Dobi
"She delivers fresh linens twice a week. Collects the dirty ones. Takes hours every visit. The sheets always need washing again by the time she leaves. She knows exactly why."
Mama Akinyi does the laundry for our neighborhood.
Twenty houses in the gated community. She comes twice a week—Tuesday and Friday—collecting dirty linens, delivering fresh ones. Professional. Efficient. Essential.
I'm home alone most days.
My wife works long hours.
Mama Akinyi noticed.
She's fifty years old.
Widowed young, raised five children on the money she makes from washing rich people's sheets. She's thick from years of hauling baskets—strong arms, powerful legs, a body built for work.
A body I've learned serves other purposes.
The first time was an accident.
I was showering when she arrived—hadn't heard her knock. She let herself in with her key, walked to the bedroom, found me naked and dripping.
"Oh!" She didn't look away. "Sorry, Bwana. I didn't know you were home."
"It's fine. I'll just—"
"Don't rush." Her eyes traveled over me. "I can wait. I have all morning."
She waited.
Watching.
I dressed slowly.
We both knew something had shifted.
The second time wasn't an accident.
"Your sheets," she said, standing in my bedroom doorway. "They need changing."
"I changed them yesterday."
"They need changing again." She moved toward the bed. "Or they will. Soon."
"Mama Akinyi—"
"Sshhh." She started unbuttoning her dress. "Your wife doesn't come home until seven. I don't have other deliveries until three. We have hours."
"This is—"
"Convenient." She dropped the dress. "For both of us."
Her body was built by labor.
Strong where soft women are weak. Thick where slim women disappear. She climbed onto my bed with the efficiency of someone who's learned to work fast—but she didn't work fast this time.
"I've seen your wife's underwear," she said. "The nice kind. The kind women wear when they still try."
"She tries—"
"She doesn't." Mama Akinyi straddled me. "I've been doing laundry for twenty years. I know what effort looks like. She stopped trying months ago."
"How do you—"
"Laundry tells stories." She sank onto me. "And I'm about to start a new chapter."
The sheets needed washing when she finished.
I was exhausted—three rounds, two hours, more positions than I'd tried in my marriage. She dressed calmly, efficiently.
"I'll take these." She stripped the bed, added the sheets to her basket. "Bring them back Friday."
"And then—"
"And then we'll dirty them again." She kissed my cheek. "See you Friday, Bwana."
Tuesday and Friday became my favorite days.
Mama Akinyi arrived at ten. She didn't leave until two. Four hours of her thick body, her experienced hands, her mouth that knew every trick.
"How many sheets do you wash?" I asked one day.
"Too many to count."
"How many beds do you... visit?"
"Less than you think." She was riding me, her heavy breasts bouncing. "I'm picky. Not every man is worth the extra work."
"What made me worth it?"
"You looked lonely." She clenched around me. "Lonely men are hungry. Hungry men try harder."
My wife noticed something.
"The sheets smell different," she said one night. "Cleaner somehow."
"Mama Akinyi uses good detergent."
"We should give her a raise."
I agreed.
Not for the detergent.
Mama Akinyi started bringing assistants.
"This is my sister, Atieno," she said one Tuesday. "She's learning the business."
Atieno was forty-seven, almost as thick, with curious eyes.
"Learning the laundry business?"
"All of it." Mama Akinyi smiled. "Today's lesson: how to properly service a client."
They serviced me together.
Sisters, sharing me like a training exercise. Mama Akinyi directing, Atieno following, both of them riding me until I had nothing left.
"She learns fast," Mama Akinyi said afterward.
"She has a good teacher."
"I've been doing this for twenty years." She started gathering sheets. "I know how to train women in every aspect of the job."
"How many women have you trained?"
"In laundry? Dozens." She winked. "In this? Just family."
The family business expanded.
Atieno took over Tuesday deliveries. Mama Akinyi kept Fridays. Sometimes they came together. Sometimes they brought a third—a niece, a daughter, another relative "learning the trade."
"Your sheets need a lot of attention," Mama Akinyi observed.
"I have demanding needs."
"Demanding needs require multiple service providers." She spread herself across my bed. "Lucky for you, I have a large family."
My wife asked about the laundry bill.
"It's gotten expensive."
"Quality service costs money."
"Mama Akinyi is charging more?"
"She's providing more." I shrugged. "Extended services. Premium care."
"What kind of premium care?"
"The kind that keeps the linens... thoroughly clean."
Years pass.
Mama Akinyi is sixty now. Still strong. Still coming every Friday. Her daughters and nieces handle most of the work, but she insists on keeping my account.
"You were my first," she tells me.
"First what?"
"First client I serviced personally." She climbs onto me, her body familiar as my own sheets. "First man who appreciated more than clean laundry."
"I appreciate everything."
"I know." She starts moving. "That's why I'm never giving up this route. Let the young ones handle everyone else. You're mine."
The sheets always need washing.
Twice a week, every week, for ten years. My wife thinks it's allergies—too much dust, too much sweat. She doesn't question the extra laundry. She doesn't question anything.
Mama Akinyi and I have an understanding.
She delivers fresh linens.
I deliver fresh enthusiasm.
And the sheets keep circulating—dirty, clean, dirty, clean—an endless cycle that neither of us wants to end.
"Same time Tuesday?" she asks at the door.
"Same time Tuesday."
"Good." She hefts her basket of dirty sheets—our sheets, evidence of our hours together. "I'll have these back by then. Nice and clean. Ready to get dirty again."
They always are.
They always will be.
That's the beauty of the laundry business.
It's a cycle.
An endless, satisfying cycle.