₦airaland Forum

I walked through the black gates, hoping to not regret the visit. Twitter hype brought me here, twitter hype and maybe basic economics.

My DSTV payments had been on hold for a while on account of the wind of change - Buhari’s financial harmattan - but my darling Red Devils were playing the Chavs that afternoon in the English Premiership and I had to watch the match live, especially given Mou’s involvement. Most of the tweeps I lowkey asked for a good place to catch the game on the mainland favored The Bar Enclave, citing a combination of cheap ‘mortuary standard’ booze, superb grilled turkey and of course great banter.

These were tweeps who should know, so I allowed Twitter hype sway my decision making, moreso as Ilupeju isn’t that far from my Surulere crib.

The dim interior was still largely empty when I entered and one of the TVs was even showing a movie, so I walked straight to the bar.

“Hey bro, good afternoon” I said to the barkeep. “Let me have one bottle of Star. Chilled please.”

The short fair skinned sporting a wicked mohawk acknowledged my greeting and went to attend to my order.

My eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom as I scouted for a place to sit; finally settling on the last table on the right, level with the door I just walked through. It was a sweet corner, allowing me to observe the whole room while staying pretty much incognito. The power socket on the wall just below a pencil sketch of James Dean was another attraction.

The drink came; bottle seriously sweating and I poured myself a glass and took a sip. My teeth ached pleasantly from the chill and I briefly closed my eyes to savor the heavenly feeling. It had been a while I got beer that cold outside of my own fridge.

“Mind if I join you in your prayers?”

My eyes flew open. The intruder was a lady, pretty, petite and dressed in a blue shirt and jeans and with a mischievous grin.

“I’m sorry to disturb your quiet time, but you’re sitting in my corner.”

It sounded weird, her claiming ‘corner’ in a public bar but it was my first time and I didn’t want any stress, so I made to get up.

“Oops, I didn’t know. Pardon my ignorance ma’am.”

I must have sounded funny, because she started laughing.

“C’mon man, I’m joking. I just want to charge my phone for a while. You mind?”

I fell back in my seat, relieved.

“Oh that? I was about to plug in too, but then I am a gentleman, so no, I don’t. Go right ahead.”
“Aww” she cooed. “You’re so sweet and a true gent to be honest. Yet they say chivalry is dead.”

Her eyes twinkled with amusement, and I liked her immediately. She had this easy demeanor and self – assurance. I normally like confident women, so my liking this one before me had nothing to do with her being light skinned, or the fact that her top button was open and her fairly sized hooters were winking at me.

She had a small black rucksack which she dropped on the table and started rummaging inside. I looked away and took another sip of my beer.

“Voila!” she exclaimed, drawing my attention back to her withdrawn hand. It triumphantly held a multisocket plug aloft.
“There. Now you have somewhere to plug your phone too. See? Women are not so selfish after all right?”

I thought I picked up a slight emphasis on ‘plug’ but her face betrayed nothing, so I let it go.

“Yay” I exclaimed.

Taking it from her, I fixed the multisocket and plugged both phones - hers and mine - while she dragged a chair opposite me and sat down audaciously.

I thought it best to introduce to myself.

“Femi here. You are?”

Her grip was strong as she returned the handshake.

“Does it matter? Names aren’t all that important to me. Call me whatever you think fits.”

Again she smiled.

“Okay then, I’ll think of something. You want a drink in the meantime?”

Her response to that was another curveball.

“Maybe my thirst is for something different, but if a drink is what you’re offering for now mister, I’ll have a Smirnoff thank you.”

Then she winked, deliberately.

Her statement had me stumped, but I just smiled and signaled the barman over.


Much later the place had filled up with guys and the TV was now switched to Supersport. Our respective bottles were beyond half empty and the game was about to begin.

“Help me pass my phone please.”

She had to raise her voice a bit to be heard above the hum that had by now had enveloped us. I obliged and passed her Tecno over.

“Charger too”, she added.

I detached and handed it to her.

“Thank you kind sir for your help.”

I gave a mock bow in return and she smiled, stood, picked up her bottle and downed the content in one long gulp.

The game kicked off, and I quickly typed a tweet urging the reds on to victory.

“You’re a United fan?”

She must have read my tweet from her position.

“To the core, I replied. You?”

She shook her head vigorously.

“Naaa. I’m interested only in games better than football.”

Again, there was something about the way she said it. This time I couldn’t resist probing further.

“Really? Games like?”

She looked directly into my eyes, a hint of a smile dancing around her coated lips.

