The KGB Boy

You take a deep breath, trying to calm your racing heart and slow the rush of adrenaline in your veins. When you have achieved a sufficient level of calm, you walk to the sofa where you tossed your bag, open the bag and take out the clean blue-and-white checked short-sleeved shirt you’d put into it only hours ago. Stripping off the yellow shirt you had on, which was stained with red in so many different places, you put on the fresh shirt. You stuff the ruined shirt into your bag, and walk toward the door of the apartment.

Then you hear the first groan. It is a call coming from a primal place, a place where only two things exist – pain or pleasure. You disregard the groan and continue to the door. When your hand is on the knob, just about to turn it, you hear the groan again. Deeper. More primal. More painful.

You turn. You look at the carnage all around you, the five bodies lying on the floor, the smashed furniture and the blood. Mostly the blood. You watch one of the bodies attempt to crawl and fail. Every movement clearly brings agony to him. Again, he groans. A call for mercy? For help?

You chuckle and turn back to the door, open it and walk out of the apartment, firmly shutting and locking the door behind you.

You walk down the stairs quickly, exiting the yard with the same cool grace with which you entered it. Just outside the gate, you remember the fiery glare of the sun. So, you stop and you reach into your bag for your sunshades and Bluetooth headset. Shades on, you walk all the way down the street, your body already moving in tandem with the rhythm of Nicki Minaj’s Coco Chanel. You get to the main road where you’ll get a taxi or keke to take you home. You make no effort to hide your effeminacy: the limp wrist of your right hand swaying in the air as you walk, your legs crisscrossing as though the road is your catwalk, your hips swaying with every movement.

At the bus-stop, you find an empty keke.

“Trans-Ekulu, Phase 2,” you tell the driver as you step into the shade of the vehicle and take your seat. When he answers with the cut-throat price of 800 naira, you roll your eyes under your sunshades and tell him to move. As he starts the keke, you take out your phone, your new Camon 11, and you text Davey.

I’m good. Be there in about 20. Hope you’re alone.

You settle back, take off your sunshades and switch the song to Alan Walker’s Routine. Settling into the music, you feel the breeze on your face and, for the first time since it happened, you smile.

When you feel your phone vibrate in your hand, you turn your attention to it to read Davey’s text.

I’m alone. Come quick. There’s cake and shii. And you’d better have a good story to tell.

Laughing out loud at your best friend’s bare-faced impatience, you allow the mirth wash away every other feeling. Everything else you’ve bottled up inside you. Everything you had unleashed only minutes ago. With a smile on your lips, the wind on your face and beautiful music in your ears, you allow your mind to run over the events that led up to today.

***

His timeline was uninteresting, bland. Nothing to capture the interest of a potential Facebook friend. It was his bio that hinted at a bit of intelligence, hidden underneath all of the machismo that pervaded his wall. That, and his profile picture – that sizzling hot picture of his – were what got your attention and kept it. Add that to the 74 mutual friends you had with him on the social media site, all of them gay, and you were completely convinced he’d be quite the catch. You sent him a friend request and a few minutes later, you got the notification that he’d accepted it. The next few days were spent with you two playing the game – liking each other’s status updates, pictures and comments. No attempt was made to take the next logical step: slide into the DM.

Until the day he put up the picture of himself on his story. The shirtless pic.

And, for the first time, you caught a glimpse of what his body really was like underneath the clothes he always took pictures in. He was ripped and toned and had just the right amount of muscle to perfectly complement that angular jaw of his. The best part of it, for you, was the fact that his wasn’t the bodybuilder-ish kind of body you found repulsive. It was a body perfectly sculpted for the face and the frame that carried it.

For the first time in forever, you decided to take the first step. You slid into his DM. One comment on that story was all it took. Just one word. “HOT!”

And he responded. From preliminary questions where you were both feeling each other out, you quickly got comfortable enough to start asking really personal questions and talking about personal stuff. He was smart, smart enough to catch your attention and keep it. You were a flighty person, only alighting on people who managed to retain your attention with how they think and what they say. And he was good, you had to give him that. He kept you grounded. Long enough for you to start developing feelings. Not feelings of love. No. They were feelings of lust. Insanely lustful feelings that had you daydreaming about what sex with him would feel like.

