Honey & Spice

Bolu Babalola takes the metaphor of butterflies in the stomach as a standard cliché of romantic attraction and elaborates this to create a humorous motif. The butterflies represent Kiki’s vulnerability; she is trying hard to remain tough and impenetrable to Wastemen—men who manipulate or use women, waste their time, aren’t sincere about or reciprocating emotion—but the butterflies indicate that she isn’t impervious to Malakai’s attractiveness. When he picks her up to take her to The Sweetest Ting for the first time, she worries that she wore a cropped top: “What if the butterflies flew too close to the edge of my stomach, so he could see the imprints of their wings pressed up against my skin?” (128). When Malakai looks at her lips over dinner, “a butterfly flipped inside” (150). When she feels the butterflies after Malakai stops a girl flirting with him at the RomCon by saying he’s attached, Kiki tells herself, “It’s probably a gastronomical issue” (240), showing that she isn’t yet ready to admit the attraction, much less follow through on what it means. In this way the butterflies come to represent her not-yet-evolved attitude about relationships and love.