“I’m off to the ladies mister. If you wanna know, give me a two minute head-start and come find out. This match is a waste of time anyways; United is going to get whooped.”

Then she snatched her bag off the table and sauntered outside. I could have sworn the accidental brushing of her leg against mine as she took her leave wasn’t so accidental.

Scarcely breathing, I slowly counted to a hundred while her parting shot ran round my head. Finally I stood up and went back to the barman.

“My guy, abeg where’s the toilet?”

He didn’t take his eyes off the game as he answered,

“Outside sir. Last door on your right. You can’t miss it.”

I followed his direction, walking swiftly past the guys seated around the TV outside in a crouch to avoid impeding their view.

The main door into the conveniences pushed open easily and I entered and shut it behind me, unsure of what to expect. Directly opposite it in the ‘L’ shaped space was a red door marked ‘male’, and another one on the immediate right marked ‘female’.

Both were closed.

I was about to turn and head back to my seat in the belief that I’d been pranked when the door to the female section opened and someone dragged me inside.

It was my erstwhile drinking partner.

Her left hand shot the bolt home, after which her right pulled me by the collar further inwards towards her. Her jeans and bag were already hung on the edge of one of the louvers and she had no panties on.

My mouth dried up, and dropped open.

“Dude, I thought I scared you off. You want to play like adults or go back to your boring football?”

The question came in a very tempting whisper.

“Play”, I mouthed soundlessly when I finally gathered myself.
“Good”, she replied in similar fashion and pushed me against the wall.

Her hands found my waist in a hurry. Too dazed to move, I watched as she loosened my belt, unzipped my trouser and dragged it down to my ankles with my boxers. Somewhere in my head I muttered a quick prayer of thanks that I’d decided on a new pair of undershorts as I dressed up earlier that afternoon.

The feel of her wet mouth brought me back to the present.

I had to pinch myself hard to reconfirm that this was real, that I was in the female toilet of a crowded watering hole, getting head from a chick whose name I didn’t even know.

It took less than a minute of oral care for me to become rock hard. Satisfied that I was at full mast, she stood up, reached into her hanging bag and brought out a condom which she tore and smoothly slipped on me. Mami obviously came all prepped up. Then she turned around and dropped the WC cover, rolled up her shirt before bending down and pushing her ass out.

Walahi the pink eyed, fat lipped glory hole actually smirked and invited me to “come inside.”

How could I disobey?

We were at it for almost five minutes (although it felt longer in my head), me slamming into her imperial wetness while she kept bouncing her derrière backwards. Thank God for the noise of the crowd outside or somebody surely would have noticed the hollow smacking sound of flesh slapping flesh. Such was our intensity.

I almost collapsed when I came.

She stayed still for a few second until I finished pulsing before she gently slipped me out of her. My knees were like rubber, so I sat down on the loo, breathing hard.

Quickly she brought down her things from their perch and slipped into her jeans. Then she put a finger to her lips indicating that I should be quiet and pressed her ear to the door. Convinced that no one had entered the corridor while we mated, she turned back to me and held up two fingers, then whispered.

“Headstart.”

I nodded my understanding, and then she opened the door a crack and slid out.

When I finally got back to our table she was gone, but there was a scrawled note addressed to me underneath my unfinished bottle of Star lager.

I’ll be here again next Saturday. Maybe then you’ll have a name for me, yes?
Till then, thank you, for everything.
Bleep.

I went straight home without a care about the match result, a good thing because we got well whooped, just like she predicted.

P.S – I am now an Enclave faithful.

Congratulations to the entire Bar Enclave team, here’s to eight years of quality service (and matchmaking) going on eight hundred.

The dance floor is well within sight of where I’m seated, and I watch as bodies move in various styles and directions to the music the DJ is throwing down from his corner. Colorful strobe lights sporadically illuminate sweaty faces in random flashes, briefly giving them grotesque appearances, his included, but I’ve seen enough over the course of the evening to be convinced it will be him.

The target - dressed in a red silk shirt with huge black buttons in the shape of hearts, black baggy jeans and black sneakers - is cute. With a moderate sized head, neatly kept beards and broad shoulders, he stands well above six feet tall and ticks all the right boxes. That he dances very well too is an unplanned for bonus. Of course he is alone, without a companion. That fact I have been careful to make sure of, as that is the only way my plan will move to completion flawlessly.

Occasionally sipping from my robust glass of chilled chapman, I watch him from beneath my lashes until the DJ changes tracks, bringing on a ‘blues’ song. Dancers with companions quickly ‘fuse’ together, as if recreating some earlier planned choreography.

