WHORE Of BABYLON (Episode 7)

The neighbourhood is eerily quiet as the three of us file into Amobi’s apartment. It is a two-bedroom flat in a serene part of Gariki. The inner decor has an effortless touch of masculinity to it. The deep-brown upholstery is a nice blend with the ox-blood embroidered curtains hanging majestically from blood-red drapes. A beautiful, albeit small, chandelier is hanging from the tiled ceiling. It’s a lovely house, and despite the fact that it isn’t my first time here, I can’t help but be in awe of its aesthetics.

I turn a cheeky smile to Mandy, who has reclined on the three-seater. He has already pulled off his shirt and spread it out on the edge of the cushion, leaving on the thin fabric of a vest he’d been wearing beneath the shirt. His head is thrown back in obvious exhaustion and his hands are spread out on his sides, his legs too. He may be tired from whatever day he’d had, but my entire system is still fired up even after the hard work of ogling him all the way to Amobi’s house. At first, I sit there, worrying my lower lip with my teeth and wondering how to get things with him moving along.

Fuck it, Sizikora! I finally admonish myself sharply. What’s the worst that can happen? Him allowing you do the whole work? Girl, go and get that dick! 

With these self-inspiring words, I pull my sling bag off over my head, rise from my seat and move cautiously but precisely over to him, making a mental note of Amobi’s prolonged absence from the parlour.

I am close enough to see that Mandy’s eyes are shut. A slightly musky smell emanating from him hits my nostrils; a smell laden with sweat and maleness. The intoxicating scent wafts its way through my nostrils, circulates round my insides, clicking on every button of arousal as it journeys through.

At this stage, there’s no going back for me. I straddle him, careful not to put all my weight down on him whilst inhaling the musky scent oozing off of his body. He stirs as I get on top of him, and his eyes flickers open moments before he lifts his head, prompting me to dive in for his well-placed lips.

“Stop,” he mutters through my desperate lips, moving to get me off him. He places his hands firmly on my shoulders and shakes me hard enough to get my attention. “Stop, Ikem, I have a boyfriend.”

I suppress the surging need to laugh, and instead, roll my eyes at the incredulity of his words.

Who still uses this line?

Seeing the look of disbelief on my face, he lifts me off him and places me gently beside him. “I have a boyfriend,” he reiterates.

“And so? What does it matter?” The words come out snappishly from me. I cannot even decipher the amount of embarrassment rushing through me at this moment. And it has to be for this flimsy excuse? I cannot remember ever being turned down by any guy. And definitely not with this lame-ass excuse!

“It matters. I can’t have sex with you, I’m sorry,” he says matter-of-factly, gathering his shirt in his hands like I was the one who pulled them off of him in the first place.

“No one is saying anything about sex,” I reply coyly, moving closer to whisper in his ear. “I just want you to fuck me. You and Amobi, if you’d be down for that.” I have my hands on his pecs, squeezing and tweaking his eraser-sized nipples whose prints are very evident through his vest.

Brushing my fingers off, he pulls himself away from me with a smile on his face. A knowing smile. He has this look on him, a look of someone who knows exactly what it is he wants and doesn’t want. He looks so sure of himself, so annoyingly relaxed despite the increasing awkwardness of our situation.

“His name is Francis,” he says.

I do not remember asking for a name, and looking closer at him, I notice there is yet another expression on his face, one I am familiar with but have sworn never to possess for anyone. Ever!

“He is a doctor here in Enugu and…”

Amobi steps into the parlour just then, a towel wrapped around his waist, his hand working a smaller towel over the beads of bath water on his well-sculpted body.

Well, this is one man who won’t turn me down, I muse to myself.

“And,” Mandy continues with an emphatic tone, prompting me to look away from Amobi, “I actually came here to see him as his birthday is in two days.”

This guy is a romantic? Hian! Such a waste of hotness.

Regaining my composure, I turn to Amobi. He isn’t looking at me, as he has his back to us on his way back inside his room. I am trying to distract myself. Slowly but steadily, I am taking my time to pick the pieces of my broken ego. I can’t even bring myself to speak to Mandy anymore, as all I picture in my head is Iliana doubled over with unrestrained laughter at the news of my rejection. But in all of this, I am determined not to let Mandy know how I am feeling.

Someone takes my hands and reflexively, I pull them away.

“Relax Sizi,” Mandy says, his voice a surge of warmth as he reaches again for my hand.

