Toto Series: That’s Your Problem
Isn’t it funny that no matter what you are going through life is happening? Like you can be in the deepest of shits and someone is pissing the champagne they got drunk on celebrating all over you. Life is always happening.
I sat in the front seat still strapped waiting for Angela to get back. She had left the key in the ignition and left the stereo on so that I won’t be bored but instead the music kept annoying me with each new song. Do people really listen to the garbage this singers spew? And it’s played on radio? Even though I admit that my anger wasn’t entirely because of the music, I reached for the knob to turn it off. Maybe my mind would have some quiet to sieve through its own noise.
“We interrupt regular broadcast…”
the voice of the announcer rough and untidy interrupted the song and my action.
“… Listen to this. Following the fresh wave of the new virus, federal government is pressed to announce with immediate effect the closing down of all schools, public and private. All places of worship and leisure. Interstate travel will also be restricted to only personal on essential duty; our security forces, medical personnel and the media. These measures are necessary to ensure the safety of lives of every Nigerian and government is deeply saddened by any inconvenience this may cause. States are advice to follow the safety guidelines in establishing their containment strategies. God bless the… ”
” hope I didn’t take too long? The queue was something else” Angela burst into the car interrupting the rest of the announcement. She put the takeaway packs and other items in the back seat.
“Are you okay?”
She queried and I nodded. Another lock down? This is the type of material nightmares are made of.
“Are you sure you are okay?”
” Dude, just drive okay! ”
” you don’t have to yell at me. Be a sour puss all you want but that attitude better be fixed by the time we arrive Tim’s place.”
Another lock down? With immediate effect? Did this fuckers ever think anything through before making these pronouncements? Could this country survive another round of lock downs? This was some real bullshit. I needed out of here!
“why da fuck is this happening?” I cursed under my breath.
“You said?”
“Nothing.”
“I heard you say something. Spit it”
“If you heard then why da fuck are you now asking me”?
“I didn’t hear the words and what exactly is wrong with you? Why are you acting like I drowned your cat???”
“I am so not in the mood for this okay… Just drive. Mtcheeew… In fact what did you get for lunch?”
“Are you doing this on purpose? Are you acting mad because it turns me on? If you want some of this… Just say so! She took her hand off the steering wheel to demonstrate her whole body. She knew how to make my frown turn upside down.
“You dey ment. Maifren what did you get for lunch?”
I smiled as I searched the backseat where she dropped the takeaway packs, choosing spaghetti and turkey wings.
Angela and I had shared a total of ten words during our first three years of school. She was a “chirpy-the-day-is-always-sunny-and I’m a pretty yellow flower girl and I kept away from her lot. I was a loner and it served me well.
We actually got to know each other during a school field trip. We had all been paired, two to a room to save cost and we ended up in the same room. I only slept in the room at night to avoid her and her brainless lot. She always had people drawn to her. Like some queen bee. Urgh!
On the day we were to visit the palace of the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, a day before our departure that is, we both woke up by 10am, the bus left since 8:30 am. We then had the grand idea, well actually she had the idea to follow them even though none of us knew the place or knew a word of Yoruba in case we needed directions. The taxi we hired took us to the Ejeye Oka Ere Shrine and left even before we could confirm if the location was correct.
After plenty fails at describing where we needed to be, a good Samaritan offered to take us there. That Samaritan would end up robbing us and leaving us on the side of the road, where we thinking the day couldn’t possibly get worst got drenched by the hardest rain I’ve ever felt. It was like we were being flogged by an unseen old woman for missing the bus.
By this time I was too angry for words. My anger swelled and spilled over my wet cheeks merging with the large strokes pelting my head and back. Angela on the other hand was laughing and talking about looking at the bright side of things.
