One Night Stand

When we met at the bar last night, slurred speech and double vision had set in and it wouldn't have mattered to me if she had said she was a Zanu PF supporter - I still would have gone home with her. The glued-on red claws wrapped around her bottle of Hunters, the hideous drawn-on eyebrows and lopsided wig didn't matter to me.

As we sped down Samora Machel hurdling over red robots, she began the investigative questions that women like to disguise as small talk:

"So wont we wake up your sleeping children, arriving this late? Won't you get into trouble if the scent of a woman's perfume lingers in your car?"

I was tipsy, not stupid. So I gave the right responses.

"Your perfume on my car seat would only be a sweet reminder of you baby."

The next morning, I woke up to find only the brown stains of her face powder on the white pillowcase next to mine. I went from room to room searching for her. The bathroom door was shut. I opened my mouth to call out but that's when it occurred to me that I didn't know her name.
I pressed my ear to the door. I heard no movement, no splash of water. I tried the handle and shouldered the door open. I took one step forward and froze. The floor was like a scene from Dexter: Streaks of blood crisscrossed the white walls, like a hyperactive child with red paint and a swinging paintbrush had been there. On the white floor tiles, two large boot prints  began in a half clotted scarlet lake, and walked in the direction of the door, where they vanished into the black porcelain hallway. A smashed aftershave bottle and broken towel rail suggested a struggle had occurred.

I rushed back to the bedroom, temples throbbing, mouth dry and a heavy drumbeat in my chest. I snatched my phone from the bedside table where it was half buried under a scattering of torn condom packets and lubrication gel. The emergency number on my cellphone rang unanswered. I gave up after over a dozen rings. I dialled ZRP operations – 024748836 – a number saved in my phone, on a day when I was less reckless.
A salad voiced woman spoke derisively into my ear:

"You have insufficient credit to make this call".

I suddenly remembered the airtime vendor at the corner. I grabbed my car keys from the condom-strewn table and flew out the front door like the house was on fire. In the unpaved driveway I froze, transfixed by the last sign of the bad decision I had made the night before:
Her wig, in the dirt, looked like a small black cat that had been rolled on the ground by an unfriendly dog intending to test the theory of nine feline lives. It didn't look good.

My pen is capped