WHORE Of BABYLON (Episode 15)

Previously on WHORE OF BABYLON…

*

The questions are pouring in and mounting pressure. They keep twirling in circles inside my head. The answers are scant. Too sparse – and for this, I’m drained. Could it be my life’s choices? Am I really the architect of all that has happened? Or just a victim of society’s prejudice?

Someone has got to take the blame. Anyone. Just any person.

Mandy is a nice fellow, I’ve come to realise. He probably isn’t the one helping me out of this trapezoidal mess I’ve found myself in, but at least he started it. I should keep him.

Iliana has been a blessing. Giving me shelter where no one will. Not even my mother with all the motherly endowments Nature has bestowed upon her.

Sigh.

Ife, Mitch, Francis, Bryan – they are all friends. Right?

No. No, it doesn’t matter that I’ve slept with Bryan or tried to seduce Francis’ boyfriend. It certainly shouldn’t matter that I once loathed Mitch and Ife’s brother is who I want to just die.

Sage.

Four ordinary letters that have made a humongous – negative – impact in my life. I want him killed! I want him fucking dead, with cold unseeing eyes staring into the life, the deeply satisfied life, in my own eyes. I want him killed, slowly but steadily, any whimper of pain he lets out making up for each moment of struggle and hardship I’ve had to go through because of him.

Men are scum.

Isn’t that what Mitch says? Only then, I didn’t pay attention. But they are. Men are scum indeed. From my deadbeat dad of a father to the numerous boys in school who only knew to use and dump, and then the random guys I do now – and then Sage.

And then me.

Scum. That’s what we all are.

I’ll be a murderer. Not just a whore with a fucked-up life, but someone who wants another man dead. I’ll be doing the world a favour, taking out the garbage.

Or will I? Will the world even notice the absence of this particular scum? It certainly won’t stop on its tracks to thank me for doing away with Sage. So who am I kidding? Isn’t this all just for me? Am I not the scummiest of them all for wanting to do what does no one any favours but give me the most savage of pleasure?

I pause. There’s a careening of the thoughts in my head, an unexpected turn from the burning in my heart.

Do I really want him killed? Oh Christ, this is hard. I certainly want Sage to pay. I mean, look what he got me into. I’m only a whore in my house. Now I’m a homeless whore with more to invest on my dependency. It is not a good place to be especially for someone like me who enjoyed the feeling of having a handle on how my life works.

Go home. Think on what it is you truly want. The answers you’ll arrive at may surprise you.

Francis’s words cut into the freight train of thoughts already crowding my mind, mocking my mental bedlam with their precision. I am no closer to getting any answers than I was when I left his office back at the hospital.

Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!!!

I take in a deep breath, attempting to – how had Francis put it? – chill.

“Relax, Ikem,” he’d said in that quiet voice of his. “You only think you want to have Sage killed because of the dozens of emotions whirling about inside of you, none of them good. You don’t want Sage dead. Maybe hurt, but not killed. What you want killed far surpasses some random guy who outed you to a woman who probably already knew so much but was too chicken to stand it when it hit her in the face.”

A mental image of something soggy and messy hitting my mother in the face to dribble down her neck past the picture-perfect expression of horror on her face dredged up a small smile on my face.

“What you want dead and gone,” Francis was still talking, “is something in your life. You know what it is. You just don’t want to face it yet. But in good time, you will. Just take some time and chill.”

At the time, I’d felt so raw and open under Francis’s intrusive words as they cut into me with the precision of a surgeon’s knife. I even entertained a fleeting thought of spitting on him for being so right, so on the mark. But no, that would’ve been too dramatic. Too Sizikora.

I should have just pulled the chair back and walked out.

But I didn’t. Instead I stayed put and listened to him talk some more to me, make suggestions on what I could be doing to help myself, like penning my thoughts down.

“It’s therapeutic,” he had said.

Look at me, taking a break from looking sexy because I want to heal from inside.

Mandy, just look what you’ve led me to do.

Mum, come and see your son. You’d be so proud of how willing I am to grow.

Or would she?

Acting on a spurt of irritation, I run a line on my jotter over the words about my mother. I glare at the cancellation, drawing some consolation from the defiance I imagine I have erected in the face of my mother’s abandonment.

First, my father, now her!