Even though we had spent the last 3 hours getting fucked, she was all giddy and sunny. That made me even angrier. While we contemplated our next line of action, the bus we missed just happened to pass us. We rode the bus in silence while our lecturer saw it as a teachable moment and went on a tirade of why we should utilize all opportunities or end up miserable like Angela and Edidiong. By the time we reached the hotel I was ready to carve my brains out with a blunt rusty knife. I went up to our room while our lecturer gave Angela orders on whatever. I wasn’t going to stick around longer for the over twenty pairs of eyes judging, pitying and gloating at my predicament. Fuck them all.
I sat at the edge of the bathtub and let my tears fall unhindered. The monies I lost wasn’t even my problem, it’s the fact that I was taken for a fool. Growing in Asaba, you learn quickly that the difference between life and death is gullibility. Person wey fit make you believe am fit kill you. And such an easy con?
Like!
It was all Angela’s fault. I actually got caught up in her optimistic spirit and see where it landed me. The door creak interrupted my hiss. And just like the devil being summoned; Angela was inside the bathroom with me. Naked and muddy with that godforsaken smile on her face.
“Can’t you see the bathroom is occupied? ”
She entered the bathtub with me and turned on the shower head. She squealed as the water cold as ice sprayed us. Her squeal tuned into a giggle and full blown laugher while my body shook in anger. That’s when she kissed me. It was a collusion of her lips against mine. That jolted me out of the bathtub, out of the bathroom and almost out of the hotel room. She followed me dripping wet and laughing.
“Don’t evert try that shit!” I shouted. My voice sounding strangely thinner than usual.
“Why? I saw the way you’ve been looking at me throughout today. Don’t tell me…”
“You’re very mad. Who was looking at you? I no dey play this kain game so if this is a joke you better stop it.”
She walked up to me. Stood until our nose touched then lifted my left hand and placed on her breasts. I jerked at the feel of her skin against my palm. But she held it There. I swallowed hard. What was suddenly stuck in my throat? And why was I panting? What was happening to me??
She moved my palm over her breasts in an up down motion. My eyes fluttered closed. I swallowed. I felt her lips. Soft and moist brush over my lips. I tried to open my eyes, I tried to speak, to push her away but I couldn’t move. It was like I was in a trance, awake to every sensation coursing through my body but unable to move. My lips parted and her tongue gained entrance. She played with my lower lip, allowing her lips and teeth and tongue gain familiarity of my mouth as she pressed harder on my palms.
She left my hands to wonder over the marvel of her anatomy while she touched on mine. Her cold hands sent a shiver down my entire body. She rolled her tongue over mine and tugged on my nipple simultaneously eliciting a deep throaty moan from me. Her tongue was on my neck while her hands were rubbing my breasts showing me places to also touch on her body. It was too much, there was too much happening at once. I pulled back panting like I’d just escaped being mauled by a cheetah.
“I’ve never done this before.”
She gave me a knowing node and led me to the bed.
“Just let go of everything. Follow the flow.”
“You are not hearing me. I said I’ve never been with a woman before. This is so wrong.”
She looked me deep into my eyes before kissing my lips.
“Does this feel wrong?”
She kissed my neck and whispered into my ear.
“Does this feel wrong to you?”
She sucked on my nipple drawing me deep into her mouth before giving me the lightest bite.
“Does this feel wrong.”
She rubbed on the mouth of my vagina lightly before pressing her Index and forefinger into my moist opening. The moan escaped even before I knew there was a buildup. I shut my eyes and swallowed.
“Does this feel wrong to you?”
She asked in the most ethereal voice as her fingers worked me. My body was on fire yet I wanted more. My throat was patched and no matter how much I swallowed I still needed more. My legs couldn’t hold my weight anymore but it didn’t matter because I was floating. I was weightless as her stroking intensified. There I was in a swanky hotel room being pleasured by a woman who was making me feel things I’d never Felt. My orgasm hit me. Fast and hard. I’d never had an orgasm so there was no anticipating It. I felt a jolt like sensation that spread from the back of my head to every single part of my body. It was like I was being fed with electric current low enough to survive and high enough to force screaming from me. She held on to me until the spasms had run its course.
