LOVE AND SEX IN THE CITY (Episode 52)

The thirty-first day of December at the Fit Plus Human Resources was a beehive of activity. The atmosphere was taut with concentration when the day started as papers were shuffled and lists were made and filed, while photocopiers and fax machines whirred softly in the background. This year’s final work hours were more hectic than what this office was used to. Previously, all we had to do was the transacting of the company’s upfront payments, which the staff was entitled to in the second week of the following month. Processing these figures for the Finance department was enough hard work; tack on to that the business of ironing out the recruitment process needed to outfit a new factory getting commissioned in February next year, and the restive pace that characterized this final day of 2013 only seemed to graduate as the day stretched.

By 1.30pm, hunger had begun to gnaw at my intestines with a ferocity that denied the appeasement I’d earlier given my body when I gobbled a quick snack of doughnut and Coke. And I was struggling to manufacture enough saliva to keep moistened my buccal cavity and the back of my throat, the latter which had been afflicted with a perpetual dryness by the Harmattan.

I glanced at my watch, and felt a frisson of panic, before grabbing my phone and rising from the phalanx of open files and documents spread out before me. I made for the door.

“Ah-ah, Declan!” Yetunde’s voice caught me on my flight out of the office. “Where are you going? You’re supposed to let me have that shortlist like five minutes ago.”

“I’m coming, I’ll get it to you soon,” I growled, still moving toward the door.

“But where are you going nau?” she whined.

“I have a budding headache” – I reached upward to press my fingers against my temple – “I just want to go and take my medication.”

“But there’s the water dispenser here –”

“Yetunde, I said I’m coming,” I turned to flash at her.

The woman tightened her lips and looked her disapproval at me. The rest of the office remained studiously unconcerned by our altercation. Nerves were fraying from all the work and no one wanted to add to the stress by getting involved in other people’s disputes.

I stalked out of the office, walked a short distance down the hallway and dialed Biola’s number.

“Yes, yes, I haven’t forgotten,” he drawled the moment he picked the call.

I smiled into the phone. “Okay, I was just checking.”

“It’s a special night for you. So of course, I’m at your service.”

“Well, I’m glad someone is doing something for me,” I heaved as I worked my left thumb and forefinger over my eyelids. “This day has me running ragged. It doesn’t feel at all like it’s announcing a glorious new year.”

“My neighbours, who are right now preparing to travel to Ikotun to camp out at TB Joshua’s Synagogue, would beg to differ. They have been singing praises most of today about how the God of TB Joshua will usher in a year of constant blessings and upward mobility for them. Merely listening to them should make you feel good about 2014.”

I chuckled. “It’s hardly traveling when you’re going from Ajao Estate to Ikotun.”

“Honey, I’m watching these people right now packing into their vehicle baggage fir for an expedition up Mount Everest.”

I bit back on the laughter that sprung to my mouth. I was supposed to be having a headache. “Well, make sure you tell them to say a prayer for you. After TB Joshua could deliver a whole Jim Iyke, I’m convinced the man can do all things through Christ in him.”

“Including getting me a husband?”

“I said through Christ in him, not the rainbow unicorn in him.”

Biola tsk-tsked as we shared a quick laugh.

“I have to get back now. Thanks again for doing this.”

“Anytime, dear. Let it not be said that I’m not the gay version of Mother Theresa. Everything is all set. Oh, and a Happy New Year in advance to you. In case I’m too caught up with my own debauchery to say it to you on time tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry,” I said chuckling, “even if you wake up from all the drinking and sex on the fifth day of January, Happy New Year greetings would still be acceptable then.”

“I’m not a hoe please. The sex and partying shall be in moderation this crossover.”

“Angel Gabriel would still count it against you.”

“I don’t think he’ll notice. Too many Nigerians praying this night should keep him very busy.”

We disconnected from the call amidst some more laughter. Then I placed another call. It rang out twice with no response. Realizing that he might also be busy with work, I navigated my way across the phone screen to my Blackberry Messenger. The LED light of the phone was blinking rapidly, indicating the presence of untended notifications; my phone had been away from my attention span all day. I sought out a chat window and clicked it open. There was a message waiting from him since 9.25am: I may not answer your calls, in case you’re thinking of calling. But just ping me any updates and I’ll know what’s up.

I quickly typed a response: We’re still on. I should be done by 4.

I was returning to my office when the quick vibration of my phone alerted me to the receipt of a new notification. I clicked it open. It was his reply. Okay, I’ll meet you there. I should be done by 3.

I felt excitement suddenly course through me like I was plugged into the mains. I felt like my brain was on fast-forward and there was no off switch, as I envisioned the day stretching out to a brand new year.

