spiced up. For some peculiar reason, she also intended to have him around so that she could later tease Thomas about possibly having an interest in his friend. She was tiny in every sense of the word: she had almond eyes, a small face, A cup breasts, large lips, proportionally wide hips that matched her frame without seeming like flesh that had been forcibly wedged onto an animate object, and small feet. She flicked her braids, gasping and then commenting as she slowly produced a smug on her face, “Well, I guess I will see him next time.” With the added addition of her dark eyeliner, mostly covering her eyelids, her smile at that moment seemed rather sinister. She walked away, entering her house and continued on with what she had been doing. As she cleaned up her room, she began to think to herself, “Thomas actually has a friend? This must be a miracle.” She broke into a sardonic laughter and then somehow bit her lip in over excitement. A trickling load of blood poured out of her bloody lip as she grasped her mouth, trying to cover and stop any of the blood from dropping onto her carpet. Dionne then trotted to the bathroom, opening the faucet immediately and painting her sink red with blood. Regardless of how much force would go into a lip being bitten, the probability of blood actually pouring was rare. As she washed away the blood and glanced at the mirror, she opened her mouth, looked at her own wound and realised something strange or at least something that would defy normal conventions of thought. Her bit lip was quickly clotting and repairing itself. Apart from this oddity, Dionne noticed that one of her k-9 teeth had become sharp and elongated like fangs of that of a wild animal. The extended fang slowly began to retract, finally resembling a normal k-9 tooth. Dionne heard one of her younger brothers walking in the household corridor, slowly approaching the bathroom door and shouted, “I am bathing, don’t come in.” The remark had quickly dissuaded any attempt of entry and left her to her own devices. The pain was all gone and the tooth had now become normal, but a part of her mind was worried about how careless she had been. She was still getting used to her fangs, but didn’t want to have to deal with the pain of a bit lip, even if she could regenerate. As she grimaced out of sheer annoyance, due to having laughed at the possibility of her brother having a friend who even looked decent, to the detriment of her biting herself, she then scoffed it off by saying, “I guess even he can make friends. I... need to be more careful with my teeth from now on. ” She then smiled at the thought of having to see Thomas the following day, that is, if he were even coming at all tomorrow. She then proceeded to wipe away all evidence of any of her blood from the sink and carried on with her day as if nothing out of the ordinary had actually happened.