A Boy And The Bouncer

Let me tell you people a short story.

There was a Saturday a couple of months ago, during which I attended a book club meet. This book club is a queer book club, filled with members of our community, with the purpose of providing a space for us to discuss whatever books we read freely and uninhibited, with the perspectives of who we are: queer and proud.

That Saturday, we discussed the book, She Called Me Woman. It was not a subdued discussion. We were steady raising our voices to argue various points regarding bisexuality, gender roles in gay relationships, gay marriage, discrimination over gay sex… I’m telling you, it was a very loudly queer gathering.

And this gathering was at the entertainment section of a hotel. Outside. Under a canopy. That was our venue. We were gathered next to a few other patrons of the hotel. Not that we cared anyway. Our unrestrained conversations dared anyone to come and heckle us.

So when we were finished, we were in the car park, loitering, lingering, different pockets of people wrapping up final conversations, everyone preparing to leave. And I was on my way from collecting the next book of the month to go and fetch my bag and be on my way home –

When I ran into one heftily built man.

He was dressed like a bouncer. All bulging but not-at-all-toned muscles squeezed inside tight black T-shirt and denims.

He wanted to see the book in my hand. I gave it to him. He asked why we were gathered at the hotel earlier. I answered that it was a book club. He asked what kind of book club. And because I’m regularly stocking up on paranoia, I thought for one quick second that he was low-key investigating us, to use something I’d say against me someway somehow. So I replied with a laugh that it was just a book club, you know, where people gather to talk about a book they’ve been assigned to read in the month. It quickly turned out that he didn’t in fact know what a book club meant, and I found myself explaining it all to him. From there, we veered off into a nice conversation about books (he said he can’t read novels. Shocker!) and how books apply to the society. By the time we were introducing each other to the other, establishing that we were both Igbo, our conversation had moved on to Igbo people and our different issues. It was actually a nice conversation, one in which I found myself laughing over his anecdotes.

And then he must’ve noticed me looking beyond him to where my bag was and realized I had someplace else to be but was being too polite to say so, because then he asked me for my number. Because we’d been laughing and talking, it felt natural for me to give him my number. But I hesitated. And I asked him for his card instead. He said he didn’t have any. So OK, could he give me his number instead, he said. I brought out my phone and he called out his digits. As I typed, he said I should buzz him, asking what the last three digits of my number was. I told him. Then I flashed him. And then I excused myself.

A couple of days later, he called. We talked a bit. His end seemed busy, and he confirmed he was occupied when he said he’d call back.

Then the next morning, he called again. There was much longer talk of this and that. And then he said, “We should see each other sometime so we can flex each other.”

Flex each other?

A Boy was unsure how to react to that.

I wanted to ask: “Flex each other how?” But instead I said, “When?”

He said he’d let me know within the week.

OK o! A Boy hung up and just sat there, bearing one thing in mind: that hell would freeze over first before I would go anywhere to see a man who looks like he could easily snap me into two. The fear of muscled men who drop into your life out of nowhere is the beginning of wisdom.

2.

However, the bouncer and I didn’t communicate with each other again for several days. It was a month later that I saw him again.

I’d been on my way going on an errand in Ikeja, when I ran into him.

This was around Underbridge. I was hurrying down along the road when I saw his hulking figure walking down toward me. As we approached each other, he was smiling. I was smiling. I reached out my hand for a handshake, but he pulled me in for a hug instead.

A hug.

Not the “wrap your hands around each other like long-lost friends” hug or the “shoulder-clap, very manly” hug.

No.

He took my face in his hands and as he drew me forward, for one breathless second, I thought he was aiming to kiss me. Instead he “drew my face forward and against his face, side to side” kinda hugged me.

He hugged me like that three times. That first time, second time midway through our “long time no see” greeting and finally as a goodbye.

At this point, a Boy was feeling a-flutter in the pit of his stomach.

I could see some serious fuck in our nearest future.

3

But then, this love story took a turn that mad eme realize that it just might never be a thing after all.

A few more weeks had passed before the bouncer called me again. As we gisted, he said we should really get to meet. Said he would like to come to my place. That I should prepare to flex him o (there was that word again), because he’d be spending the night over.

Now, of course, he hadn’t said anything overtly sexual, but still.

A Boy was excited.

He said I should send my address to him and I said OK. But after I disconnected the call, I got swamped by my day and forgot to text him the address. He called back about 30 minutes later to remind me. This time, after I hung up, a Boy was no longer excited.

A Boy was starting to get paranoid.

The Pink Panther in me was starting to kick in. So I texted him a random address on a street next to mine. I mean, he may be genuine, he may not be. He may simply be a guy looking to shag me at my place because his has no privacy. Or he may break down my doors with SARS looking for the guy they’d been hearing runs Kito Diaries.

Either way, I texted him the wrong address. A week passed and I didn’t hear from him. Maybe he hadn’t gotten time to schedule a visit. Or maybe he had stormed Number 12 Abolaji Street with policemen only to be told that no person fitting my description and name lived there.

We didn’t communicate with each other until a week after he asked for the address. He called me. He said hi. We chitchatted a bit. And then he hit me up for some money. Could I please send him 5 grand?

And I was looking at my phone like: Say what now? Dude, we’re not friends. We’re not even fuck buddies. We’re just two strangers who have met twice and talked on the phone a few more times.

So now I’m thinking, even if he’s gay, then he’s a broke-ass gay. And broke-ass gays who have no qualms asking someone who’s basically a stranger for money, also have no scruples about coming to said stranger’s house to hook up and then rough him up with some extortion.

And this guy has muscles to boot.

A Boy can’t fit to shout abeg. A Boy has jejely deleted the bouncer’s number.

Written by Pink Panther