Debacle in Eden: D.I.E

DEBACLE IN EDEN

D.I.E

PORTIA MMAMA ANTHONY

Copyright

© 2016 by PORTIA MMAMA ANTHONY.

ISBN:                      Softcover              978-1-4828-0678-6

                                eBook                   978-1-4828-0679-3

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

DEDICATION

For Linus Anthony.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AJISAFE MICHAEL OLUWAFEMI. Thank you for all the in-somnolent conversations and readings, sometimes through the thick of the night, endless encouragement that finally came last month and gave me that last push to believe. To you, I owe the world.

ESEMIN EMMANUEL ARCHIBONG. Thank you for your unconditional sisterly love, unsurpassed faith, friendship and support, you believed when they all doubted.

You are greatly admired.

To my group members, the Democracy Vanguard, I owe it all to you. This is to your indomitable spirits. We shall exhale.

CHAPTER ONE

My steadfast regular boyfriend, did he not tear my clothes in public? Just to reshape what he thought was out of place. They do these things in that crazy one sultry moment of temporary insanity of ecstasy and on Sundays he frog marched to the congregants and say a little prayer of forgiveness.

The way I see life really, we are not what we are sometimes, but situations can force humans to do what they wouldn’t do ideally just meditating!

No, it is not a dream it’s real.

Did I hear him say it seemed like I was lost in translation? Na! I may be work-in-progress because it has been one drama and intrigue after another, but definitely, I am not lost in translation.

Sometimes, I wonder if it will ever end but what could have made him say that, though?

He fairly glared at me but the stare was intimidating, resentful, evil and powerful.

His voice had a conciliating tone I’ve never heard before it’s nice somehow, because of the baritone twang, the way he stood there nervously, he’s not asking, and I’m neither offering nor telling.

This is one of them that put up a front, that front, the type that looks to the world like you have to scale the wall to get behind it. It takes me nothing to break it all down in seconds; I know what stuff I’m made of, I couldn’t be walking the walk all these years and learned nothing of the trade, I am a pro, I know my stuff.

There’s something, you must know before you get all jammed up with that emotionless attitude. You don’t even know me yet you want to judge? You must excuse me because if you know where I’m coming from then you will begin to understand.

I never intended to use this as a weapon of defense, I prattled on as I always do when I feel uncomfortable about a situation. I could feel from that look that he was feeling uncomfortable about being seen with me.

I didn’t want to help him, but, I still had to say something because I needed to see if some honesty could emerge from that struggle and seemingly empty bright eyes, that shone but watery like a knife had been stuck on the yellow yoke of an egg.

I could feel his skin prickled, as he sat motionless beside me. I always lift such a load off my mind when I come out clean and bare, but, this time for some reasons unbeknown to me, I want to just hold it down a bit.

This is because a person knowing about me and is still willing to talk to me, always makes me feel somehow self-absolved...I don’t like it that it’s people that stumble onto that pale yet not so glorious but the darkest side of my life, it would be some form of an injustice if I allow that to happen here.

It makes all the difference to me that I’m the one that let them to that revelations. I don’t like having that battle within me, to think through what I had longed, hoped, to forget and bingo someone from nowhere comes up and slaps me across the face with it like they know me more than I know myself. I like accepting my impediments, after all, they are mine, they are my shit, my stinky, and I like to clear them myself.

I had already neatly spread-eagled my story because I know at the end of the day, it would be worth its onions, and it would be worth telling it wholesale.

I had thought of it as a one-woman adventure, and with a little more information, a life lived and explored, all the wrong and right boxes of life ticked, I know, I would have tackled it on my own and get all the glory.

I didn’t want anything grand but just that I knew the grass is always greener on the other side. This short aphorism a statement I had heard so many times that it has become like ubiety to me.

I had seemed unknowing, but relentlessly, based my entire life on this short statement of fact.

This is the story of my journey through life, chronicling my attempts to get to the other side of the mountain, in search of those greener pastures.

You see, my dreams always had been to find the greener pastures abroad, not just anywhere in the world but in England--a land built on immutable pillars of success and attributes, at least that’s what I’d been told.

After I graduated from the university back home, I wanted to travel so bad that I could have done just about anything to get on any available plane – hell knows! I even could have gone on a banana boat or better still my feet may have just taken me there as long as the destination was England.

Sickening with dreadful thoughts but I still wanted to go. The question I once managed to ask myself in one of those my sane but less obsessive moments—was, what was it about England that propels and lifts all the adrenaline in my being to the point of no rational thinking?

Sad thing, though, I didn’t work out any modalities or mapped out any directions. All I wanted to do was leave Nigeria to go and have a better life abroad.

A place I thought was the place, I could actualize my dreams wasn’t such a bad idea. I was on a quest to make a point that is because I have always been this I-can-do it-all-on-my-own-kind of-a-girl

I am a pretty package on a solid box, even if I have to say so myself, brainy, soigné, a bit taciturn, and melancholic when I’m ready.

A real grafter, and when I’m ready I can also be diligent and play any role life presents to me.

What else does a girl want?