It didn’t take too long before the “Hey man” and “Hey bro” you used to start your conversations with turned into “Hey dear”. The first time you used it, he didn’t react. Your conversations just continued along that platonic level. And you began to wonder whether something was wrong. Wrong with you. Or wrong about you. Or wrong about the whole situation. Surely, you couldn’t have pegged him wrong. And then, your misgivings faded away into nothing when he replied your “Hey dear” one hot afternoon with a “Sweetie, what’s up?” Your heart leapt within you and you began to chat with him again with the vigour and gusto that had been missing in your chats of the previous weeks.

You could feel his eagerness to meet you over the phone when he first issued you an invite to come to his place. Unfortunately, as much as you wanted to go, you had a prior plan with Davey, who wouldn’t hear anything about you cancelling on him last minute. Not even for dick. Davey always was the bitch, wanting to have his way at every point in time. And so, even though you didn’t want to, you had to cancel on him. And, much to your admiration, he didn’t blow up about it. He was the perfect gentleman.

He still didn’t get upset with your inability to make the second hookup he planned for you both at his place, this time due to the emergency call Mother made to you, asking you to drive to her office and take her all the way to Ituku-Ozalla to see a relative who had just been admitted into UNTH. You admired his restraint, knowing that if you’d been in his shoes, you’d probably have stopped at two invites.

But he didn’t. He asked to meet again. And again, you had to cancel. This time, because of the idiotic programme your father had insisted you attend with him that Saturday.

When he asked the fourth time, you suggested he come to your place. After all, New Layout wasn’t that far away from Independence Layout, where you stayed.

He declined. He insisted that any hookup between you two had to happen in his place. That was when the first red flags went off in your head. But, you reasoned, he couldn’t be planning anything sinister. He was an established engineer, working with Akiota, and he lived in his own flat. Alone. Only jobless riffraff had time to plot antigay victimization of gay guys.

Still, you couldn’t quite shake the feeling that there was something wrong somewhere. So, you decided to do a thorough background check on him. You asked your small circle of friends, none of who could come up with anything concrete about him save the information they gleaned from his Facebook account. Satisfied that all seemed well, yet still unable to shake that niggling doubt that things were not all that they seemed, you agreed to go over to his place. You made sure you cleared your schedule with everyone important of everything that could pose a distraction that day. And all seemed fine.

But it turned out to be not-so fine. You left home that afternoon, walking down the short road that led to where you’d get a keke. Next thing you knew, you’d slipped on some dratted piece of wet nylon on the road. Your fall was embarrassing enough without what happened next. Your shorts split end to end, from your crotch to your waistband, exposing your underwear to the glare of the two pedestrians who rushed over to help you.

You hurried back home, thanking your lucky stars that you hadn’t gone too far before the accident happened. At your house, you met another headache. You’d come out with your keys to the gate, which you’d used to lock the gate behind you as you left. But you forgot the keys to the main entrance doors, which you kept indoors in a separate bunch with your room keys. It was easy to forget that you didn’t have the keys with you as you left because the main doors were the classic jam-lock. To make matters worse, some unfortunate fool had taken the spare keys away from the underneath the hefty vase on the porch.

You gathered what was left of your wits and decided to call Davey. At least, you both wore the same size of clothes. Maybe you could get him to come to your house with a pair of shorts for you. And for the first in the seven years you’d known your friend, his phone was switched off.

You gave up. You heaved an exasperated sigh and slumped down on the stairs to wait for someone – anyone – to come home and unlock the doors, hoping you wouldn’t have to wait for long. When it became obvious an hour later that no one was coming home anytime soon, you decided to start calling every one member of your family. And for some bloody reason, none of them was picking your calls.

Finally feeling defeated, you called Emeka. And in as few words as possible, you told him it wasn’t going to work out that evening. And again, uncannily, he calmly received the news.

When Mother finally drove into the house by a few minutes to 6 PM, you’d reached the end of your patience. You barely restrained your annoyance as you told her about getting stranded outside your own house because some unfortunate idiot moved the spare keys from their usual place. When she looked askance at you, as if to ask whether you’d finally lost your mind, you barreled on, leaving her no space to talk. Until she reminded you that YOU were the one who, only two days ago, moved the spare keys from underneath the vase to underneath the spare gas cylinder that always sat on the kitchen veranda.

When you got indoors, you considered everything that had happened. Every single one of them, seemingly unconnected, yet together powerful enough to prevent you from meeting with Emeka that day. And when Davey called to ask why you turned your phone off all afternoon, you started in shock. You emphatically told him that it was his phone that was turned off, not yours, and that you’d tried to reach him countless times and failed. You both considered the entire set of issues together and decided that whatever was preventing you from meeting Emeka probably had your best interest at heart.