The door before me swung open just then and Yetunde stepped out in time to catch the smile on my face. Her brow furrowed as her gaze dropped to the phone upraised before my face.

“Yes, they tell me that the panadol you get digitally from your phone works wonders with headaches.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

Laughter bubbled up from me as I returned, “I know, right? It’s amazing how fast e-panadol works. We should recommend it to the Production department for next year’s roster.”

“Abeg shift joor,” she groused while shouldering her way past me. “Yeye pikin!” she tossed over her shoulder as my laugh trailed after her.

I walked back into the office, feeling better than I felt when I left it minutes ago. Suddenly, my good feeling about the day had been resurrected. Nothing that felt this right could possibly go wrong. It just couldn’t.

***

It just did!

It was 5.30am and the self satisfaction that kept my spirits up in the afternoon was all but currently nonexistent. I looked up from my phone and swept an anxious gaze around at the light traffic of vehicles and pedestrians tiding this way and that. After a blisteringly hot day, the sun was finally beginning to wane. The relief from the hot moistureless air was palpable as the chill of Harmattan began to set in. and it was easier to appreciate the weather without the incessant and overwhelming din of a regular heavy Lagos traffic. With the commencement of the Christmas season, a hefty amount of Lagosians had fled the city to their hometowns for the holidays. Those left behind could now actually get around to their destinations in the period of time that God had always intended.

“Oga, I don almost finish,” the harried voice of the taxi driver cut into my preoccupation. “Just small time now, we go move.”

I stared with irritation down at him as he worked the last nut out of the wheel of his car. Then he grabbed the flattened tyre and tugged it out of the hub. He let it drop to the ground before hefting the spare tyre toward the position the previous one had just vacated. Then he set to work fixing in the nuts.

I heaved my umpteenth sigh of frustration, and looked at my phone. There were no bars. I scrolled to my call list and hit SEND against the last dialed number anyway. I got the CALL FAILED beep for my trouble. I let out another sigh and swore at my service provider. Of all days to develop a network problem, it had to be now?! My frustration went up another notch; I wanted to shout, to have a tantrum and beat my hands on the ground like a toddler.

Instead I sighed again and moved a few listless steps away from the tasked cab driver.

Work had gone on longer than I’d bargained for. Closing time was supposed to be by 4, an hour earlier than what was regular. But there’d been so much to do that it didn’t quite come as a surprise when by 3.30pm, Estelle sent out a e-memo, informing the entire department that we’d have to close by 5. The news had been met with a few groans and hasty glances at timepieces as staffers mentally calculated how this delay would affect their respective evenings. I raced to my phone and quickly typed out a message: No longer closing by 4, it’s now 5. Just letting you know.

It was an exhausted and yet reinvigorated throng of people that spilled out of the HR offices at the close of work and headed for the elevators. Phones were retrieved from bags and purses as some of us endeavoured to reconnect with the world outside Fit Plus. Angela’s outburst in the elevator whisking us to the ground floor was all the foreboding I needed.

“Oh my God, what is all this now!” she wailed as she stared at her phone screen. “No network on my phone! Just see how the devil is using MTN to do me papa-yeye!”

There was a chorus of laughter as I checked my own phone. Yep, no network! Shit!

“And my husband is waiting for me at Iyana Ipaja,” Angela continued, grief stricken, “for us to go to Winners for crossover service. How do I connect with him now? Ekwensu, it will not be better for you! You cannot stand in the way of my blessings in Jesus name –”

“Can someone not using MTN help this woman out before she turns into a prayer warrior?” Deji snapped irritably.

Halima chuckled as she stretched out her hand with her phone in it. “Angie, oya take and call your husband.”

“Can I just make one quick phone call first?” I said, snatching the phone from Halima before Angela’s grasping hand could gain purchase of it.

“The thunder that will fire you is waiting outside this elevator!” Angela shrilled. “Biko nye’m that phone before Amadioha will strike you dead right now.” She threw herself at me and began grappling for the device in my grip.

“And it’s this same mouth you want to take to Winners to ask God to bless you in 2014, eh?” I said sneeringly as I relinquished the phone to her.

There was a smattering of responsive laughter from our colleagues as the elevator stopped and the doors dinged open.

I was instantly on the move. With no patience left for bus transport, I waved a cab to a stop, gave the driver Biola’s address and hopped inside. The taxi vroomed off from the curb, only to grind to a stop several minutes later when the rear tyre on the left side flattened.

“Oga, I don finish o!” the driver enthused.

I sighed yet again, this time with relief, and returned to the vehicle. As the driver stowed away his equipment into the back of the car. Amidst another flurry of apologies, he got behind the wheel, turned the ignition and we were off.

