Nice story. Just read through all 8 episodes and I'm looking forward to the 9th one. I think this should make front page. A more coherent story than the Unilag Runs girl Story. Episode 1My name is Oyinkasola Olaitan Clegg. I am a lady. I am 35. I am single. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. But I have had to say this either verbally or otherwise to so many people in the course of the last few years that sometimes I begin to wonder if there’s really nothing wrong with me. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t come and tell me “you are not married Oyin, something must be wrong with you” no, they would never do that. But say it, they did, loud and clear.
Let me not bore you with those parts of my life. As a background, I am a good looking Yoruba girl, well shaped the way African men like their women, with flesh in the right places. I have a first degree from the University of Lagos and a Masters Degree from the University College, London. I am Behind, fresh and a high flyer. I even have the dream job, a CSR person in an oil firm. And I like to live life to its fullest. These are the stories of my encounters, escapades and experiences as I search for the man who will leave his family and cleave to me. Who will love me forever. Who will make my life eternal bliss. Okay, okay, okay, I am doing it again. I tend to project the stories I read into life. Never mind, I am old enough to know that stories are just that, stories.
Its Friday night. And when you say that in Lagos social circles, it could only mean one thing; ditch the suits and let the short dresses, body hugging jeans and bust enhancing tops come forth. And so I called up my friends Toke and Gloria and we agreed to meet up at Mega Plaza to start the night with some chips and seafood. I shutdown at five O Clock and drove straight home to my apartment in Carlton Gate Estate in Lekki. Inside the house, I flopped into my couch and turned on my companion at home, my TV. Now pardon me, but I wonder how life must have been before the TV. If I was lost on an island and I could take only one item along, it had to be either my BB or my TV (see how we have a knack for reducing things to two letter words). As I settled in to rest in reserve for the long night ahead, my phone rang. I glanced at the screen to confirm who it was. It was just Kalu. I was hoping it would be somebody else. I had been ignoring bb messages from him all day and I guess he calculated I’d be off work now and decided to call.
Okay, a little background on him. I am 35 and single (I know I’ve said it before but I need to re-emphasize) so when I really need to get some and there’s no serious person around, I do the phone select. Here’s how it’s done. You pick your phone and scroll through your contacts list and eliminate men based on certain criteria. What you want is a no strings attached person who will not interpret a night together as an invitation to a long term relationship. So you cancel out the fervent toasters, the guys who have been having settling down conversations with you (considering you didn’t consider them settling down material and latch on all the while you’ve been having such conversations) and other such over-serious people. By now, you’ve narrowed the list down. Then you eliminate those who are in places so far it requires too much effort to see. I stay in Lekki, so if you stay in places like Ipaja, Ikorodu and the likes, I ex you from the list. Now I have a probable list. Then I go into the fineries of history together, attraction and settle on a few options. I then put a call through to the best option of the lot and drop a few hints. If he catches on, game on. If he doesn’t, I round the conversation off and move on to the next until I hit jackpot. This was the rigorous screening process I had put Kalu through, but we get wrong sometimes. I was very wrong with Kalu. After the night together (that’s a story for another day), he became all he wasn’t meant to be. Clingy, intrusive and needy.
Anyways, back to the present. I picked the call and the conversation went something like this
Kalu: Hey Princess
Me: Kalu, whatsup (I called him his name, he should get the message)
Kalu: You haven’t responded to my messages all day
Me: I’ve had a full day.
Kalu: But you read all the messages, it said R here. You could have sent a small message. Anyways, you said had, so your workday is over. Are you going out?
Me: (Warning bells, anything I say now will have Kalu trying to be a part of whatever plans) Yes. I’m home now. No I’m not going out, I have a wedding tomorrow and want to rest
Kalu: Okay, I’ll buy dinner and come over.
Me: (Alarm bells) Thanks for the offer Kalu, but the girls are using my pad for a Hen night for the bride to be.
Kalu: (sighs). Okay, I’ll see you after the wedding tomorrow.
Me: Call me before heading o.
Kalu: Goodnight love
Me: Ciao.
Whew. That was close. Quick thinking, quick lying saved the day. Now to rest and get ready for the night out.
At 9:45, I was ready to go out. I was hot, hot, hot. In fact, I was so hot, I was burnt and roasted, lol. I said the spinster’s prayer and stepped out of the house. I hooked up with my girls at Mega Plaza. If you haven’t tried the chips and sea food there, then you are a weist! We shared two plates and by then, it was eleven O clock. We touched up and smiled past the bouncers, very glad with the effect we saw our collective hotness was having (you notice babes look finer as a group than alone)
We took the elevator and then the small flight of stairs up into The Marquee. Lagos sha. People that were at work complaining of tiredness a few hours ago at work were here grooving away. As I was stepping in, someone bumped into me on his way out. I was about to give the person “bad eye” when our eyes met. I felt like entering the ground. It was Kalu. Episode 2 I quickly gathered myself together and smiled very charmingly, hoping to disarm him. “Hi Kalu”, I said. I was expecting him to go into a series of questions accusing me of lying to him and all, when she came up to him. Inside my inner mind, green envy began to sprout. Her skin was clear like she had someone following her around photoshoping her with each step she took. Abeg, when I see person wey pass me, I admit it. The girl was the kind that entered a room and all the men in the room stopped seeing every other girl in the room and became puppies all around her. She was addressing Kalu now, “Boo, I told you to hold up, I just had to say hi to my friend now”. The confirmation that Koikoi (yes, I gave her a name) was with Kalu and they were obviously intimate made the green monster in my heart leap. I felt a strong urge to punch him in the face, but I respected myself. Why anyway? What claim did I really have to Kalu?
