Mondays are supposed to be less hectic courtesy of the sit-at-home policy in the eastern part of Nigeria. However, because the folks over here love to defy laws that do not fetch them the currency which earns the average human egotistical and psychopathic attributes, it unfortunately, is usually the opposite for me. I find myself labouring, not just on weekdays, but on weekends, constantly trading my sanity for punctuality and a few naira notes, which, if you ponder intensely about it, can be harshly mind-boggling. Why do humans have to do that? Pay for things with their strength and time instead of simply existing to enjoy? I was told to turn on the generator on one of my trade days. Let’s just say, being an adult offers you zero discount on the consequences of naivety.
I miss my mum. And my siblings. But I know I'd want to be far away from them as soon as we’re physically close for too long. Not because they are despots, or they asphyxiate me, or anything, but because there's just something about the urge to fill your void with family, only to realise that what you truly wanted was to avoid other people's reaction to your existence. The existence that consists of endless wants. There's never going to be something thoroughly fulfilling for me, would there? I am always going to want something else as soon as I have what I previously wanted well within my grasp. A job now, a partner later, a bottle of wine a few days after having a partner and realising they are not what I initially wanted.
I found a chap. Online. Name’s Navi. Afro hair and tiny eyes, reasonable conversation skills, but relatively poor finger nails. Since there’s never going to be a physical meeting, or so I think, we'd go several miles together as long as I don't get to see those talons all the time. I met a second one. The anonymity of the latter is something I’d love for you to respect. The second is an individual I should find a little more endearing, but I haven't been with a person intimately since the beginning of last year and everything about physical connection suddenly feels alien to me. Do you know that I almost shed a tear after our first hug? It's hilarious now, but I shuddered then. Shuddered at the thought of it taking something as trivial as a hug to get me to recognise all the pent up emotions within me. I blinked them back. The tears, I mean. And swallowed the arising lump in my throat. I couldn't afford to be caught crying over the shoulder of a male figure right after getting the bare minimum. Actually, it wasn't a shoulder per se. Considering the difference in our heights, it was more like… stomach level. But, it was extra nice to know he noticed my emotions and didn't bother to raise any questions; simply smooched my cheeks, smiled with his eyes, and kept our previous activities moving like nothing happened.
Boys. It's particularly chucklesome that I scribble notes, not about the tenebrific weather or the lack of water in my residential area, or about the quiet female passenger who unexpectedly uttered loud profanity at the driver behind the wheels of a Prado jeep for illegally swerving into our lane before our own driver could mutter his own condemnations; not about the Aboki dude who repaired my shoes this morning and kept going on and on about his intentions of adding two more wives to the one he already had at the house he’d inherited from his father in order to teach his wife a lesson for her noncompliance and bullheadedness, or about my roommate who infuriates me one moment and is kind the next, unintentionally interrupting my vengeance inspired plans— but about boys. Random containers crammed with breath.
I last did this in high school when I was self-tutoring about hormones and the female body in general. High school. Where I wasn't permitted to have a ‘crush’ because it went against the discipline and beliefs of my parents and school authorities, but still went ahead to have a handful, anyway. Jotting jaggedly compacted paragraphs in a private exercise book that I'll later refer to as my diary—the same private diary my siblings would snoop around reading without my permission. I remember some things about high school, although not vividly. I remember it endowed me with the pleasure and privilege of feeling tempestuous things towards the opposite sex, but robbed me of the ability to decipher which was which and how to handle its teachings.
I blame certain people for my former inadequacies. The people here are the academic authorities and my parents. I know it will do me little good, but still, I cannot stop myself from apportioning blame. I keep thinking, perhaps, if the school authorities were a little less strict, I would have been taught about the female body in its entirety, not just a fraction that mostly had to do with the importance of wearing sanitary pads, which, to be honest, only happened when a sanitary pad company came around the school to promote their goods or create awareness about pads. Perhaps, if my parents were a little more gentle, a little more forgiving, I would have told them that my first kiss was not with the boy my elder sister caught me cuddling up with in my parents’ living room in my fourth year in high school, nor was it with Hassan, the dark skinned JSS 2 boy with a scar on his left chin who solely wore properly pressed uniforms and sat in the fifth row alongside the two boys who frequently bullied Naza, the petite girl with round glasses. I would have told them that, although I didn't kiss Hassan that day, I had said nothing when he tried to slide his hands beneath my skirt to feel the liquid substance staining my undies. Maybe if they were a little more lenient, I would have told them that my first kiss was actually from Daddy’s elder brother, Uncle Solo, who'd come to spend the Christmas holiday with us one elongated summer. I would have told them that I initially had a huge crush on Uncle Solo immediately when he stepped into my parent’s apartment, so it wasn’t coincidental that I felt quite special when he kissed me softly on the lips and called me a ‘big girl’ five days after his arrival.
“You’re not like other girls, you know,” he said, staring hungrily at the swollen skin on my chest that was supposed to camouflage as breasts. “You’re a big girl and uncle really likes you.”
I would have told them that he’d let me feed my inexperienced eyes on the pornographic videos and pictures on his phone after our first kiss, and kept watching me as my nipples stood firm beneath my dress, like a hawk scrutinizing its prey. At the time, I knew what was happening wasn’t supposed to happen, and that my parents had consistently warned me and my siblings of the consequences of actions that were never fully explained—actions like this—but I didn’t know how to quell it. Most importantly, I didn’t know how to stop relishing it. It wasn’t until he tried grabbing my breasts with his gnarled fingers—because his palms were too huge for the act—that I was able to jolt and scramble into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind me, and desperately appealing to God for forgiveness for inclining toward the unthinkable.
As my penance, I scarcely looked at my reflection for over three months, and made a vow to ignore Uncle Solo until he left our house back to his flat in Lekki Phase 1. I was unable to keep to that vow because I was only a child and could not disobey errands that involved Uncle Solo’s presence without disclosing my justifications for defiance. But I tried to keep an authoritarian face as much as possible and only tended to the tasks I was instructed to perform. Thankfully, we'd kissed towards the end of summer and his stay with us, so it was easy to escape the pressure of having a conversation with him against my will. When he did return for a second visit after promising me loads of gifts in exchange for silence during the first, I was away in college battling cramps, early morning devotions, stolen stockings, buckets, and beverages, peer pressure, malaria, and the urge to remain academically smart while still keeping up with sanity.
I do like both the boys I listed above. One more than the other, definitely. But I am polyamorous and the thought of keeping both of them close stays with me like light. However, I recognize this short term attraction that stems mainly from aloneness, and I fear that if I give it more thought than I should and spend additional time than the allocated period accorded myself, I may realize this fully and withdraw my connection. Regardless, I'll try not to think so hard, lest this supposed good thing slip out my palms.
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