I had job offers, suitors, and everything, but nothing could suffice nor suppress the yearning and urge of going abroad.

I felt secure in the knowledge that I control my life, that I am the captain of my soul and the master of my destiny.

I could structure my dear life exactly the way I want it, all the glory would be to god and me alone.

Everything had worked out just the way I’d planned. It’s the years that would mount up but no matter how long it would take me, I know I’ll realize my dreams because I always do.

I had couriered my mind to England, though, my body was still in Nigeria planning the strategy.

I had a cushy job on my head, I had daydreamed about being interviewed and sandwiched between two white men, and I had already started the job.

I had transmuted into this icon I had dreamt of already.

I arrived England two weeks before Christmas at the time of the year when the town does not look ancient and periodic, but rather when it is decorated with pretty ribbons, confetti, when all the bells are jingling, all the way in preparation for the born day of Christ, this is when England looks really all sexed up, like a bride waiting to be devoured.

Christmas trees tied and decorated in mistletoes and wine, draped in iridescent colors of the rainbows. The buildings in tectonic styles, the town is so beautiful and idyllic like a big shiny house on the hill.

Everyone’s favorite shop Harrods, Jennifer Lopez lighted the Christmas tree that year.

The London town was a far cry from my village in (Oshogbo), where I normally spend my Christmas holidays with my parents.

My host was one of the happening girls so, every girl that was anybody in town was her friend, one of those daddies little bambinos, trust fund babies.

We partied like parties were all we lived for. My pedigree was completely different from hers. She oozes grace, charm and beauty but I was just the ordinary plain Jane kind of a girl next door.

Who wouldn’t want to be with the girl with the sort of money her parents have amassed from Nigerian polluted politics?

Their money extended and had no boundaries, Nigerian oil money, an ex- minister’s last daughter, with an attitude and swag larger than life.

She would never miss an opportunity to let us know daddy bought the house in her name and daddy this and daddy that.

Every party was fun and there was always a story to tell, after a while every other one seemed like an instant replay.

Finding the first job was extremely difficult the direct opposite of the one I found on my head.

My friend didn’t have to work as her monthly allowances were more than my family’s budget in a year, god may you punish poverty.

I had wanted to keep entirely to myself and to take no part in public affairs or social life, but that would be looking like I was being ungrateful.

I was the only woman on a mission to do it my way, it felt like I was in a giant big brother house but I was the only one that was not a participant and yet had the biggest task to perform.

My friend and her friends were big players and play they did to the best of their abilities. Parties, gambling, bed hopping, cat fighting, gossips, you name it, spoilt little brats.

I’d been told I would’ve overstayed my welcome, after one month—heck! Who is going to hang around till then?

One blizzard Monday morning in January long after they had curled up and tucked away under their duvets like little figurines, I respected myself, stole the completely filled bottle of losing coins out of the ten bottles in the house, that didn’t mean anything to them they probably wouldn’t even notice it but it meant all in the world to me.

At that epic moment in time, I took that first step to the long journey out of that house to my freedom.

It was raining like the heavens just opened its bowels in annoyance to disgorge everything on earth.

The rain was beating against the windowpane and thundering down on the ceiling this deafened everyone and very early in the morning before the crow of dawn I had crept out like a thief in the night.

I left a thank you note and swore never to get in touch until I have made it.

I woke up the following day on a Tuesday morning to a completely new life alone in the world and yet the second verse of my life had just begun in England.

I’d rented a room in a house not knowing where the next rent would come from when the first month expires. I had to share all amenities.

I applied to too many companies for a job; the answers all came back the same. Rent have to be paid and bills were gradually mounting up like an avalanche and the little money I had was going faster than the day. Two months had passed and still no job. My confidence, euphoria, and resilience were thinning out faster than life.

I went back to the drawing board to see what I was doing wrong. I had to re-evaluate my stand and come down a level from my self-imposed, self-made-exile to use my lifelines, go fifty-fifty, call a friend or seek help from the world audience.

The truth is I had none of the options to call, or an audience to entertain my sorry story.

I needed an advice but quickly figured out that you don’t tell your potential employers, that you had qualifications from back home because quite honestly all of it, is worth not a dime in England.

Eventually, bingo! Like a bullet to the head, I had a job cleaning an office. It helped paid the mounting bills but it did not help carve the much-needed niche I’d wanted to create for myself.

I wanted to be the master of my own game, by being at the highest stratosphere of life. I wanted the very best life could offer, the film star lifestyle, the designer clothes, the whole works, all that my hosts enjoyed I wanted them all. Those girls would make even Beyoncé look ordinary—their formalism, their sheer grit in spending money like it grew out of the tree. I don’t want to be seen as the lowest rung of the ladder so, for that reason alone a girl must do what a girl has to do.

I wanted to not only be seen but also be heard, loud and clear. I started applying for the cushy jobs; I’d figured out the basic principal and requirements were basically the same.It didn’t matter whether it’s a cleaning job, a kitchen porter, a barmaid; teacher or a nurse, all you have to do is master the act of lying and lying some more.