The next day as soon as we arrived campus, I shaved my hair into a mowhawk.
That was seven years ago. We hadn’t been in the same city since after graduation and lost all communications until the first lock down saw us quarantined together in Melbourne. She was running a course that I was facilitating. I’d moved to Sidney to avoid Nigerians and their small mindedness after I’d come out to my mum and she in turn told my dad who arranged for me to be married to his old friend’s son who funny enough was a closet gay. He was willing to go ahead with the union to end months of bullying and threats. I wasn’t. My dad gave me an ultimatum. Be married or disowned. I chose the latter. I left home, Nigeria and everything in it with the intention of never returning until I walked into the lecture hall that faithful winter morning and saw Angela in all her giddiness. She had grown from the girl in Ekiti to a sophisticated woman. She’d been sent by her company which according to her was going to be headed by her in the fall. She had moved up and it showed on her. She’d replaced her jeans with pencil skirts braids with a bob complete with rich hues. Her makeup was subtle and accentuated her high cheekbones and brown eyes.
After the lecture she came to introduce herself. I’d acted like she was just another post graduate foreign student and didn’t allow my gaze linger beyond seconds. I feigned ignorance then surprise then anger. She was all apologies and laughter. She was staying at the Atlantis and wouldn’t mind if we meet up sometime for drinks. I told her it was against school policy to frolic with students.
“Even old friends?”
“First of all there is nothing old about you, and secondly sadly even old friends.”
For the next three months we shared the same space and built up so much tension. We could’ve powered a village for weeks. It was always there; the undercurrent of desire. Being in the same room and acting like strangers took every single strength I could master. I became irritable and curt with my students. My normal mild Gothic brooding turned into full darkened skies. The more angry I got, the more turned on she became, the more she tried to get me the more I acted. A full circle of intense fucking without any of the pleasure.
After a particularly fucked up day, I called her up in the evening and invited her to my place for drinks. As soon she stepped into the room I pounced on her. She was still giddy and mischievous but I was a grown woman who had tore through women in three countries. This time around I was in charge and I wanted to fuck through the tension of the past three months. I wanted to fuck her smile off her face. She’d taught me a few tricks back in uni, I was about to show her new international tricks.
Her lips were still as soft as I remembered. We were both in a rush to familiarize our lips, hands, bodies. Our clothes left a trail from the living room door to the bed. I made her sit on my fingers. Spreading wide, jutting her juiced big butt filling my grateful palms. Her grind was rhythmic. Deep deep.. Round deep… Low curl deep… Deep deep. I followed her tempo moving to her grind. Giving her room to drive us there. Before long, her head fell to the side in the way I knew her eruption was near.
Not so fast.
I stood up lifting her with her butt to my face. I dropped her on the top of my drawers and went in. She tasted soft like hot marshmellows melting in my mouth. Her nails dug into my back sending me deeper. I could feel her thighs squeeze in as the night was rendered by her moans. She cames in gusts.. Her breath and juices erupted staccato like. She smiled at me as I took her to the bed.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
I wore Hercules. All my straps had names. Hercules was my 7 inch pink dildo. I hovered above her, guiding hercules like à taunt arrow.
“I want to have you in the shower. That’s where I got my first taste of your lips, it’s only right I give you a taste of the monster you made there”
She giggled as she caressed the side of my face. She paused as though an unpleasant thought reached out to steal her joy.
“Is that what you think of yourself? A monster?”
“I’d let you be the judge of that. ”
I’ve not been with anyone else. I couldn’t bring myself to be with someone else after you left.”
“After I left? You and I remember what happened differently. It doesn’t even matter now, we are here. We should be fucking not talking.”
“It matters to me. Do you know what you did? How I felt when you left? No word, no explanation, just silence.”
WHAT! How was she spread in my bed in the glow of her cum fresh and poignant and saying I left her? She must have bumped her head on the wall while I gave her head. Maybe instead of cum she’d orgasmed brain matter.