But your heart was not in the decision. You still wanted to meet him.

And so, when he invited you to his place the fifth time and everything seemed to be working out well, you rejoiced inside, thinking you’d finally broken the jinx. You took your time, planned yourself well and arranged all you needed days before the meet. Extra shirt, check. Lube, check. Condoms, double check. The day dawned, bright and beautiful, and by a few minutes to 1 PM, you were on your way to his house.

When you got to the bus-stop he told you to stop at, you called him. And a few minutes later, there he was. Looking like a tall drink of chocolate sundae. When he hugged you, you inhaled the heady scent of his body smells. You were turned on.

You both walked down the road to the inner street where he stayed, chatting all the way. He was obviously quite popular in his street as he greeted quite a number of people before you both got to his house.

Then those misgivings, which had been missing all day, suddenly blasted right back into your heart. Because, right at the gate of his house, were four guys smoking what, from the smell, had to be weed. They all greeted each other jovially, like they’d been friends for long. You tried to push that tension away from your mind, but you already knew what was going to happen. Steeling yourself against the tension you felt, you recalled your lessons.

Never let your fear control you. Control your fear.

You both walked up the stairs to his flat where he proceeded to treat you like an honoured guest. When he asked what you wanted to drink, you asked for a glass of water. You both kept up with the small talk for a few minutes. Then he kissed you. And you knew the game was about to start.

You responded with as much gusto as you could muster, determined to enjoy what was happening, determined to keep the foreboding at bay. Then he broke the kiss and disengaged from you, asking you to take off your shirt. You smiled and began to unbutton the shirt. When you were close to the last button, he kissed you again and for a moment, you felt you may have been wrong about it all. Then he broke the kiss again and you saw that he had his phone in his hand. You barely had time to process that when the door was thrown open and in trooped the four guys you met downstairs smoking.

And you watched, with more disappointment than any other emotion, as Emeka got up from the couch he’d been sitting on with you and joined them.

You were down to just your last button, underneath which your unmarked fair skin could clearly be seen. They began to rant about how you had come to fuck your father. You listened to their rantings, a thin smile on your face. While they still ranted, you surreptitiously slipped your hand into your shorts where your Nokia Torch was, and you typed “*** DC” and sent it to Davey. He would definitely understand. You didn’t need to check your phone to be sure you’d sent it to him. You knew you’d sent the right thing and that you’d sent it to him.

Your legs still crossed, you took up the glass of water next to you. You were about to drink from it when one of them made the first mistake of the day. He slapped you. Hard. Twice. Talking about how frail you looked and how he would break you to pieces if you didn’t obey their every instruction.

That was when you knew it was time to give the fools what they deserved.

Even while Emeka intervened, telling them how you were the son of a rich man – the classic ajebutter pikin – who wouldn’t give them any trouble but would simply be in haste to do their bidding, you made your plans.

Cupping your cheek with one hand, you knelt down like they asked, staring up at them. Assessing. Judging. Making decisions. All five of them were muscular in different ways, so you knew that straight-up combat wouldn’t work. Not with what strength you had. The mistake people always made was to disregard you in terms of physical strength because you were skinny, effeminate and looked like you could be blown away by the wind. You knew you could take them on. Because you had on your side two things that they didn’t. Speed and skill. And an inordinate amount of stubbornness. Oh, and you had strength too. Just not as much as them.

When one of them sat on the sofa opposite where you were kneeling, with his phone in his hand, and Emeka went to lock the door to ensure no one would walk in on what they were up to, and the slimmest one amongst them stepped behind you to forcefully strip you of your clothes so they could properly beat you in front of the camera that the one with the phone was now holding up, you decided it was time for you to act.

The guy who slapped you was right in front of you, less than two steps away. He slapped you again. Hard. And almost immediately, you jabbed at him, with full speed, from the floor. Right in his balls. And heavens, the sound he made. Squealing like a dying rat, he bent forward just as you stretched both hands and caught hold of his belt to pull him forward. His bent head became your battering ram to smash the breath out of the one behind you. And you remained, safely cocooned between both of them. Until the third idiot decided to kick you from the side. Like you hadn’t seen that coming. Like you hadn’t planned it even. His leg hit your side, alright, but you caught hold of it. And you pulled at it. Hard. Tugging at his leg, you left your shelter. Forcing his stocky body out of its comfort zone and nearly extending him into a full split. And effectively knocking all three of them to the floor, all piled together.