Then came another December and still no decent job to rescue my sorry-ass, from grafting on the run-of-the-mill types of job.

I was beginning to fall into down moods. I’m a free spirited person, supersonic in nature, always happy even when the whole world is going bonkers.

The day I got the inkling that I may be probably mad was the day my kid brother got drowned, everyone was crying and going berserk, whilst I was as happy as if I just won the lottery.

What was the point in making me more depressed? That is what crying does to me. My brother is dead, but there was nothing I could do to bring him back--that is the thing about death; it means the end of that road, the final closure, and the end of an episode.

I am desperate right now to put an end to this road of poverty and suffering in my life, this swashbuckling feeling that keeps coming and going, I am ready to swap it for all the moral rectitude that my mama and papa taught and passed onto me.

I’m being swayed to adopt something sustainable, something sort of, or kind of, well, some sustenance, what that is, I have no clue.

Monday mornings, this is not my best day of the week, it’s a day I find myself always bitchy and naggy coupled with the weather not being so friendly, the cold dreary days ahead didn’t help either.

The way I cheered myself up was to think of the future and envisage the best--that January was at the corner, February has only twenty-nine days, and March official spring month, once I can muddle through all these months, then, I can crack even, these months of winter, autumn, then summer would creep in and it would all be kosher again.

In this town, you need no one to motivate you but yourself or else you’ll go bonkers. The sun makes me happy and vibrant; this is my best period in the year.

There’s this sudden change in attitude with everyone, this is what the sun does to people. Happiness galore, shopping spree, people sloshing through the warm bright sun, weighed down with iridescent rainbows of shopping bags, stopping taxis and hopping in and out of buses.

This is the period in the year when my adrenaline pumps up so high that even I cannot control its decibel, this is when I would start thinking positively.

I have done a lot of praying lately, but with God it takes longer than expected, though the answers to the prayers would come when you least expect them, still I hate the waiting and anticipation period.

Right now, the wait seems like some eternity and this telekinesis exercise shit I’ve adapted from that book Susan gave me, it seems to be sapping my energy faster than the result that is not forthComing quick enough, because it simply isn’t working, how folks can swear by this shit eludes my brain.

I am a black woman, all we do is pray because we were taught that prayer is the key that unlocks all doors and gives answers to all questions. Telekinesis seems like magic and magic I’d been told is unscriptural and has witch-crafty implications. But, wait a minute, what really works then? It’s unscriptural, it’s magic, all is hocus-pocus, fuck all the shit now, I am taking my destiny in my little hands, and write it I must.

I’m getting so confused. I’m running out of steam, my tendon is so sore and all I have to my name is this tenner that can only buy me a packet of corn flakes and skimmed milk, and maybe the crackers biscuit. I have done this waiting on the lord thing for too long; I’ve to do something drastic right now, something must give in and give way.

I’m tired of eating white bread and cheap butter, which breaks out on my face as pimples, which makes me look like; I’ve been sleeping rough or malnourished with infected semen.

I need to come alive because I came to England to live, and the reason I’m alive is to live. There are still those bad swashbuckling thoughts meandering through my mind, it’s giving me ripples and I’m going cold even when it’s not cold. I’m having a sense of nausea with where my mind is taking me to but my body is resisting.

I am a thinker, which means I can think of one million things at the same time, it could be a cocktail of the good, the bad and the ugly.

Right now, those thoughts are tempestuous; I’m trying to temporize it but hell! It’s not listening, it’s tempted to jump in headfirst and plunge in without a care in the world. What I’m thinking is kind of lousy, even though, I’d trained my mind to obey and listen to my mouth, that is because I have to say it first, then my mind takes it up. My mind screams too much and can think about a lot of shit, it does over time even when it’s not asked to do a thing, it can’t shut up, when I’m in a tight corner like where I’m right now, I just want to calm it down but hell no not my mind.

I’m getting furious with it for trying to mislead me, giving me orders that my body didn’t want to obey. The instant thoughts right now, even my telepathic mode that I’ve just activated isn’t able to subdue its tenacious audacity. My mind is awfully disgusting, not legal and I can see it leading me to harm and illicit routes.

I’m a nice normal kind of a girl, I want to do normal things like meet a man and fall in love hopelessly with him, jump in head first but get in hook, line and sinker, have babies, have all my dreams come true, my aspirations that stretched with no boundaries realized now than later.

Those dreams that I once conjured in my head, my hopes of being heard and not only seen all of them must come alive.

I started wondering if I’ll ever be as elegant and as sophisticated as my host and her teeming, voluble, but badly put-on tragedian friends that I left behind.

I’ve talked myself into believing that all these have all come alive already, after all, they say if you can think it it can happen, fake it until you make it.

I’m calling those things that are not as if they were. This is faith in action pastor David would say.

There is a part of me too that is right now thinking like a freak because I know deep down, that, this freaky part is saying bad things, such crazy stuff that are not natural but rather scary.

Feeling of profanity is so high, it feels like I’m in another person’s body and I want this thought to remain in that person’s body and leave me the good girl alone.