This time, I do not recoil. He squeezes my hand while looking steadily into my eyes. “There’s just something about you. I don’t know… I just… You give off these vibes of a closely guarded fortress. And it’s curious. There should be a reason for this wall you have put up around you.”

I have no idea if he has just asked me a question or made a statement of certainty, so I give him a quizzical look.

“I’m asking,” he says. That look is back on his face again. The confident expression that tickles something in me.

Fuck! I cuss inwardly. Thunder should just goan fire that Francis, wherever he is. What kind of sugar is in his nyash sef?

With a backward flip of my head, I say curtly, “I have no wall. I don’t even know what you’re going on about.” I suddenly cannot bring myself to look at him, so I rest my eyes on our entangled hands.

“Oh please, you do,” he counters. “It’s so evident.”

I feel something begin to fray inside me. I pull my hand away from him, get up from the seat and walk to the TV stand. With my body against the wall, I turn to him, my whole body tense and shaking with breathless annoyance. “You have no right to tell me that, you know?” My voice is slow and deliberate. I give a short mirthless laughter. “You don’t even know me.”

“Why are you being so defensive?”

“I am not doing this with you.” I move away from where I am standing and plop down on the chair adjacent to where he is seated, turning my face away from his steady stare.

So many things are going on in my mind at roaring speed. This guy, a total stranger with his weird intuitiveness, has decided to bring forward my fears.

Everything I buried in the past.

“Ikem,” he says, “I wish you’ll talk to me. You say I don’t know you. You believe you’re a tightly controlled vessel. But the thing with control is sometimes, we can’t tell that we are leaking.” He leans forward and his stare turns impossibly more serious. “Talk to me, Ikem. Or are you afraid Amobi will hear us?” He looks theatrically around and at the door through which Amobi had vanished minutes ago.

I give off another mirthless laugh. “What part of ‘I am not doing this with you’ wasn’t understood? Stop making it seem like I have issues when I don’t!” My voice is up several volumes and sharper than razor blade.

But Mandy remains unfazed. “I know somewhere deep inside, you have this gnawing pain. Trust me, Sizi, it’s not going to go unless you unburden yourself. You are not going to feel total satisfaction until you bring down your defences. I like you, Sizi, and despite these fronts you put up, I know you are a good person. Would you rather I ignore that and look at the ‘you’ you are trying so hard to project? Everyone should have a wall of defence, but do not let it swallow who you truly are. Do not get lost to the world at such a tender age when you have lots to offer.”

At this, I release a shaky sigh, feeling a trembling begin to work its way over my body. My mind is sagging under the intrusion of memories long locked away.

Reflexively, I fight back. I feel this nagging urge to hold back from opening up. After all, I barely know this man. I could just get up and go meet Amobi wherever he is, and thus put an end to this uncomfortable situation.

But Mandy’s eyes are insistent and patient. Like they are challenging me. He’d mentioned Amobi probably being the cause of my not being forthcoming.

Funny.

It’s not about Amobi. Heck, it’s not about anyone I know presently.

It’s about the man I knew as a child. His name was Dad.

My father first touched me inappropriately when I was six. A fondling of my genitals after he bought new clothes for me and followed me to my bedroom to watch me try them on. The fondling got bolder in following days, stayed consistent till I was nine. He would call me into his room whenever Mother wasn’t around and touch me. The fingers of his left hand would play with my penis while his right hand worked his penis, his face twisted into a grotesquerie of headlong passion. Then he would come, large splotches of liquid seed that dropped on the bed sheets and sometimes on my legs, if I was seated too close to him. After satisfying his perversion, he would give me sweets, oftentimes chocolates, and make me promise not to tell my mother.

One day, when I was nine, after he was done fondling my penis and putting his tongue in my butt hole, he suddenly tried penetrating me. He was barely through before a bolt of pain had me screaming. My screams didn’t end; they stretched, rattled the windows and shook the walls with the secrets they couldn’t divulge. My father desperately tried to cajole me into silence, but the pain I felt kept me loud and disobedient. My screams drew alarmed neighbours to our house, and upon their concerned queries, I merely shook my head and continued crying. I couldn’t speak, because I had years of my father’s stern warning banging in my head: Tell anyone about what we are doing and I will kill you. Remember how Timmy, the dog from next door stopped moving after that car knocked it down? That’s what will happen to you if you tell anyone about us.

I believed him when he first told me those words. And I believed him everyday since. So I continued sobbing furiously, while my father explained to the neighbours that I’d been playing a bit too much.

“Don’t you know children?” he said with an indulgent laugh. “He was playing rough and probably hit his head or something.”

