₦airaland Forum

The Thing around Your Waist

Chapter 1
Calabar, Nigeria. Thursday August 5, 2010.

She was turning restlessly in bed, but he was fast asleep and snoring aloud.
He had his fill of her body and thought she was happy as they were sweating after the hours of sex. But whilst he was stroking and thrusting in and out of her, her mind was a mile away. She was ill at ease. She glanced at her Nokia phone and saw that it was about 13.00 am. He turned and threw his arms to hold her. He wanted another round of sex. She looked at him and grunted. He was well built and his virility was quite satisfactory and he was fun to be with. They both loved to dance and swim and shagging whenever they wanted since she was now his live in lover. But intellectually, he was average. He could hardly contribute much to her term papers. She was no longer excited to share his carnal indulgences. She knew that he saw her more as a sex object than anything else.
Yes. Our kids will look like you.
He was over the moon when she said that to him and even posted it on her Facebook wall.
But now as she regarded him, their children would not make popular posters if they looked like him. He was not yet 30 and she was wondering what he would like at 40 or 50. Would she find him attractive at 40 as she found Babbi who was still making younger women to drool at 45? She tried to figure how Ebua would look like at 45 when he was already looking older than his age and with premature pot belly. Her mind was filled with the reminiscences of the precious moments she had with Babbi. They had three unforgettable nights in three different cities in Nigeria. The four hours they spent talking, playing and making love in Abuja remained in her heart. She recalled how she ran to embrace him as Godwin dropped her at the entrance into the guest house where Babbi lodged. She felt the wetness in her eyes. Oh, God! What went wrong?
Many things went wrong. She knew he made her feel immature and insecure and publicly disgraced her as he insulted and taunted her for what he termed betrayal of trust and love. He called her a bitch, witch and prostitute. She swallowed every bitter pill he threw at her. He never spared anyone who offended him. His words stung her and she got all riled up and thought the best way to hurt him was to throw herself at Ebua in rabid sex. Yes. Call me a bitch or whatever you like. I do not care! She was screaming in her mind as she threw her legs wide apart in the air welcoming every penetration of Ebua turgid penis until she climaxed. That was her revenge. Let a younger man fork me badly madly.
You have only confirmed everything I called you last November, Babbi replied.

Then she found out that Babbi got another girlfriend and four years younger than her and with bigger boobs too. She hissed. How younger women still flock to him in his late forties. He was not a baby face or beefcake, but he had unique looks. His bushy eyebrows, dark blue eyes, Greek nose, high cheekbones and square jaw made him attractive in an enigmatic way. His charisma and his gift of gab also made him outstanding with his six feet and three inches height and athletic physique.
His eyes na wa, an excited young girl once remarked after meeting Babbi. And they just loved his name Babbi. They found it very romantic.
She missed his sweet early morning wakeup calls.
Ekaiete, Ebua muttered and his left hand stretched to his crotch. He had a massive erection and she knew what that meant. It was becoming a routine she had to live with if she would spend the rest of her life with him. She was not really in the mood, but she wanted to please him. She mounted him and his hard penis entered into her dry vagina. She began rocking him and he started muttering many words of ecstasy in their mother tongue of Efik.
I hope your vagina will not make me mad.
No my husband.
He was stirred and he soon turned her aside and was entering her from under her round buttocks.
Ebua, she moaned as he ejaculated.


Lagos, Nigeria. Friday August 13, 2010.

Susan, have you finished reading the book? Babbi asked.
Susan looked up and shook her head.
She was sitting behind her office desk in an armchair. She was in a blue pantsuit and black court shoes with low heels. She braided her hair in a hairstyle that drew pleasant remarks from Babbi, her boss Mr. Joseph Deinde and others who admired her. She adjusted her plain spectacles as he spoke to her.
Babbi was wearing a blue long sleeved shirt with silver cufflinks, blue denim trousers and black loafers. He was sitting in front of the desktop PC and glancing once in a while at the small TV set placed on a wooden stand fixed to a wall in the general office. The TV was always on for them to monitor the news and other programmes for contents that might be useful to the Betty magazine the company published online and offline. Babbi was responsible for the content development and management. Susan smacked her lips and turned to the files she was going through. She was the receptionist and Babbi’s recommendation got her the job. Mr. Deinde fired her once, but Babbi soon intervened and she got her job back. She admired him for many reasons. The most important was the respect he gave her. He always treated her with dignity, integrity, humility and nobility as he treated her elders. She loved to see and hear him attending to their clients and visitors with confidence and not arrogance. Then on her last birthday he gave her an inspirational book written by one of his female friends and some money to buy anything she wished. He had planned to take her out, but he had malaria and was not fit enough for a date. She wished him speedy recuperation so that he would take her out and, make love to her. They have had quality time to discuss things of mutual interest to them. She loved books and that was one of the most important things he actually appreciated. She always carried his love book like a handbook to guide and guard her on relationships. She knew about the unfortunate circumstances that destroyed his last relationship and she wanted to replace the girlfriend he had broken up with. But there was another young woman who was coming to visit him in the office. Nkiruka was a taller and more attractive woman he seemed to be excited about. She had seen the glints of excitement in his eyes whenever she visited and the last time she was lying in the office couch and enjoying his attention as he pampered her and Susan could swear that they would have been smooching if they were left alone in the office. And when she was leaving, he had his left hand around her slender shoulders. She must have felt ten feet tall! But Susan still believed that Babbi would be her lover soon, because she had seen it written all over him as he admired her sexuality and she always enhanced that whenever they were alone in their small office. She was smart and could make him to express his feelings. She gave him bait about a pretty and sexy young woman who wanted a lover and thought he would like to go for her, but Babbi said he was only interested in Susan. Gosh! She blushed and was glad to know how much he really wanted her. He was a very frank person and she loved that. Like the last song of Michael Jackson This is it.
Babbi’s mobile phone rang and he picked it up from where he placed it beside the PC.