If I were to be taking weed like back in the day, back home I would think maybe the shit is doing some nonsense to my fudgy head, that shit used to get me jouncing as we say in my local parlance, I mean as in hallucinating, but here all I’ve taken today is water mixed with some cheap orange squash.

This is an experience of delirium of some sort, of possession but possession of something, not worth communicating with me, let alone with another.

I’d been reading in some magazines that I’ve been buying lately, to peruse nothing but high fashion. In my days back home I used to be known by my peeps and cronies as the ultimate fashionista, my formalism then, I swear, I could’ve beaten Foluke my host and her jocund friends hands down.

The reason I buy these magazines is just to keep abreast of what is going on in the fashion scene, so I don’t get rusty and also to know where to buy cheap replicas of the expensive items I can’t afford right now, but still nursing the hope that one day soon I’ll ricochet back to the days of my former glory.

These thoughts have kept me awake all night wondering what I should do, and when I wake in the morning, first thing I breathe in the same thought, I would think of hostilities towards my mind, but then calm myself down and make me believe I’m not particularly interested.

As I sat on the damp bench that has gone moldy in the winter months and scrapped off and vanished back to life to usher in the summer, I moved from there to sit in the sward across the field all in the hope to steady my nerves and redirect my thoughts. Still I would be thinking of what I’ve got no business thinking about.

I was sure something had gone askew, and each time I want to address it the yearning would come even stronger. I would flip through the magazines back and forth whilst waiting for my bus.

At the back of the magazine as if tucked and hidden away from the full glare of normal, decent people living in the world, the sordid advertisements will find its obscure space in the glossy magazine. It reads—Female wanted in--Escort agency.

I would be struggling and wondering in my mind while seated in the bus one day it was so bad that I’d gone past my stop by a long distance. What exactly would a woman be doing escorting strangers and men for that matter?

It’s not like you are escorting your friend to the shops or to the hospital because they are ill and needed your help. The thoughts would propel back and forth and be tormenting my heart that was already fast becoming fickle.

The abrupt change in the direction of my thoughts will normally subside once I get to my cleaning job, but this time, it’s carrying on like my life depends on it.

It has become a permanent fixture on my head.

I hate this job with a passion, I’ve no choice but to do it, it’s paying the bills, and keeping me out of trouble, that’s all it’s been doing and here I am asking myself the question—How long can I go like this?

It was an evening of stress after the cleaning and slopping out as the real slobber. As I was cleaning and packing the dirt, in a rather infective way, I suddenly became emotional like I was a spoof of another person, for someone that hardly cries, I was becoming like a parody of my sister that anything makes her cry, for whatever reason I could not explain to myself but the tears were thundering down like hurricane.

Inside me I know this job is what I shouldn’t be doing but it’s the only option I’ve got right this second. If push comes to shove, maybe I would call those Escort agencies and see what’s up. That thought came suddenly in a flash and as an antidote to a poison it just fixed my emotion. The feeling that made me itch like I was kept in an apiary just evaporated.

I know these agencies are involved in selling sex and sex sells more than food, but isn’t sex another form of food? Ask a randy, hungry man to choose between sex and cookies and then tell me I’m wrong--one involves a sudden urge to release a dangerous nuke, the other is just a mere pang that can be satisfied with a bite of an apple, normally they would want to get rid of the nuke first for it is dangerous, it’s a weapon of mass destruction.

Listen I’m just trying to understand why men rape, why they are ready to kill and be killed, and why they pay for sex. I’m just me trying to justify why it has to be sold and why I’m considering selling it.

I’ve sold it before, my sugar daddies aristos in my local parlance back home would give me the kind of money my parents wouldn’t earn in a month just to cajole my body and groped my breast.

The way things are going I’m quite ready to abandon this thread-mill-down-trodden job that I get paid pittance for and make a career out of this illicit business.

It’s not going to be written on my forehead, it’s just a means to an end. I have to find out how they work their own because "this girl is ready no more being slobbing. I would use what my mama gave me to get what I want.

I’m so glossing over the prospect of this, which in actual fact I should be beating myself. This is prostitution I want to do, I am reminding myself I mean ashawo work that my brother used to sing that is, he would go…… ashewo no work o! Na management o!"

Brother was wrong; I’ve done this work before and gave him money to bail out his dry-broke-ass once. So, how could he say it’s no work? What does he know really?

The whole idea seems dirty, but my useless self-believes it’s the only way out right now for me. How would this rate with my family? My parents are good Christians. I would vehemently deny it, they would believe me because they always do, but my conscience would be punished because in my heart, I would know I’ve not only lied but I’ve sinned, my value level right now is null and void.

What would my friends think of me? Not that their opinions really matter right now. But, I know nothing is hidden forever, someone would know and start the rumors and rumors have a way of spreading like wildfire.

Nice theory this would be and a juicy story it would make. I’m sounding like I’m one big celebrity that the world would give a fuck to know about. But, what would God think of me as I know what eternal condemnation means and this journey to utter perdition is not anyone’s doing but mine?