“That’s your problem”
She knew better than to continue any conversation after I’d said those words. She knew that was me checking out.
She reached out with both hands and pinched my nipples, hard ! My groan was a throaty broken AHhhh.. Hh!
I thrust in ferociously. She spread open welcoming my deep assault. I was like a hell hound following a faint scent. She was my gateway yet I was doomed to always remain imprisoned. I thrust deeper burying her betrayal. Enveloping myself in the softness of her insides where the sting of her throwing away my love pure and fierce couldn’t reach.
Watching her in the throes of passion drove me mad with desire. She didn’t hold anything back. She gave and received in equal measure. I flipped her over and she provided the perfect arch.
Ahh… Hhha!
I went in!
I tasted of her offering.
She was flowing with molten necter. She was swollen with pleasure and I sucked and teased and drew sounds of music from her.
When her whimpering grew deeper I thrust into her again..driving her to platforms she’d never been on, taking her through dark alleys of desire she’d never knew existed.
I felt my jerking and knew the inevitable was near. Holding on for dear life I exploded in to tiny fragments of nothingness.
“Still think I’m not a monster?”
she insisted we take a shower but we ended up fucking again. After a dinner of Chinese takeout we were back in my bed. I never allowed any woman sleep in my bed. But here she was all comfortable and shit in my sweatshirt and socks.
“You’re sweet. I don’t know why you think you need to hide behind your clothes and hair and all this..
“Anger? That seems to be your Achilles no?”
The giggle was back.
“I don’t even know how even after all these years you still have a hold on me. Mehn. And the way you fuck? Omo! I almost passed out! That thing you did in the bathroom, I’ve never experienced sensations like that ever. I mean, even if I want to; I can’t claim to have made this monster as you say.”
You were the first woman I was ever with. And it’s not like I wanted to be with a woman before. Sometimes I remember Ekiti and I wonder if we hadn’t gotten lost and duped and drenched, if you hadn’t walked into the bathroom or kissed me, I’d probably be in Ikorodu with two children and a husband stuck in the madness of that city. With no one this wiser. Even if you don’t claim it, you actually made me come to terms with who I am.”
She’d moved into my apartment three days later and a week after that the first quarantine measures where invoked. She was always calling home. The protests in various cities, the warehouse looting she kept tabs on it all. That was also when I knew about Tim. She’d met Tim during our final exams and they’d been together ever since. They were clearly in love. The way she became animated when she talked about him. The way she’d cry silently on nights she spoke to him. That was who she had chosen over me.
She’d introduced me as her best friend and I smiled and waved into the camera when they FaceTimed. As soon as travel restrictions were eased she was on the next available flight back to Nigeria leaving me with a broken heart for the same man again.
Four months ago she faced timed me to show me her ring. Tim had proposed and they were getting married. It was going to be a small wedding with mostly family and a few friends. She wanted me to be her made of honor. I’d cried that night. This woman that had been my first lover, that had made me realize what loving someone totally was, was asking me to come and bear witness as she gave of herself to another man. And somehow I’d agreed? The tears wouldn’t stop flowing. I called the twins and even that couldn’t stop my broken river banks.
It’s been two weeks since I arrived Lagos and the tension between us had already peaked. My consolation was that in two more weeks this will all be over and I’d call up Boirj to exorcise Angela’s memory. That was until the announcement over the radio of another lock down with immediate effect.
****** ****** ***** **** **** **** ****
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Featured Stories
Leah
by eli-smooth, published 3 years, 1 month ago
The ride down the empty hill felt like a deluge. Five people cramped into an old Peugeot 504. The car jolted its way down the rough terrain and with each sharp turn, their eyes narrowed with despair.
The driver was Kelechi, a 22 year old medical student who had joined the fraternity about a month ago. His low hanging beard chiseled into his sharp jaw-line. The scar that was above his eye gave him a menacing look.
