It is a hot Saturday afternoon after the bustle of the morning sanitation; that long interval between breakfast and lunch when there is nothing to do. Everyone is either asleep or trying to read, including the matron and the hostel mistresses; there is an unnatural hush in the air that is impossible on other days of the week.
You are at your desk, an open Economics textbook in front of you, staring intently at the words but seeing nothing. You’re trying to grasp the dynamics of the Demand Curve laid out on the green page, but your mind is too flighty to be held in one place. Your thoughts slide through your fingers like fine grains of sand and guided by the force of desperate longing, they drift until they settle, invariably on the subject that has occupied you for most of the past year. Or rather, the person. Her.
Involuntarily, your heart lurches, your fists clench and hot tears burn your eyes. You sit in your purgatory for a while, with the same well-worn thoughts torturing you, over and over. Then you fling the textbook into your locker, bang it shut, and march blindly out of the classroom like an elephant on a rampage. Something must happen today because you can’t bear this anymore.
She is seating cross-legged on the soft, purple-carpeted floor in her cubicle. She is also reading the green Economics textbook. Her back is slightly slouched, and her long, long lashes are lowered in concentration. With her shiny black hair and skin, she looks like a young Nubian priestess deeply pondering a sacred text. Your breath catches momentarily in your throat as her beauty floors you. Then she looks up.
She is neither overly welcoming nor hostile, which is a fair sign. She asks the regular, polite questions. Can I help you? Do you need anything? You want to seize her by the throat and choke her till she gasps for mercy, while you scream, Yes! I do need something, you frigid, unfeeling bitch! And you know just what it is!
But you smile and say no, you just want to talk. So, she unfolds her svelte body, gracefully as usual, and stands to face you. The elegance of her movements makes up for the seeming absence of feminine curves. But you know that the supposed absence is a lie. That behind the austere clothing is one of the most appealing physiques you have ever laid eyes on.
You remember the first time you realized this. You had sleepily walked into the bathroom with its long row of doorless stalls, heading for the very last one which was your preferred bath location, because it afforded what little privacy could be had without doors or curtains. Several girls had been bathing in the various stalls you passed, whom you didn’t spare a glance.
Then your eyes fell on a being of pure perfection: a firm, rounded bosom, made even more luscious by its presence on such a slender trunk, and an impossibly narrow waist which flowed gracefully to meet elastic hips that you thought could only belong to a dancer (as you would later confirm). There is no flabbiness of unwanted flesh to mar this masterpiece, neither jutting bones nor dimples nor stretch marks nor discolouration: the complexion was such smooth, rich chocolate that your taste buds did a little anticipatory dance.
You took in all this with a quick, appraising glance that lasted no more than a split second, barely breaking your stride until your gaze travelled to the face attached to the body. You stopped short and your eyes widened in surprise. It was Her. You knew her well, but you had never guessed what was strategically hidden by her slight slouch, and the plain cut of her clothes.
She must have sensed your lingering stare because when she met your eyes through the stream of water cascading down her face from the showerhead, the corner of her mouth slowly tilted upwards in a knowing smirk. That was when you knew that she knew.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asks now. Correctly, politely, innocently, but the words still bring on a pang. You decide to be done with it at once.
“Why are you doing this to me?” you ask, struggling to keep the tears at bay. “What did I ever do wrong? Why do you keep doing this?”
Her face hardens, and the look you’ve come to dread so much comes into her eyes. “How?”
And just like that, you know that you’ve lost the battle before it even began. That singular question, delivered in that bored, flat voice, is all you’ll get in reply to any further questions you ask. You know this from experience. And you can’t take it.
The dam bursts and the tears gush down in torrents, soaking the front of your dress within seconds. You call her every filthy name you can think of, curse the day she was born and the day you met her, curse her with the pain she has repeatedly inflicted on you, all the while searching her face for a flicker, a sign of the Zizi you knew and loved. A sign of the Zizi that loved you back.
She did love you. She was crazy about you, almost as much as you were about her. She’d said it repeatedly, whispering it in your ear when she lightly nibbled your earlobe, when she covered your face with the soft, moist kisses that you got drunk on, or when she slipped your fingers, one by one, into the glorious warmth of her mouth and sucked on them, grazing the tips with her teeth so delicately that you’d leave earth for a few moments, borne away on feathery dream clouds.
You’ve gotten used to those things, never expecting that you would ever have to miss them as badly as you did now.
Occasionally, she retreated into a dark, private place where you could not reach, no matter how hard you tried. Her eyes took on the glassy, distant look they had now. She became, at first stiff and formal, then increasingly hateful. Soon the gaze from those luminous eyes became poisoned needles, and her curt words struck your heart like flint knives.
But just as you’d decide you weren’t wanted, that you would leave and forget all about her, she’d come rushing back with a deluge of warm hugs and kisses and gifts, never mentioning the episode that just passed, and carrying on as nothing had happened. You never had the power to resist her, but it was exhausting.
It was turning your mind into a motley stew of conflicting emotions. You just needed a reason, a simple, logical explanation that would set everything straight. But all you ever got was the infuriating “How?”
As your diatribe continues, she stands up, unfazed, and starts packing clothes, socks and detergent into two stainless steel buckets. You splutter to a stop, mid-sentence.
She takes the opportunity of the silence to say, “I’m going to wash now. You can stay if you like. If Nnenna comes back, please tell her where I went.”
With that, she and her loaded buckets swing out of the cubicle without a backward glance.
You watch as she disappears through the door of the hostel, unable to feel anything but the strange numbness that is spreading in your stomach. There’s a familiar, unpleasant taste rising in the back of your throat: the taste of shame. You swallow hard against it. Then you hear her silky voice raised in greeting to someone outside, and something snaps inside you.
You tear after her in mindless fury, shoving someone aside at the door and ignoring their protests as you pursue Zizi to the taps. You catch up with her as she begins to fill one bucket with water.
Just as she turns around, you deliver such a brutal slap to the side of her face that your palm sings from the impact. And before she can recover from the shock, you hit her again, and again, and again. She manages to grab your arm, her sharp nails digging deep into your flesh, but you draw her hand to your mouth and bite down hard. Then she roars like an enraged tigress and pounces.
Jackpot, you think.
You both topple to the ground, with her sitting astride you. She’s properly fired up now, and she suddenly seems to have many hands, clawing at your face, pummelling your chest and squeezing your throat at the same time. Her nail opens a gash under your chin, and you feel liquid warmth trickle down your neck.
But when you look into her eyes, the fire you see there is tinged with something different. Excitement. Arousal. That’s when you notice that while her hands are battering your face, with her lower body she is…humping you.
You laugh loudly in her face.
She stops for a moment, eyes glaring wildly. Then she screams in bewilderment, “What kind of demon are you? I am going to kill you.”
ut as she raises her hands again, a voice calls out. “Zizi! What are you doing?”
You both scramble to your feet as Amarachi Ndubuisi appears, bucket in hand, and a look of pure alarm on her face. The look heightens as she takes in your scratched face and bleeding chin, shaking her head from side to side like she cannot believe her own eyes.
“Oh…my… God. Both of you are crazy.” she says, and beats a hasty retreat.
There is a moment of embarrassed silence when you dare not look at each other. Then her arms are around you and the hardness is gone from her eyes. She kisses your battered face and whispers, ‘I’m sorry. Are you okay?’
A smile curves your swollen lips. Everything is alright again…for now.
About the Writer
Name: Mojisola Ebun