This last realization is scary as I would not want God to drop his wrath on me like a ton of brick, this would crush me out of life. He would have to forgive me because right now if he doesn’t want me to go astray, he had better make provision and find a solution and give me a better alternative right this minute, as the fear of the unknown and the uncertainty of the future is crushing me one bone at a time, bone by bone.

There’s no honor in selling ones’ body, it’s not like going to the university to get some honors in a degree. There’s nothing honorable in selling myself for money it’s a degrading act and very self-debasing. I am like a nugget, a precious metal found on earth, why debase all that for money? But, then, and again without money how can that precious metal be kept in its original precious state? You’re giving your body to some unknown strangers and they pay you for buying it and what is it you are selling? The unmentionable part of your body, the whole sanctity of what makes you sacred and that thing that makes you the person you are, the woman in you.

I yawned in disgust, oh! My God this is I, Caroline, Cece girl, a nice Catholic girl with straight catholic values. I read in the bible that my body is the temple of god that means I have no right to defile it. The recompense of this scares me to death.

I feel like the devil had already secured a room for me in hell. I am meant to use my brain to achieve my goals in life but right now that brain is failing me too, it’s not thinking straight, it’s clouded in the dirt and nothing can clean it, not even my soul. I want to use the thing God gave me freely to make babies with my husband, the little slit in between my legs. Gosh! It’s hard but it’s critical, a hand on the head moment, a desperate situation that calls for a desperate measure, right now a girl has to do what she has to do. It’s only going to make me a nova star just for a while, a jiffy crazy moment.

I put on my best sweet voice the one that impresses most.

Helllu! I want to…. I stammered, I want to come and register, I went straight to the point and matter-of-factly I rambled on. Have you done this before? The croaky, raucous voice asked? Yes sir, of course, I lied. By now, I’d mastered the act of lying my way through everything.

In England, if you were not born a congenital liar, you must learn to become a formidable pathological one. How long have you been on this game? A game? I chuckled, so this is what it is a game? Selling one’s self for money is a game? Men are bastards and a special place in hell should be reserved for them. How can selling one’s body to deadbeat strangers, that can’t keep their saggy meat safely, tucked away in their jockstrap, be classified as a game? How old are you ma’am?

I’m not a ma’am I’m a girl, I screamed down the phone, twenty-one. Meanwhile here am I, a twenty-seven year ago lady. In this business the younger you are the more saleable or leaning your market is, so age reduction is part of the game and comes with the territory.

No one asks the men how old they are as long as they have money in their pockets. I can’t be bothered if I don’t look twenty-one that is my age, let them do the guesswork. Once I make the money then I would look the way I want.

I believe in plastic surgery, each time I watch those series on extreme make-over I would go all fantasizing, gesticulating on how I would enlarge my tits. I really admire Katie Price aka Jordan and Pamela Anderson, watching Pam straddle down those beaches in her red, hot swim wears, tits like two inflated melons and tummy tucked in and flat like pancakes, not that I want to be that big in size but a size down from their own wouldn’t do me any harm. If anything gets bulky I’ll nip and tuck, if saggy I’ll trim and clip, if droopy it would be lifted up. This is my take on plastic surgery and life generally, what has to be done must be done. I can only live once so why not? I’m the type that whatever I do I take pride in it even if it’s not glamorous, but one thing is certain I would pour my heart into it.

What’s your size ma’am? Dress size or what? A ten-twelve, I interjected. But, if you have been doing this business as you claimed, why would you be asking such inane question? He asked irritatingly. "When you are asked about your size you should know what I am talking about, I mean your boob size he said sounding pissed.

Oh! That, thirty-four double D I answered rudely. He was just barraging me with all sorts of mundane questions, questions that I should ideally be rude about in answering and tells the bastard to fuck off but here am I, I couldn’t because right now, right here, I need this job. Can you imagine I am even classifying prostitution as a job, but why not? After all, I get paid and besides, they say it’s the oldest profession in the world. (This could be the maelstrom situation or just the macrocosm of the whole institution and the stigma attached to the trade)? Truth is, I can’t be asked right now, I am willing, able and ready the deluded, messed up, easily-led-footling-mind, that led me to this point cannot at this moment try to convince me, to make a detour. Too late, there’s no going back, it’s a task that must be done.

I am 32 A, with a little help from wonder bra, I could cup up a size or two depending on the padding. When can you come over for physical examination? He asked. I paused for a second, gulped a lung-full of saliva, gathered enough courage to ask what I wasn’t too sure how to frame the question, without sounding naïve and rubbing him on the wrong side but, there’s a question I need to ask. Physical examination?" Did I hear you ask that? I was fuming but suppressive.

What for and how is this physical examination going to be done? So many things went through my mind at the same time?

Is this man going to fuck me to know how good I am just to confirm my prowess? I was a bit taken aback, my euphoria dispersed to despair, as I wondered if all the humiliations were necessary because I want to become a whore. Young lady, you have to be tested for drugs and aids he said.

If you are into any of this two please, don’t bother. Oh! Dolt, is this the question you couldn’t have asked with a bit of sense? I thought to myself.