“How could this happen?” He wondered as he drove through the rickety slope. His eyes squinted a little as he swerved to avoid a goat that had moved into their path. The sudden swerve forced the engine to quake mildly and shut down.
They all moved out into the open space.
Silence lingered for a while.
“What do we do now?” Simi asked. Her dark skin glistening under the low light of orange setting sun. She was a psychology student. Brilliant but edgy; unwilling to succumb to the wild stereotypes that followed the other women in her life.
“We do nothing; we just bury the body where no one can find it” Sam whispered coldly.
Leah winced and paced the space around them, sobbing gently as she walked from side to side. She seemed the most distraught of the five. She wondered how different the day before had been and wondered if her life would ever be the same.
But it was the fifth person who seemed the most odd.
His tattoos were visible under the sleeveless shirt he had on. A nose piercing marked him out from the rest of them. He barely talked as the others encircled the empty bushes around. He just leaned on the car and peacefully disappeared into his thoughts.
“We were only supposed to scare him” Simi lamented. Her voice seemed to echo a distant regret.
“I keep asking what happened and no one wants to tell me. We were all on the same plan but as soon as I turn to take a leak, I return and find a fucking dead body on the floor. What happened while I was gone?” Kelechi asked. He seemed to be screaming at everyone else.
“Is it that important? Would you rather not have the truth be a little subdued from your conscience now?” Goni, the boy with the tattoos whispered back at Kelechi. His voice was cold, almost haunting.
“I don’t know. I didn’t sign up for this.” Kelechi confessed.
“Oh, so you think we all woke up and planned a murder and you were the only person out of the loop?” Simi asked angrily.
Kelechi looked away. His hands shaking under the weight of his deepest thoughts.
Sam chuckled slyly as he watched Leah’s wandering theatrics. He seemed calmer than he was a few minutes ago.
“The truth is right here. Whatever we say it is” Sam cuts in. The others looked at him. He nodded. They all nod back except for Goni.
“We still haven’t answered the most pertinent question though. Who poisoned the little old chap?” He asked calmly.
“Does it matter, we all know he was a dwindling, two faced monster” Leah said.
She had stopped pacing and sobbing. She seemed calmer and her big round eyes cut into her beautiful face. Sam looked at her in admiration
“We all knew that, but we also knew that the idea was to scare him and not to murder. So who amongst us had the most reasons to murder him?” Goni asked.
They all went quiet. The few seconds left between their breaths built up a reckless angst. Leah stared at each of their faces. She wondered who amongst them fits the murder type best..
Sam was a nerd.
It was odd that the frat boys loved him but underneath his queer humor and deep lingering eyes, there was no reason to suspect that he could be a killer. Leah thought. Simi was mostly indifferent; capable of the mundane but also the awe inspiring moments. Her calculative mind set her apart as the most logical of the group.
Kelechi was by matter of chance, the only one that was unavailable when they witnessed the death.
Goni was the one who seemed the most vulnerable to accusations. He had fought with the dead boy just a few minutes before the boy broke into a fit. He seemed more dangerous than anyone else and he also seemed to be nonchalant about the corpse that lay in the trunk of the car that had just stopped.
- Simi looked at Leah from the corner of her eye. Their eyes meet and for a few seconds, they lingered on in their sanctified space. Simi felt a rush of casual emotions rushing within. She remembered their nights underneath the moon when the boys were away. She remembered every feeling and it made her question her every truth. But she also knew the other truth.
The five of them stood in an arc as the trunk was slowly being opened. The three boys straddle the body and move it towards the empty path that led one into the bushes. The rustling of the leaves just in front of them stopped them in their tracks.
A Park ranger had his gun pointed at them. The boys surrendered and raised their hands. The Ranger looked on in surprise.
“Who killed him?” He asked as he nudged the safety of the gun; turning it off.
The group stood, staring at him in silence.
“Who killed my partner?” The Ranger asked again.
This time his gun was pointed at a visibly distraught Simi.