That serves as my cue to move.

In quick calculated steps, I leave my table and walk up to him as he debates whether to leave the floor and find a seat or try his luck with one of the very few single ladies on the dance floor.

“Do you mind if I claim this dance?” I breathe in his ear from behind, loud enough to be heard above the gentle music.

He whirls around, his face showing a mixture of surprise at my boldness and pleasure that he has found someone to dance with. I watch in silent amusement as he switches on his swag while drawing himself up to his full height. Men and their overly bloated egos, he probably thinks I’ve been mesmerized by his irresistible perfection.

“Please, my pleasure…”
And he bows from the waist.
I just smile.

At first he is hesitant, unsure of how best to handle me. By the middle of the second slow jam however I’m all over him, letting him feel my alluring softness mould itself to his manly form.

He gains confidence and grows bolder in his demeanor, just as I had anticipated.

“What’s your name?” he murmurs as I bring both of my arms up to encircle his neck. I perceive a faint whiff of alcohol on his breath, another boon for my cause.
“Joanna” I reply throatily.
“Nice name” he says.
“Thank you. You have a tempting body; and smell like new money. Nothing smells better and lifts a woman’s mood higher like new money.”

He pauses and draws back a bit to look into my eyes, trying to see if I’m being sarcastic. I just continue smiling innocently.

Then I wink, and he laughs.

“I like you Joanna.”
“I like you too, although you didn’t tell me your name.”
“Sorry hon, I’m Edafe. Ofeimu Edafe.”
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance Edafe. Let me tell you a secret, I usually don’t do this, but ‘tis valentine so….”

I shrug and draw him down and closer, my full boobs pressing tight against his chest and playfully nibble on his lips for a few seconds. Something hard rears inside his jeans and poke me as he drags my waist to him and squeezes my bum in retaliation. I let him, swaying gently to the rhythm of the music as his palms wander all over the smoothness of my considerable derriere.

“Another secret I should let you in on, I’m not wearing panties.”
He freezes.
This time I laugh aloud.

“Don’t be scared, I don’t bite. You’ve never had a girl tell you that before?”

He starts moving again, laughing a little louder than before but his hands stay in place, owning my pliant posterior moons.
“Why would I be scared? Of course I’ve heard that before, too many times to count.”
“That’s good then; it means you know what time it is. Maybe we should step outside for some air, I feel a little clammy down ‘there’.”

This time there is no hesitation. I can almost hear the shout of triumph bursting in his brain as he leads his ‘conquest’ out of the hall and into the night, towards a secluded part of the garden on the other side of the compound. The anticipation of things to come quickens his steps, and we walk until we find space big enough for two behind some giant potted palms strategically positioned to keep out prying eyes.

“Close your eyes Edafe, I have a surprise for you.”

So powerful is his thirst that he obeys without question, even placing his palms over his eyes to convince me that they’re well shuttered and he can’t see anything.

The plastic syringe flies from its secure ankle holster to his neck in a flash. Before he even has time to react to the prick of the hypodermic needle, 85 mg of Suxamethonium chloride is running riot in his system, delivering instant paralysis.

He goes down like a stone, his head bouncing off one of the concrete pots.

Quickly looking around once more to be sure nobody is observing, I bring out the stiletto strapped to my inner thigh and stab him straight and true right in the heart, forcefully pushing it in to the hilt. His grunt as the blade roars in could have been mistaken for sexual noise, had anybody been listening that closely.

Then I remove the white plastic rose petal from my hair and dip it briefly in the rapidly expanding pool of blood around his torso to stain it red, before dropping it on his chest as he lay there drawing his last breath.

“Another one for you my angel, have a very happy valentine.”

Then I get out of the hotel in double quick time.

Much later as I lie in the tub, covered in suds and reveling in the fruity smell of exotic bath salts, I let the tears flow. Today makes it three years since my younger sister Angela died as a result of the horrific injuries she sustained during a brutal gang rape at a valentine night party in the University.

Nobody has ever being arrested for the crime, and although the police made a halfhearted attempt at investigating it, the case has probably been filed away as one of those numerous unsolved mysteries.

I however refuse to let my darling go just like that, so every valentine night I find a party, identify a guy with all the qualities I feel Angela would have liked, and stab one male heart in her memory to ensure she never lacks excellent company in the great beyond.