***

This evening just keeps getting better and better, I thought wrathfully as I scrabbled my fingers along the top ledge of Biola’s porch window. When I found nothing there, I moved from the porch to the side of the house. I searched the top ledges of the windows on that side and found nothing. There was also no such luck with the back window.

Biola, for heavenssakes, what is this now! I fumed silently as I checked out my phone. No network still! My God, what kind of temptation is this!

Feeling close to tears, I hastened back to the porch. I lifted the threshold foot-mat. There was nothing under there. Taking deep breaths to stem the tide of vexation threatening to overwhelm me, I started for the security hut erected against the wall by the side of the gate. The gateman, a squat-framed man with ebony skin, emerged from it as I drew close.

“Oga abeg,” I began, “which network you dey use?”

He squinted at me, his expression showing a lack of comprehension.

“Your phone” – I mimed with my fingers against my ear – “which network you dey use for your phone?”

His face brightened with understanding. “Oh, na Etisalat I dey use.”

“Abeg you get credit for your phone? I just wan call that my friend wey dey live here.”

“Okay, no problem.” He went back into the hut and reemerged with a plain-faced Nokia phone. He handed it over and my thumb raced across the keypad, jabbing at the digits I knew from memory.

“Hello Akin, wetin happen?” Biola called out against a backdrop of noisy chatter. Clearly, his own party was underway.

“It’s not Akin and nothing happened,” I said tightly, “but something will happen if you can’t provide me with your key right this moment.”

“Oh Dee.” He paused to give a short laugh. “I’m so sorry. I forgot to drop the key at the top of my window, but then I remembered I still had it when I got to the entrance of my street. So instead of driving back, I gave it to that madam that sells provisions down my street. I told her one of my friends would be coming around to ask for it.”

My heart, which had started sinking to the pit of my stomach at the start of his response, was suddenly buoyed back up with a surge of relief. “Oh Biola…” I choked out.

“Sorry, darling. I did try your number to let you know of the change in location. But it wouldn’t go through.”

“Come next year, my first assignment is to register another sim from another network.”

“You should. You’ve got to be the only Nigerian currently who still owns one sim and relies on one network provider.”

“Well, new year, new me.”

“And the journey starts tonight, huh?” I could envision the lascivious grin accompanying those words. I laughed as I said, “Biola, I have to go abeg. I can’t coman be doing tatafo with you on Akin’s credit.”

It was a quick trek down the street to the provision store that stood as an outward extension of the house at the beginning of the avenue. The proprietress, a pendulous woman with a cheerful disposition, waddled out to meet me. I thanked her as the key went from her hand to mine, and I started back the way I came.

I was inside the house, turning on the lights and wondering if I should take a quick bath now, when a knock sounded on the front door. My pulse quickened as I discarded the thought I’d had a second ago and raced to the door. I pulled it open and felt my heart stop momentarily when I beheld the man standing on the threshold.

“Hi,’ he said, his mouth lifting in a slow smile, causing his bottom red lip to curve attractively beneath the duskier upper lip.

“Hi, you’re late,” I said, feeling a burst of sunshine inside me, an extension of his smile.

“I know,” he said as he stepped in. I moved back only a few inches, letting his invasion of my personal space be. As a result, his male scents, both originally his and accumulated from his day, filled my olfactory senses. It was such a heady sensation. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t even reach you to let you know that I’d be running late. And I tried, believe me.”

“It’s no matter,” I said in a low tone. “You’re here now.”

He stared down at me with a sudden intensity that made my sense spin. “Yes,” he husked. “I am.” And he pulled me close to him and leaned forward to claim my lips.

***

Night had descended softly, filling the house with shadows. An earlier glimpse of the wall clock revealed that it was a few minutes past 11pm. In the darkness, the glow from the two electronic candles that formed the centerpiece on the table illuminated the immediate area.

Kizito and I had just finished chowing down a delectable dinner of pasta with stir fry mix and chicken sauces, which Biola had been kind enough o prepare per my instruction. We sat on the carpeted floor of the parlour, a tangle of limbs, staring at each other, while a symphony of sounds of a Lagos Harmattan night drifted in through the open windows. The candle flames played sensuously across the walls as the clean, cool air wafted across the room and caressed our faces.

Mutual desire drew us closer to each other, my hand reaching for his face and his pulling at my waist. Our lips met as we enveloped each other in an embrace. His mouth covered my lips, and we kissed deeply, hungrily. His hands moved restlessly over my body, shaping it to his and sending stimulating signals through my bones. I quivered with the sweetest intensity of belonging to him, shaken by the rough insistence of his exploring hands.