Do you test your punters too? I asked not minding the consequence of the answer. Please, we do not entertain street language here. That is a rude word we speak politely and properly here young lady. Do you want to do this or not? Too many questions are a waste of time and time means money he said in his businessman tone of voice. We address our customers as clients, not punters and we operate a very high confidentiality policy too." He ranted on. This man is so voluble, I am already tired and I have not even started the job.

What happens here like in Vegas remains here? We are civilized and courteous to everyone irrespective of their standing, they are our clients and they keep us in business.

Hear him, freaky man, what is so civilized about a profession that is as old as the world itself that had not been improved or modified, I mean a profession that women are still subjugated? We are still the indentured servants and the men the masters; we are still the givers and the male the receivers, what possibly could be so civilized about such inequality?

The questions unnerved me in one way and upset me in another. It unnerved me because I’m going to get a job that would hopefully pay some of my bills on time, but upsetting because it was going to be not just a job, I would be proud to tell the world about, like my boss Eleanor that can openly tell whoever that cares to know that she is a forensic scientists, but one that would erode me of every sense of dignity, integrity and self-preservation.

When I finally arrived, in spite of the inclement weather I was met by a tall muscular man with biceps like the terminator himself. When does he have the time to work out and build those torsos that look like the tusk of an elephant and still look after his much-cherished clients?

It looks like he lives virtually at the gym. He pulled a set of forms from behind the escritoire, pushed it to me with an order, fill that as much as you can, honesty is the watchword here because we would find you out.

Before, I could lift up my eyes and utter a word, a perfectly looking figurine-like-woman in her forties walked in, so beautiful with not a strand of hair out of place. Her BMI (Body mass index) has no drop of fat. Her Christian Louboutin shoes screaming money like they have just been bought, her nails so well manicured with a diamond stud embossed on her index fingers. She pushed out her right hand to welcome me, it was so picturesque and pretty, I pushed mine out, I nearly pulled back because it was no way near what I saw. For a minute, I wished, I was her, as confident as I am and can be I’d forgotten myself and assumed the role she was playing.

I was so intimidated by her whole persona. Are you working at the moment? She prattled in a child-like tone. No not at the moment. Why not she asked? I just came back from a friend’s wedding in the States I said. You have the right height, your face we could work on but what I’m concerned about is your tits. I thought you were a 34 DD but what I’m seeing here is more like a ’32 D. You see men love big knockers and narrow hips, I mean men from this part of the world European men I mean. ‘We have some that like gluts like yours but they are not many". If you really want to make it in this industry, I mean good money; you must look a certain way she said, looking at me like I was some piece of shit.

I can’t possibly look like you not in this life I thought to myself. I can’t change the way you are but I can certainly work on you to achieve the look. She said. To start with, you must lose a stone of your body fat she said, looking at legs or I thought she was looking at my legs because I actually have yam legs that look fat at the calf and skinny at the ankles.

I don’t want to lose my butt, what is a woman without a bit on the rear? You have to get better hair extensions, Brazilian weave or Peruvian curly are a good selling point any day. She said. Our girls are the best in the business and very high and mega maintenance too.

I listened to her as if this was some kind of esprit de corps like some union with solidarity codes I must vow to uphold. If you want my honest opinion throw away those wonder bras, they have played out, they are so passé’ invest on a pair of boobs you would be glad you did. It’s going to be your trump card; it’s a game-changer any day, your money maker.

I left there heartbroken because I know I’ve no money and with the perfect picture of that figurine engraved on my head, I was shattered. If I could find her so magnetizing what would the men think of her? I want to be near that but for that to happen I need to have some serious dosh.

I don’t have the money right now to buy boobs but the weight I can lose easy, one week of Atkins diet, no bread but salad, bingo! Down to a size ten, I don’t want to lose my backside not even an inch from it.

Since I can’t be the high end one, I must start from bottom up, sometimes; in life, it’s the best way to start any business.

As I sat there alone on earth on the red light district of Croydon on the dampy bench with my little skirt that could barely cover anything and trying so hard to be discreet but rather disjointed. My sleeveless baby doll body hug, that exposed half of my midriff and cuts across my nipples dropping almost at my upper belly to discover a deep décolletage, all these in a bit to appear deliciously sultry but still nugatory.

I waited for them to come. It takes time some days and some days it’s instant. Like the train, it might take some time but sure it would certainly turn up. Getting colder and colder but cover up in my surplice, I dare not. I must dress up my window, that’s what brings in the sales.

The surplice is on the side of the bench once they have glanced through the window and like what they see then the coat must be lifted and honk on the shoulder loosely. The longer the wait the chances the old regulars and familiar faces with foreknowledge of my swap may turn up.

They would drive up the road and parked their disguised cars behind the tall buildings, put up their surveillance cap, with great surrealism they take that first step, but they must always drive past and signal a flash that they would be back. They would head down in a supersonic way or take the back doors and streets or shortcuts through the condensed blocks of apartments. They have to hide because they don’t want to be seen or recognized with me the louche but I know too that they are disingenuous, that secret is between the two of us.