The saying that something becomes more desirable when it’s not yours hit me square in the face. It was even more painful when I realized I was just “one of the options” Kalu had for the night. Then it dawned on me; Kalu had done the phone select, and I was one of the options that didn’t work for that Friday night. The saying, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” is true o, cos now that I was on the receiving end, e pain me die.
Kalu quickly did the introductions, and I could see a look in his eyes I suspected was gloating. “Oyin Clegg, my friend,” he said pointing at me while facing her and then turning to face me, he said with meaning “My special friend, Tara Cole”. Ha! Even her name was finer than my own. My night was firmly on the path of depression. They breezed past us towards the spiral steps leading to the elevator, as Kalu said coolly “Enjoy your night girls, and if you’re having any trouble enjoying yours, we’d be glad to help.”
Once they were out of earshot, Toke began laughing stupidly. “Is that the ‘clingy’ Kalu?” she asked sarcastically. “If you don’t leave me en, I will deal with you. Man or no man, we’re grooving tonight and that’s it. I can get a man in this club as easily as Kalu could get another woman jor”. Trust my friends to latch in on something like that. Gloria raised her eyebrow “You get the iPad 3 Alvin is sending next week if you can get someone as hot as the girl Kalu had with him”. I decided to play stupid “Are you suggesting I swing the other way and get a girl instead of a man?” Gloria slapped my butt playfully “You are just an ode. I meant a man with the same degree of hotness as that girl.” I gave it a brief thought. “Okay, it’s a deal. I’ll have to ditch you girls at some point sha o.” We went through the hall to the open balcony and then chose our seats carefully. If you were a girl and hunting, the best place to seat was right in front of the bar. From there, you could see the door and all that came through. The big boys didn’t stay inside the packed hall, they came to the balcony to lounge. So any man worth the while of a Lekki big girl like me would be coming through this door. You could also see if he was in company of some Koikoi kinda girl or alone. Plus seating at the bar meant you could see the ones that had come in before you if they came to order their drinks. You could also gauge them by the size of the bills they came to pay for their drinks from where you sat. So we took the seat.
We were seated, chatting and waiting for our drinks, when it dawned on me. “Gloria, mad babe. You didn’t say what you would be having if I didn’t win the wager, (Like that could happen with Her Royal Hotness like me).” Gloria smiled like a wolf. “Those your Jimmy Choo shoes”. “Ole,” I shouted. “You have been coveting those shoes since the first day you saw them. Lai lai.” My BB vibrated and I picked it from the table to check the message that had come in at that time of the night. It was Kalu gloating, the eran nme. “I hope the hen night is going very well at your house? Hope y’all are going gingi. #bbmrollingonthefloorlaughing smiley.” Then he sent a picture of himself and koikoi kissing passionately in his car with the caption “see what you’re missing”. I was so angry I dumped the BB with a thud. My friends were already curious and dove for my BB without asking. They quickly scrolled through the message and began hissing “this guy is a monkey, this guy is a cow, this guy is (insert any animal name of your choice here)”. While they were engrossed in the BB, we all indulged in calling Kalu all sorts of names. The drinks began to flow and the gist became loser and loser.
Thankfully, I could talk and hunt at the same time. Else I would have missed him. Lord have mercy on your daughter, but if I was Eve and he was the apple, I’d eat him up over and over again and damn every consequence. He was fiiiiiiiiiine. If he passed me too closely I’d begin to breathe heavily. Clean shaven face under a clean shaven head just like I liked them. He was taller than everyone else around him and had chosen to wear a t-shirt that flaunted his muscles. I didn’t mind o, if he got em, he should flaunt em. He reeked of hotness and sensuality and I was hoping I wasn’t drooling now. My friends followed my eyes as did every other set of female eyes there and I could see the thoughts running through their heads were more impure than mine. “If I could hear your thoughts now, I’m sure I’d send you straight to have your insides washed with bleach.” We all laughed and then I continued “I’m sure we all agree that he fits the bill for Gloria and I’s wager.” They both nodded. “Na wa o, he got your tongues? Anyways,” I said, standing up and checking everything to make sure the packaging was done right “iPad 3, here I come!” I did a test shake of the booty “How am I doing back there,” I asked. Toke slapped my butt and said “silly girl. Get out of here and don’t come back empty handed.
I had not taken three steps away from my friends when I felt him (I didn’t need to see him o, as a hunter that I am, I don’t rely on only my sense of sight). I turned to him and smiled my most sexy smile and cooed “Hello, can we dance?” He didn’t say a word. Hmmm. The cool, few words type. Me likey! He just walked up to me and put his arms around me as if he had possessed me for a long time. I snuggled and shot a glance back at Toke and Gloria. They looked on, wide-eyed. He led me to a corner where there were no tables and as if on cue, the d-jay began to play Waje’s “Can I be your girl for a minute”. The whining and grinding was something else. And could the dude move. I asked if I could take a picture. He nodded yes. I put my booty outrageously close to his crotch and took a picture with my BB. I sent the picture first to Gloria with the caption “One iPad 3 coming up.” Then I sent the same picture to Kalu with the caption, “Missing what?” |