The good thing that came out of that incident was that he stopped molesting me. Something about that encounter shook him off his perverse fascination with me, his first child, and he never touched me again. I grew up knowing what he did to me, accusing him silently with each year that brought me awareness. Our relationship deteriorated, even though I never confronted him with his sickness.

Mandy is staring at me with utmost concentration in his eyes, his chin propped on his left hand. I look searchingly at him, feeling instantly open, vulnerable, a feeling I find loathsome.

“Wow,” he finally exhales.

“Growing up from child to teenager,” I feel emboldened to say, “I have never known love. Let me rephrase that. Men have never shown me love. From my father to the first, second and third man I fell in love with. Men,” I pause to scoff at the word, “they see me as an object for sex. No guy wants to be with me. It’s either ‘you are too feminine and could kito me’ or ‘I don’t think I can do relationships’.” My sombreness suddenly gets shortcircuited into anger as I mentally recount all the annoying remarks I have received from countless guys over the years. “You see this?” I make a sweeping gesture over myself. “This is a product of rejection and heartaches. I am tired of loving guys and getting shit in return! They sexify me? I’d give them just that and get cool money while at it. Why waste my time loving a guy in this country anyway when they will just run along and get married to a lady someday?”

Mandy stays quiet for awhile. I begin to worry that I’ve said too much, revealed too much.

“Where’s your father now?” he finally asks.

“My parents are separated. I don’t keep in touch with him.” I reply, emotionless.

“Who else knows about all of these you just told me?”

“Duh! You think I go around telling people I’ve got such a fabulous past?”

“Would you like to see someone professional and talk to him about this?”

For moment after his words have sunk in, I stare at him with bugging eyes. Then annoyance floods my face with heat as my defences heighten at the implication of his statement. “Wow! I’m now being referred to Yaba Left as per someone with potential craze, abi?” My voice is shrill with anger.

“No,” he replies calmly. “I am merely suggesting you talk to my boyfriend, Francis. He is a professional psychotherapist and could very well help you.”

“I don’t need help,” I bite out. “And I’m not meeting any dumb-ass, silly psycho-whatever referred to me out of sheer sentiments!”

I see Mandy flinch at the words. I also see his temper rising for the very first time, and just as he makes to give a response, Amobi chooses that time to resurface.

“Hey, hey! What’s going on?”

He has changed into shorts and a body-hugging top. He looks better than I have ever seen him, but right now, I am not even in the frame of mind to ogle.

“Why don’t you put a leash on your friend, Colossus?” I snarl, while pointing at Mandy.

Irritation chases bewilderment from his face, and he snaps, “Will you zip up the attitude, Sizikora!”

I rear back, and am working up a blistering rejoinder, when Mandy interjects, “You can hide all you want, Ikem, but I know what I know.”

“Oh you know nothing, Mandy. Fuck you!”

“I’m sure Francis would have to be informed first before that happens though,” he rejoins with a sardonic laugh.

The guy has got jokes. Mscheewww!

The room suddenly goes quiet, and we remain in place, the three of us unsure how to proceed from here. I fume silently, although it doesn’t take long before my steam begins to dissipate. I find myself thinking that perhaps, I’d been too harsh. I guess I should understand Mandy is doing this from a good place. A place of concern.

But I’m done with all that. No one cares for me except me. It’s been that way for a while now and maybe I love it like that.

“What is it you said you wanted to talk to me about?” Amobi finally speaks up, cutting through the thick silence that has descended upon us.

“I don’t think I can tell you in this state. I’m too angry to explain. Right now, I need to be home.” I move to retrieve my bag from the settee.

“Sit, Ikem.” It’s Mandy this time around, looking from me where he’s still seated. “Please.”

With calculated effort, I settle back down on the settee.

He smiles at me, like we both have scored a victory together. Then he says, “Consider me a friend, Ikem. Tell us.”

Amobi joins him on the seat, directly opposite me. His voice is surprisingly tender when he says, “Sweetheart, talk.”

So I sit with my face in between my hands, trying to gather up my wits. From my heart-pouring moment with Mandy, to the fight and now this, I feel like passing out.

This whole incident is turning out to be a nightmare, but in the end, this is the main reason I came here. It would make no sense that all of this drama went down and I still didn’t get across my most important objective.

So with a heavy sigh, I tell them all that had happened. From my meet with Sage to him setting me up with my mother, and then my fight with her and her kicking me out of the house as a result, ending with my eventual relocation to Iliana’s and my intention of revenge on Sage.

Written by Delle