We are both doing something supposedly wrong, something not legal, nor nice or clever but something he wants and I have to give in return for what he has to offer. It’s a joule de Vivre.

He would sometimes stop at the fish shops or get into the bookies, he’s neither buying the fish nor gambling but he’s decoying his way. One thing is certain it wouldn’t take him time to get to his destination. He’d be pretending like he got lost somewhere and may even stop someone to ask for directions and would look around to see if the person he asked for direction is watching him. He would walk down slowly but surely and carefully like he’d not seen me or even oversteer, they always pretend like I don’t exist or they don’t care or know me, sometimes they overturn but in all they are overviewing the environment and making sure all is in place.

I would pretend too like I don’t know what is going on like I am so naive and all so religious. I am after all a nice little Catholic girl that is now trying to sell my market, and they are all scrambling to buy from me nothing but my oviduct.

You would want to give him the come-on sign then change your mind and carry on like you don’t talk to strange men and you are not interested anyway. Sometimes, they are professionally dressed, showing individualism and this can be an inducement as they come up like they want to enquire about somebody from you or they would just dress casually like they just came back from shopping at a trendy supermarket and filled their recycled biodegradable bags with all sorts of fruits from grocery down the road.

These are professional punters that have mastered their acts and are right on top of their games. This one had a pair of jeans with Ralph Lauren shirt and a little motif embossed on the side, a pair of brown snickers and a black leather cigarette pouch that he used in storing his condoms.

Are you okay? He finally asked. Wear your coat then, he said like he was talking to a foundling after he had undressed me with the eyes of his fostering eyes. He kept stealing quick glances at my chest. I felt like saying look it’s free but then remembered he would pay for it later. He would look pretending he genuinely cares by looking from my legs to my chest and would retire to my face. He stood there talking to me like he’d known me all his life because a couple was walking up. Being a polyglot he changed to a different language and his polymath inclinations started playing the greater part here. He started talking about the election coming up, making it all sound like he was having a proper conversation with one of his pals.

I know and could tell he’s walking his mind up to what he would do or what he can do to my body and maybe just wondering how much he is going to pay this slut? What he is going to do to her or with her. Will she allow him go all the way? Or would she be willing to go all the way? Will she allow him squash her melons like two balloons and bite them like golden delicious apples? Will she allow his fingers explore her body like he really knows her?

Go on dream on pervert" I thought. I would not allow you do all that or explore my body, it may be some recreation for you but for me its business, no, I won’t be munificent but rather I would recline back allow you, all you are entitled to. That would be for me to open my legs, let you in and out, I would be a bit receptive so I can gain some experience and you recompense me for it. If you want extra, you must pay for it, every extra service gets rewarded. I need a pair of boobs and sure as hell! Your extra would pay for them. Are you game baby girl?

What do you think I’m waiting out here in this maddening cold to do, to salute the queen?

Of course, I am game, I said--silly. What is your price? It actually depends on, I could not finish the sentence.

What do you offer?

I do economy, business or super deluxe, I said, the tips I got from the agency. I sound rather like a pro and I could tell by the dilation of his dreamy eyeballs this is the thing with men, when they are red-hot waiting to crumble they smell it and the part of their body that gives away the telltale signs are not only the bulge but the twitching of the nose, the tilting of the head and the little unnoticeable sweats that gathered like little droplets of rain on a parsley leaf are all visible on their foreheads.

Economy class is Five hundred Pounds that is you just do with no extras, business class which is most of the services less the perks that are Eight hundred Pounds. Super deluxe you get the whole shebang you can go the full hog that one is, One thousand five hundred Pounds.

I might as well go for the whole thing then, he said. The point, of correction! I quickly interjected and corrected him—I am not a thing, I am a human being providing a service, that is the correct way to address me that is if you want to go all the way.

One thousand five hundred pounds for less than a two-hour fling isn’t that too expensive? That is the best I can bet you I said confidently.

If this man agrees to this I would get all that money and I can still fill in my day’s job if need be. I don’t like white men as lovers not that I have any personal vendetta against them or I’m debasing their personality, no, but just my personal preference. Like my coffee, I like my men black and strong. But, since this is a job I would do white men either way.

Somewhere from within me a pertinent question popped up. So, my one motivating factor in this illicit trade is money? It was a grudging question but too late now to answer.

It’s June, summer, bright and lovely, ideally, a day I should be in my element but here am I sleeping through this fever. On this same month last year, that is all I can remember:

The pain in my heart was so enormous in fact, enough to cover the entire universe. Maybe, I’m taking life too hard. Each time I try to rise to the occasion; something silly would give in and I would go on that downward slope again.

As I sat down to sip the scalding coffee, my ratiocination all muddled up with thoughts of what could’ve been but never was. All I could remember is what my dad used to say--that a girl who fails to marry and on time is veering out of God’s promises to humanity—he used to drum this down my head every day. It’s like life has just taken me through a retrial but none to judge me but myself.