You are coming this evening?
Susan wondered who was calling him. Nkiruka?
Gugu is coming with you. How did your meeting go?
Oh, thank God, it was not Nkiruka.
Alright. I will be in the office. I am working on my next book and my first feature film. I also have an invitation to my partner’s film festival in Germany this September.



Chapter 2

Saturday August 14, 2010.

Dear Pam,
I do not know whether you have read The Prophet by Khalil Gibran.
It is not how many books a writer writes that matters, but how much impact the writer makes in the world.
Harper Lee wrote only one book, To Kill A Mockingbird and that made it into the greatest 100 books of the 20th century.
I hope that I will end up touching millions of lives with my words. No matter the evils in the world today, good will eventually prevail as Robert Alden said, There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle.

Thank you for your prayers and words of wise advice. In a way, you are like my muse.
I am in the midst of people ruled more by their instinct than their intellect. So, I think I am in an animal kingdom.
I have wasted my time and earnings on a brutish and impish companion who has shown me that she is impetuous, promiscuous and vacuous when I thought I could make a virtuous woman out of her.

You now know why my country has remained so backward in spite of all the decades of colonization and neocolonialism.
Apes will be apes as dogs will be dogs and pigs will be pigs no matter how best you dress them up like humans.
They read only to pass their exams for the qualifications they need to get the jobs, titles and political posts they would cheat, steal and kill for in their desperation to catch up with the Joneses.

Pam, let me not bore you with the litany of the anomie plaguing my country
Karl Maier said it all in This House Has Fallen and indeed she has gone to the dogs.
Say a prayer for the innocent ones lest they would be infested by the cankerworms crawling all over the place.

Stay blessed.

Faithfully
Babbi.

Babbi went over his letter again and soon e-mailed it. His laptop was on the bed in-between his pillows.
He was in his boxer shorts. It was a cool Saturday morning on the Lagos Island. He could see the traffic from the open windows in his apartment in the block of luxury flats on Osborne Road in Ikoyi.
I get my visa on Wednesday; I will be out of Nigeria before the end of the month.
At times I feel that I have wasted all the decades I have spent trying to do my best for my family and my country, because those I thought really needed my love have turned out to be brutes and ingrates. Speaking sense to a people who do not have conscience is a bloody waste of time.

His mobile phone rang and he turned to answer it.
Susan. He almost forgot that she said she would be coming to spend the day with him. She was at the door. He opened the door and she walked in. She was dressed in a grey tight fitting silk gown and black stiletto shoes. Babbi could sniff the perfume on her. She hung a small leather bag on her left shoulder.
You smell nice, he said smiling and hugged her passionately.
Hmm, she cooed.
Where should we go today? He asked.
I will prefer we stay indoors and spoil each other a little, she replied.
Alright sweetheart, he said and kissed her deeply.
Oh, Babbi, you are making me melt, she purred.
He was quick at undressing her and then saw a gold chain around her waist.
This is cute, he said touching the gold chain and using his fingers to play with it.
Oh, Babbi. But hold on, I have a present for you.
He was already naked and about to mount her when she sat up on the bed and reached for her handbag she had placed on one of the sofas in the apartment.
Tolstoy, she enthused as she brought out a hardcover copy of Leo Tolstoy’s Resurrection.
Thanks. But I have read it 20 years ago.
Okay. I will still want you to have this copy.
Alright my darling.
She was handing it to him and as he was accepting it with his right hand, he was using his left hand to caress her boobs. He put the novel aside and was kissing her from the crown of her head to the toes of her feet.
Babbi.
Yes.
Do you love me?
He did not reply and was thrusting deeper and deeper into her.
Babbi, do you love me?
I do. I do. I do.
She wanted to ask another question, but the sensation of orgasm overwhelmed her and she could not help screaming his name.
Baaaabbbbiii!
They used every suitable furniture in the bedroom for their sexual intercourse. The bed, sofa, the armchair, the stool and the table. After over two hours of passionate lovemaking, they relaxed to talk and then he reached for Resurrection.
I regard Resurrection as Tolstoy’s greatest novel, but most scholars say War and Peace, Babbi said.
I have not read any of his works, said Susan.
Then, you should start with Resurrection, Babbi said giving her the book.
Babbi, I am reading Helen Oyeyemi and I have more books I am yet to read, said Susan.
Well, add Resurrection to your reading list.
Alright Babbi.
She got up from the bed and went to the bathroom. He followed her and they made love as they showered.
Later they left for the Genesis Deluxe Cinema at The Palms Shopping Mall in Lekki.


PS:
TO BE CONTINUED.