The fourth idiot sprang up from his seat, putting down his phone to rush at you. But you jumped over the three bodies, bending and picking up your glass of water in a fluid move. Before he could duck, you had thrown the water in his face. And then you jumped. With the glass held high above your head, you brought it down on his head with the full force of both your weight and your jump. The glass broke but didn’t cut you. It cut his scalp. Badly. He shrieked from the pain. Without pausing to assess the level of the damage you’d done, you released a quick yet heavy punch directly to his ear.

Forget all that nonsense about the eyes being the centre of coordination, Coach had once told you. It’s the ears. Get the ears and you can knock a full-grown man out.

You watched him go down as he lost his coordination. Then you heard the sound. Something coming right at your head with force and at full speed. Immediately knowing it was Emeka, you bent forward quickly. You felt the whoosh of the wind miss you by inches and you instinctively rolled forward and stood up to face Emeka, who had a stool in his hands. Just behind him, Leg Split and Slim Muscle were getting up. Smashed Balls was still down, clutching at his destroyed crotch and wailing plaintively.

As Emeka rushed at you, you jumped to the side and before any of them could react, you’d pulled the 40-inch LCD TV from its stand near the wall and smashed it right against the back of Emeka’s head. He went down with a choked cry. And you were left with Leg Split and Slim Muscle. You felt more than knew that Slim Muscle would be the fastest amongst them, so your best chance was to use Leg Split against him. Still hefting the smashed remains of the television, you glared at both of them, your breath coming in short heavy pants. Who goes first, you thought.

Fortunately, they both did. Coming at you from both sides, their plan obviously being to trap you between them, giving you no space to take pick them off one after the other. You smiled, because you’d expected them to do that. You feinted. Acting like you were about to toss the television at Slim Muscle. And you nearly burst out laughing when he took the bait and quickly jumped to his right. Right onto a large shard of the broken glass. The glass pierced his foot and, screaming, he stumbled and fell forward, just as Leg Split came at you. Ducking under his left hook, you heaved yourself back up and swung the television viciously to connect with Leg Split’s head, before following up with a jab at just above his left buttock, directly into a major pressure point. You knew the muscles of his leg had seized, but you didn’t want to take the chance of him striking back at you, so you sent another quick jab directly in between his legs.

His right fist, that was coming directly at your midriff, lost its power in mid-air and diverted to his balls. His choked scream, while not as musical as Smashed Balls’, was still glorious in your ears. Speaking of Smashed Balls, you straightened as Leg Split went down, to see him struggling to get up. Immediately, you picked the stool Emeka had intended to hit you with and, taking the few steps to where he was, you brought it down right on his head. First time. Second time. Third time. You heard his skull crack as he went still. You heard a groan and turned to Leg Split, who was on his knees, clutching his balls and gasping for air. Feeling the ice completely take over your heart, you swung the stool at his head, smashing it right across his face. He went down without a sound.

Feeling unsatisfied and with the icy fury throbbing in your heart, you hefted the stool and proceeded to smash the others on the heads, causing more wounds to them and blood to spurt over your shirt and onto the floor. You whacked Emeka’s face the last, repeated blows, until his face was a bruised mess of blood and skin.

You finally stopped. You took a look at yourself. There was no injury on you, but you were splattered with blood. Their blood. Dispassionately, you picked up their phones, and with the ever-handy stool as your weapon, you smashed them to pieces.

Whether any of them survived, you didn’t care. But no one would have an easy time locating and linking you to what had happened in this room.

***

Your heart isn’t racing anymore. All you feel is apathy as the keke gets close to Phase 2. All you are looking forward to is seeing your best friend. As the keke draws close to his house, you tell the driver to stop. You step out, give the man a 1000 naira note, and while he’s searching for your 200 naira change, you place a call to Davey.

He picks and without preamble, you say, “Open the gate, bish.”

You take your change from the keke driver and sashay up to Davey’s gate just as you hear the front door open and your best friend’s heavy footsteps as he runs to open the gate for you.

You step through the open gate wordlessly. Davey stares at you. You both stand there, looking at each other. Then he locks the gate. And, the next second, you are in each other’s arms. Holding onto each other for dear life. Laughing. Tears streaming from both your eyes.

When you finally disengage from each other, he says with a smile, “And so, the KGB boy strikes again.”

Laughing, the two of you squeal together, “Kito Gone Bad!”

And, hand in hand, you walk toward the front door, content in the reality of your shared truth. Of your safety. And of the fact that these fuckers would always never know what hit them.

Written by Mitch