Kizito and I had been dating for roughly two months, and this was going to be the first time we would be making love; this new certainty brought its magic to our embrace. It twined around us, binding us with growing passion and surrendering us to its demands.

We removed our clothing, both of us eagerly aiding the other. When his erection sprang free from his boxers, I gasped. I’d never seen it before now, and had only felt imprints of it during the impassioned smooches we stole in the men’s room at work. The dick was big and beautiful, 8 inches in length and 6 inches in girth, the endowment of a Greek god.

And yet, I felt a frisson of fear as the piston strained furiously in my direction. A fleeting image of Paschal’s vandalization of my asshole skipped through my mind.

Kizito was quick in noticing my apprehension. “What’s wrong?”

“That,” I said, reaching toward his angry hard-on. “That is kind of scary.”

“What?” He chuckled. “It’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“You know, every gay man fantasizes about a big dick,” I said. “It’s like the ultimate metaphor. But the reality is a little scary.”

“What are you scared of?” He was looking at me with that familiar intensity that sent tingles down to my toe digits.

“I don’t want it to hurt me,” I said.

“Well, you don’t have to do anything with it that you don’t want to do.”

“But I want to do everything with it,” I said with a small laugh.

His lips crooked upward in a smile as he drawled, “Well then, you’re just going to have to face your fears tonight.”

“I think I am,” I concurred.

We began kissing again. Kizito’s mouth opened and our tongues dueled with each other. He slipped around until he had me on top of him, and then he put his hands behind me, on each of my butt cheeks and spread my ass open. I moaned as I breathed into his hot mouth, as I pulled at his tongue with my lips. I raised myself up higher on his body to sit on the top side of his dick. I let him rub the length of it between my ass cheeks, moaning with desperation for his invasion.

The heat quickly picked up after he sheathed himself and lubed me up, and was now moving his cock head into the puckered kiss of my asshole. I was still lying astraddle him, and I rose up to ease onto his dick. When his mushroom head popped through my ring, a sharp pain shot through me. I froze with a grimace, staying his movement by placing my hands on his chest. He paused and murmured his commiseration as I rode the pain. When it ceased, I bore down on him again, and slid neatly down the length of his hard shaft. His cock was soon completely engulfed by my body. It utterly filled me up.

And then began the dance that was old as time.

He flipped us around, so that I was beneath him, and leaned forward to hold me close to his body as he thrust at my ass. The fit was very tight, and the feeling was incredible. Then he straightened up and held my legs up while he pistoned away at my derriere. I pushed back hard against his dick, meeting each thrust with a gasp of pleasure. When he reached around my leg to grasp my dick, working his hand over it as he continued thrusting, I instantly felt the cum churning in my balls.

His grunts began to increase in tempo, and my panting turned to the groaning of the names of every divinity that was responsible for this intense pleasure.

“Oh God, yes, fuck!” I gasped. “I’m coming! Oh sweet Lord Jesus, I’m coming!”

“Yes, baby, give it to me, baby,” Kizito breathed.

His hand worked faster over my dick. The peaking sensation I felt percolated and exploded, causing my dick to shoot forth high hot strings of white cum. I howled as ripples of shocking heat crashed all through me.

When my orgasm receded, I could now feel my ass being punished, but I concentrated on my boyfriend’s pleasure as a way of warding off the increased pain of Kizito’s thrusts. His cock was still rock-hard and it filled me. I moved my hips to complement his back-and-forth motions, moaning his name and encouraging him to give it to me harder. And he did, ramming his dick furiously into me. I tightened my ass each time he pulled out, and relaxed as he pushed in.

Soon, his thrusts gained an urgency that culminated into a harsh expletive uttered as he dropped down on me, spasming as he shot his load into the sheathed space within me.

“Oh my God,” he growled against my neck. “That was…”

“Fantastic,” I said simply.

“Absolutely,” he breathed, as he lifted his head to look into my face. “That was the bomb.”

Just then, the nightly quietude that had reigned for awhile was shattered by an explosion of pyrotechnic sounds. Firecrackers clapped ferociously, some hissed upward through the air, peaked and exploded into an avalanche of lights.

It was an evident celebration of the New Year.

“Happy New Year, Kizito,” I murmured.

He smiled slowly into my eyes. “Happy New Year, Declan.”

“I just made a new year resolution.”

“What is it?”

“To never ever let anything come between us.”

“That’s not a resolution, it’s a promise.”

“Well then, a promise. Nothing can ever come between us this year,” I said with feeling.

“I couldn’t agree more,” he replied, his smile widening as he pulled me in for another kiss.

Written by Pink Panther