I am taking the time down memory lane; this is just an opportunity to wonder why it never occurred to me that he was a fantasist. My gloom deepened each time I thought of it. The reality was different as I realized, I was pursuing something very unimportant. I was twenty-three bustling with life and happiness, with no care in the world, together all of us girls would go dressed in our scantily clad, fanciful shorts and exposé tops, out doing those things others thought were immoral, all eyes would be upon us and adults would be wondering what really we were up to and what was so enjoyable in doing those things we were doing. Mine didn’t last, but I won’t possibly forget.

Youthfulness is good and it’s a good time to do those things that if you don’t you may live to wonder why you didn’t.

I love a good conversation, arguments, and topical issues especially if they come from intellectually erudite-like minded people and good-naturedly too.

This was one of the qualities I found very profound and endearing in him. When this man starts rapping in that once upon a time baritone voice with the twang that would send raw sensuous feelings down my spine and would escalate every part of my body, gyrating and pointing to my heart with my head completely blanked out. Young age is wasted on youths, my mother used to say.

Why doesn’t wisdom play a major part in our lives when we are young?

Why is it only, when we have to say had I known which they say is the last born of indecision? He was never the right choice but with five children down the line who am I to question providence? And it would do me no good now, to regret because we are almost near the boundary and I’m facing the biting reality of my years of decline so it would only cause me more grief. I’m making the most of my time now; family ties and appreciation should mean the most to me.

Where do I start from this morning? As I woke up my body is not awake as yet but my mind is wandering to places I do not want to go..... I’d begin, but no, I must get it over this, I can’t continue like this, it’s a sign and downhill prospect, depression is likely.

I always grinned with joy as I believed that I’ve achieved something phenomenal.

I enjoy it a great deal, how Deedee my second daughter carries on about the issues in the world and when she uses those grammatical words like constitution, agenda, et al, ostensibly, largesse, taciturn, melancholia, panegyric, in fact, the list is endless.

The girl has more than enough vocabularies in her little brain; she’s a storehouse of knowledge, like a dictionary on wheels.

There was a time I used to write every word she said down and looked up later, not that there would be an occasion for me to use them, but just to store them in my brain. Once she was discussing the state of affairs of the nations of the world. She told her English friend that for a quintessential African girl to become the director of ‘commercialization’ in a predominantly White firm......I didn’t wait for her to finish the statement when I interjected, yes, child, you sure have not done badly.

I remember when she was discussing with my brother and the topic about (Iraq war came up, the Afghanistan’s, the Russians and the cold war of the eighties and the way the Americans became the only superpower in the world today. She broke it down so eruditely that it all makes so much sense to a mere mortal like me. I like the way she ended the conversation and said "uncle the problem in the Middle East is a serious quagmire.

What the hell is that big word? I’ve never heard of it but I just wished, I could boldly put words all together like she does.

This is the way her father used to be which got me so mesmerized and this is the way I’d dreamt of being and the way I’d always wanted to be. I’d wanted to be this strong, educated, intelligent woman that should not only be seen but also be heard very loudly, clearly and respected. But none of those happened which is why when I hear my children, Dee and Toyin speak openly with authority without fear or favor, I feel very proud and validated.

Not because it’s any consolation that what I couldn’t be my children are but, I’m just happy anyway. This in a way shows the matrix of their lineage is molded in cast iron and their pedigree is sound.

There are also certain things I do not like being talked to about—like, I may not be able to count them in one hand but one thing I do know is that when it comes to criticizing my children that is a no-go area, a no flying zone.

There are certain things in life you can’t choose. You can choose a husband, I chose this shank-head that is their father, you can choose friends, your profession; you cannot choose your family, your children, your parents, brothers, and sisters. These things are exclusive to the domain of God, which is why whichever way they are presented to you; you accept them and not question me.

Motion is my way of dealing with mine, when there’s nothing else to validate my stand and lack of achievement, I walk to the beginning and walk back, kept going with the thought of a whole raft of children strung out behind me, all of them, five in all, plain and simple, this is the source of my exodus: I’ve got to keep moving, as I’m doing right now, and why I’m standing right up there to muse and defend them.

Yes! They are spoilt brats, and so? They are off-Standish, off-handed, off- key, sort of mundane, but hell, they are my children. I can’t throw them away nor swap them for anybody else’s. They get on everyone’s nerves and on mine even the more. They step on many toes knowingly or unknowingly, and I do get on their nerves and step on their toes too. It’s life that’s how it goes, whether we like it or not. No one is perfect, far from it.

I get frantic sometimes, and worry about them a lot, that they may not turn out as planned. But, heck! Who cares about perfection? Be good at whatever you do, pretend to be the best even though you know you are not. Fake it until you make it that’s my motto. "The rule of the thumb is trying and never stop trying.’

These kids are decadent, they don’t kowtow when they greet the elders, and they don’t have the African culture, the African melodramatic mannerisms. They are everything; they are not supposed to be. They don’t understand the rules our ancestors have laid down for us. These are the qualities my children do not possess.

They behave like manner less foreign children with no background, or proper upbringing, but damn, to ‘hell!’ Who really cares? They are still my babies and I love them to bits. Conquest, liberation democracy, hot-headedness, wacky sense of humor, these are all that characterized them. I’ve been asked to