HOSTEL CONFESSIONS (Chapter Six)

Chapter 6: The Most Junior Senior Boy

Chidera’s and Victor’s situation affected me more than, apparently, it did them. Because after a few weeks, when the whole ruckus had died down, they both looked like they had bounced back to normalcy. Victor especially, because he was this masculine boy from a moneyed background, who had lots of friends, even among those who disgraced him. Chidera had it rougher. He was effeminate, a queen, which made it easier for him to be the target of the occasional taunts. The most aggravating part of this was that one queen’s burden suddenly became something all queens had to endure. The rest of us queens began getting Chidera-ed one way or the other.

I got extra serious with my preparations for my upcoming exams, sparing no time for unnecessary frivolity. I was still a friendly person, but I stopped being overfamiliar with everyone. This resolve eventually paid off, as I aced my JSSCE. My dad was beaming with pride when he came home with the information about my result. I was excited all through the very long JSS3 holiday. However, as the holiday drew to an end, I began getting anxious, because, as an SS1 student, I would be moving to the other campus to become the most junior to the SS2s and SS3s. The period of my reign as a JSS3 was over.

I resumed school and checked in like every other student. The only difference this time was that my dad didn’t stay long with me. Once he was sure I was checked in, he left. It was already evening time, and being new to this particular campus, I had no idea where the hostels were. I roamed for a bit with my luggage before I met Samson, who was in the same house as I was. Samson directed me to where my dormitory was.

The bad news? Because of how small the campus was, every student in each house were all jampacked inside individual single dormitories. Yes. All the SS3s to SS1s in my house were sharing one space!

Are you freaking kidding me? I thought to myself as I got acquainted with my surrounding. I searched everywhere for an empty space to settle, but it seemed every corner was taken. I saw Akinolu, a fellow queen and a friend since JSS2, and I begged to pass the night sharing his bed. I’d noticed that other latecomers like me also had nowhere to sleep and were pairing up with those who’d resumed early. Akinolu agreed to share his bed with me.

I could barely sleep that night, so occupied with thoughts of how I was going to survive this place. I felt like I was in some sort of concentration camp, as I’d never been this disorganised and miserable in my life as a boarder.

Daddy, please come and take me away from here – were the words I wanted to scream in my misery.

The next morning, when I went to take my morning bath, I got another surprise. The bathroom was not anything I was used to from the junior secondary school campus. It was just an open space, no compartments. Just a vast space with a roof. It looked more like a car wash than an actual bathroom. And as if that was not enough, I found out we’d be sharing this “car wash” with another house. I was so thoroughly disappointed and disgusted that I didn’t even take any pleasure from there was an abundance of naked bodies around me. I simply took my bath and fled from there to get ready for class.

I eventually got settled with my own space and everything, but I was still disgusted at how disorganized this campus seemed. Akinolu had to still put up with me because there was no arrangement for extra beds. The whole discomfort left no time for me to think about anything sex-related. Between my academics, the disorganised hostel situation and the wahala of seniors, who had time to think about hooking up.

One morning however, I had gone to take my bath. I’d just fetched my water and was heading to the bathroom, when I spotted the most amazing sight. It was Senior Jonas. He was from the other house we were sharing the bathroom with. He was heading to the same place I was headed for. And he had on the most delicious-looking morning woodie I’d ever seen. His semi erection was poking unapologetically at his boxers and Jonas didn’t seem self-conscious about it. I stood by the entrance of the bathroom and watched as he entered without any care in the world. He stood a few yards from where I was, arranged his bathing things, took off his shorts, and started bathing. For the first time since I resumed SS1, I was aroused by the sight of a naked body in the bathroom. My arousal hit me with a force I didn’t see coming. I had to duck into a corner of the bathroom where no one would notice my evident erection and from where I could still delight in the sight of Jonas’s body, this time from behind. The sight of his body stirred the desires I’d unwittingly suppressed all this time. At that point, I realised I needed to be touched, to be kissed very badly.

However, nothing ever got to happen for me till that term ended.

For the resumption of the second term, I made sure my dad took me back to school very early so I could get my own bunk space. I did and I was really happy about it. I felt like this was a sign for a better term than the last. I was anticipating what this new term had in store for me.