She was overcome with fear.
“Leah, Leaaah,
She poisoned him because he raped her” Simi confessed.
The boys look back at Leah, stunned.
Leah’s face bore a look of resignation.
“Thanks so much for having my back; Lover” she said in disgust.
They boys all stood stunned. Processing both news that had crept into their ears.
Minutes of Memories
by InspiredLetters, published 3 years, 2 months ago
The first thing you know is that you don't know how to run until you know how to run.
***
"Do you plead guilty?" The Judge asks, his glasses perches on the bottom of his nose.
"Do you -"
Although the ceiling fan whizzes faithfully, the room is still hot. It is still still hot.
You are held behind a dock not just by chains washing your hands and feet but by betrayal spoken in silence. Your hands, those large elements of bloody lust, gasp for the air of freedom, at least.
Anxiety is carefully sketched on the brown faces of the court.
The eyes in the room shining brighter than your future peep into your past.
***
Your anger started the day you met Mama sitting on the verandah; her wrapper had come undone, finger prints, five of them, kissed her cheeks, disheveled hair, and eyes blood red from crying. And Papa walked around like four walls with the paintings of Mama's curse words hanging on them.
"Prostitute!"
"Jobless drunk!"
Whenever they quarrelled, there was a cold war; minutes grew into hours, hours into days, days into weeks...
You know the air in your compound smells of their daily quarrells, yet you do nothing, can do nothing but run away. Away from it. It's now normal that if you see Papa saying I love you to Mama, you wonder if something is wrong, if it's a dream.
You keep on dreaming but the pain from the cuffs whisper reality into your eyes.
***
"Do you plead guilty?"
The atmosphere is now condensed like the hot thick pap Mama does for you and Ike every Saturday morning.
In nanoseconds, you could be kissing Mother Earth goodbye just from one statement of one man. One! One!
You look around, wanting to say the truth. Say it anyway!
But then you keep quiet.
***
That fateful day you were greeted by distant sounds of fighting. You know it's Mama and Papa again!
"Not again," you mumble and walk into the sitting room sluggishly.
Your sight beheld a liquid on the burgundy carpet. No, it was not water, it was blood, that sacred stream of life's mystery, Mama's blood!
"Daddy, stop, please, stop," your younger brother, Ike, screams, kept on screaming. He tugs at you to do something because the overflowing blood scares him. But you do nothing, can do nothing but run away. Away from it.
"Daddy! Daddy!"
The punches come in quick successions. Mama's body lay half-dead, half-consYou'vehalf-consYou'vehalf-consYou'vehalf-consYou've
The punches come in quick successions. Mama's body lay half-dead, half-consYou'vehalf-consYou've on the floor decorated with blood.
on the floor decorated with blood. on the floor decorated with blood.
"Daddy-"
The blood melts into thin air, into your eyes, forming a dark cloud, maybe an envelope on the canopy of your eyelids.
You can no longer take it.
So, you grab Papa by the neckcollar of his shirt but he pushes you away. Once, twice, thrice.
Your anger gets the better part of you when you forget the scissors in your hand in his neck.
Blood gushing out, Papa dies within minutes. The same minutes with which everything falls apart.
Papa is dead. Dead!
***
You know you should run. But you also know that you don't know how to run until you know how to run. Instead your feet glues to the roof of the earth and your tongue embraces silence.
Your mother's eyes, though dull with darkness, will you to run away. Still, you don't run, you don't want to run. You don't want to run but still run. Still, run!
Don't run again. The police are waiting out of your house.
"Who called them?" you kept asking.
***
Now.
You pose, one knee up, one knee down, before a congregation of rifles about to blow your dream off. An eye closed, you remember minutes of memories that you never can forget. Memories such as your younger brother calling the police against you, in fear. Memories such as the night you mixed rat poison in Mama's drinking water instead of Papa's.
You tiptoe through life into the bars of death. You are now your own fate. Can you run away from it?
#TheRun
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