Blinking my eyes furiously to stem the sudden spring of tears in my eyes, I close the jotter with a snap and sit up in the plastic blue chair which I borrowed from Mitch earlier when I wanted to sit outside to answer a call. I stare glumly at the bare black cover of the jotter and make a mental note to get a Hannah Montana diary at any bookshop in Ogbete much later. If I’m going to endure this exercise, I might as well do it with something pretty.

Just then, a call comes in. I look at my phone screen. It’s a private number.

Hian!

I instinctively move to cut the call. I mean, who hides their number to call anyone these days.

People with drama: the answer drops into my head.

However, my thumb moves past the End Call button and depresses the Answer button. Curiosity is fluttering along my nerve endings as I lift the phone to my ear.

“Hello dear,” the caller coos into my ear.

The voice is familiar. Not long-ago familiar, but very-recent familiar.

My mental gears click and I see my answer in that set of teeth that only gods and a regular dentist appointment can give.

It is Mister “I don’t like sling bags” Fine Guy from the hospital reception.

The hoe in me flaps her wings gently.

“Hey boo!” I coo back.

“We didn’t get around to getting to know each other yesterday,” he said, each well modulated word shredding my resolve not to get entangled with men for the mean time.

Imagine me staying off men. Who tells anyone to do that?

Francis does. He is a doctor.

What do doctors know sef?

Tuning off my thoughts, I laugh gaily into the phone. “I was late for a doctor’s appointment. And you – well, you were too busy not liking sling bags.”

Our synced laughter makes the day a whole lot brighter than it is.

Francis should rest biko. I’m so doing this one. Not even doctor’s orders can cock-block me.

“So how about we meet somewhere tonight? Say, my place?” he suggests with doubt edging into his voice.

At least, he is smart enough to know not everyone would be comfortable with simply visiting anybody’s house.

But I’m not everyone.

“Do you have a name?” I suddenly realize he never did give me his name.

“Call me Jide.”

“Jide,” I say the name, as though tasting it for size. “You’re not from these parts, are you? I’m Ikemefuna. But in bed, you can call me Sizikora, or your dick and my ass won’t ever be getting acquainted.”

He laughs, this time alone. I don’t laugh along with him because I’m actually serious. “Ikem” is such a boner-killer for me.

“Do you have a car?”

Oh yes people, I am serious about not trekking.

“Er,” he begins, “I don’t” – maybe I didn’t sigh within like I thought I did because he hurries on to add – “but I could use my uncle’s car to pick you up wherever. I serve here in Enugu but I have an uncle who lives close by. Would that be okay?”

“What is life without management?” I turn a lazy look to my fingers, turning my left hand this way and that to get a good look at the manicured digits. “So, are we going to fuck?”

He bursts into more laughter, the laughter of one who can’t believe what he’s just heard.

“Gosh, are you always this blunt?” he asks.

“I simply believe in not wasting time,” I reply.

“Well, when we see, things will take their natural course. For now, I like you and want to see you. That’s all that matters.”

I should tell this guy to hold his own and just drop this call. But I don’t. I don’t need anything mushy but I shouldn’t shut anyone out too.

The sound of comingled laughter reaches out from the room opposite Iliana’s. Mitch and Dennis. The merry noise reverberates all over the quiet compound, Dennis’ jerky laugh weaving its way through Mitch’s easygoing, guttural mirth. They must be really tickled by whatever is the reason for their amusement. It should be cute, this laugh of lovers, but then it’s not.

Can’t they just laugh like responsible adults, muted and not so loud like jackals? If this is part of the building blocks of a relationship, I want none of it.

And yet, it’s paining you.

It’s not! I rebuke the teasing voice in my head.

“Hello, Ikem? Are you there?” Jide’s voice through the phone jolts me back to our conversation.

“Pick me up at Asata Junction by 5pm,” I say flatly.

I disconnect the call in time to see a message pop up.

It’s Kenny.

“Hey Bitch! So you and your big head do not know how to call someone again, abi? Anyway, I’ll be coming into Enugu tomorrow to see my boo and of course, you. We have a lot to talk about and a Sage to deal with. Take care of you. XO!”

Yes! Kenny! Just the person I need around.

The day is looking up finally. I get to my feet, tucking the ugly jotter under my armpit and begin walking toward the toilet.

Douching for me is a tiringly long process.

Written by Delle