When I joined the boarding house in JSS2, I joined the school’s Drama Club. Being a femme guy, I was always assigned female roles in any drama we did. I actually enjoyed the fact that I could wear female costumes and makeup under the guise of “drama”. And I was good at it, so good in fact that I became something of a Genevieve Nnaji, the most sought-after “actress” in the entire school. I had a good acting track record all through my junior school days. Now in SS1, I joined the Drama Club yet again and had to work my way to the top like before. I made sure I never missed any meetings or rehearsals. Soon, my dedication and preceding reputation paid off, as I landed the role of the lead actress in a church play. I killed it, and a star was born yet again. After the play, while I was in the changing arena, the drama leader came and specially thanked me for my exceptional performance. I became an instant celebrity from that day, as all the boys who watched the play were all telling me how they thought I was an actual girl because of how beautiful I looked in my costume and how convincing I was in my character. This attention made me to put in more effort. I continued to star in many other plays, working my way to becoming the A-list actress I was in junior secondary school.

One day, while I was changing out of my costume after another play, a prefect named Chudi saw me and came my way. Senior Chudi was super attractive in a nerdy kind of way. He had a very cute face and quite the body. With his glasses, he had this whole African Clark Kent thing going for him.

“Are you sure you’re not a girl?” he asked jokingly when he came up to me.

I smiled, feeling too shy all of a sudden to respond.

He lauded my performance and gave me a pat on the back before leaving. I stood there, watching him as he left, and wondering if at all it would be possible to get Chudi to be my superman. After that day, I began investigating him, finding out from my aproko sources that he actually also did boys. I was very excited by this and hoped fervently that the rainbow gods would shine their favour on me. I began to look for opportunities to be in his presence, but I didn’t seem to be able to get his attention. So I gave that up to the fates. Besides, I was starting to have other things to worry about.

Even though I had this celebrity, it had its downsides, as I was often mocked and bullied for the roles I played. At first, I didn’t really let it get to me, but with time, as it got more intense, I knew I had to lay low. I took some time off acting and faced other aspects of my school life, not knowing that something worse was awaiting me.

In SS1, Bode, Busayo and I happened to be sharing a space, but we weren’t as close as we used to be back in junior school. One morning, right after taking my bath, I felt this weird energy around me. I felt deep inside me that something was not right. My gut feeling was confirmed when I got to class to hear noise coming from another class. I went there to find out what was going on. As I drew closer to the mob, I got the absolute shock of my life when I saw Bode in the middle of the uproar, all beaten, crying and frantically apologising. Before I could recover from the shock of seeing my friend looking so brutally manhandled, I felt someone grab a hold of my trouser.

I turned to see that it was Obinna, and he was shouting at me: “Shebi na your friend be that! I sure say una go dey follow am thief!”

As I was about to react to this stupidity, it was as if some parts of the crowd shifted focus from Bode to me. Some guys were already roughly shoving me about, when one of them asked me, “Did you know that Bode stole my Nintendo game?”

I couldn’t believe this. I also couldn’t believe that they were making it seem like, since I was friends with Bode, I must be an accomplice to his thievery. Frantic with mounting dread over my impending victimization, I began insisting that I had no hand in the theft. It didn’t seem like anyone was believing me. My saving grace was when a teacher walked into the class and dissembled the mob. But the scandal stuck around for a while. Because I was friends with Bode, I began getting called thief right along with him. That stigma stuck with me for a while, but I survived it. It however marked the end of my already tenuous friendship with Bode.

But that wouldn’t be the last stain my friendship with Bode would leave on my person. I’d always been too independent and strong-willed to need a school father. Most of my mates had school fathers in SS3, something I didn’t want. Besides, having a school father came with the price of you surrendering your provisions and pocket money whenever he asks. It would also become your obligation to do things for him like washing his clothes and fetching water for him. Some boys even became their school fathers’ lovers. All just to have protection from other seniors.

I wasn’t about that life and no senior bothered with wanting to make me a school son. Which was why I was surprised when Yemi in SS2 suddenly picked an interest in me. He was someone I barely knew, and he was all of a sudden being nice to me. I was wary of his niceness and my suspicion was confirmed when he called me aside one Saturday to tell me how he wanted to be my school father and how he wanted us to be close. He didn’t come outright to say he expected sexual favours in exchange for his protection, but I got that. And if he was my spec, I would have agreed in a heartbeat, but I didn’t fancy him like that and I declined.

And in response, this person who’d been so nice said nastily, “You’ll be doing as if you’re one innocent virgin, when we all know how Bode has been fucking the living hell out of you.”

I stared in shock as he walked away from me. Bode? Fuck me? What sort of nonsense was this?

Written by Pleasure Bunny