Matchmaking is part of what a good big sister does …

Charles yawns aloud and stretches his joints, then yawns aloud again. He isn’t that tired but his head feels like a wet sponge. For the past hour or so, assimilation hasn’t been easy. He looks outside the window at the darkness of the empty field, then back at the textbook in front of him and shakes his head. Discouragement is clearly evident on his face, as there are still too many pages untouched and the Chemistry test is just four days away. He can’t concentrate; the urge is strong upon him and insistently demanding appeasement.

Something has to die.

One of the many insects dancing around the naked light bulbs hanging from the high ceiling by long cords drops onto the open page of his book and starts crawling around.

Aha he thought to himself, finally! Here is something interesting to play with and relieve the pressure.

First he examines its thorax for markings to be sure that it isn’t the type that causes whiplash when its secretion touches the skin.

There are no black stripes, it is safe.

Quickly before the hapless insect can fly away, he tears off its wings one after the other, rendering it table bound. Then methodically like a surgeon, he proceeds to slowly break its legs into bits using the sharp tip of his pen. The sight of the poor insect struggling to move as its limbs get progressively reduced is amusing to him. When the last leg is gone and the insect lies immobile on its back stumps waving wildly, he casually squashes it to a messy death with his left thumb. Then he inhales the smell from the smear left behind, and instantly feels better.

“So long dear bug, fare thee well.”
Looking up at the other insects still flying around the bulbs above his head, he whispered in a low voice.
“Any one of you fuckers still willing to make my night more interesting?”

His loud laughter echoes around the walls of the empty hall.

Picking up his bulky Chemistry textbook again, he resumes reading, his brain now more absorbent.

The interlude has taken all of ten minutes.

One of the reasons he always chooses to come and read in the Faculty of Agriculture in the dead of night is the solitude, and the abundance of six legged prey. Charles has never thought about why he likes killing insects for fun. It brings him pleasure, more than the most intense orgasm, and he delights in taking them apart, imagining them pleading for mercy as he does.

Anywhere there is a bug to be found, Charles is always there, breaking, tearing and squashing.

****

The jotter on his table is covered in abstract drawings as he tries to take his mind away from his immediate surroundings. Performance Evaluation sessions are always protracted and boring.

An insect saunters across the dull yellow floor tiles as if it belongs there, blatant arrogance in its unhurried steps – at least to Charles’s eyes. It has strange white marks on its brown body and is abnormally large, almost as big as his small finger. It is also very ugly, with big round black eyes. Finding an insect this big wandering around in such a sterile space feels absurd, especially as he’s never as much as sight a fly buzzing around in his time in that office.

The boss’s voice cuts into his thoughts.

“Charles, can you please share your perspective on the foreign exchange challenges currently facing the country and what it portends for the economy in general and our company in particular?”

“Yes sir.”

He stands up and starts talking, glad to finally have something tangible to do. By the time he’s done and resumes his seat, the intruder is long gone.

That night he has a dream. Someone is knocking insistently at his front door, and when he finally gets there and yanks it open, there stands his boss, looking dapper in a dashing brown three piece suit and smiling at him – wearing the head of that ugly bug from the office.

****

The insect casually comes up to his foot, stops and appears to sit back on its hind legs, gently twiddling its antennae. Anger suddenly wells in Charles's head. It has to be the same insect from the other day, there is simply no way two of those things would be crawling around the office all these time and someone else wouldn’t have noticed. He looks around at his colleagues as they focus on their different tasks, and returns his gaze to the floor where the insect is still sitting, huge shiny black eyes looking up at him. He hears its silent challenge to his authority quite clearly.

“Heads up Charles, catch!”

He jerks his head up and catches the can of Pepsi whizzing through the air instinctively. It feels cold to touch.

“Nice catch boy, nice catch.”
Ade smiles at him as he pops the lid on his own can and takes a swig. Charles returns the smile, mouths a ‘thank you’ and looks down again.

His bugsy friend is gone.

That night there is another dream. This time the insect stands as tall as man outside his window, gazing inwards at him, with the silver slice of a new moon hanging in the sky just over its shoulder.

The cold smile on its face is terrifying.

****

One week later as Charles waits in the empty office for the others to come back from lunch, it is there again. Even when he squeezes and throws a ball of paper at it, the damned bug doesn’t flinch.

“Tough guy are you? Okay then, let’s see how you deal with this.”

He stands up and deliberately steps on it with his size ten shoe.

“There, he grunts with satisfaction as he grinds his heel, that will teach you never to mess with the big kahuna again, never ever. Have a safe trip to bug heaven or wherever it is that bugs go, and don’t forget to extend my regards to all your other cousins I sent ahead of you.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Charles whirls at the sudden intrusion of Regina’s voice. He didn’t hear her open the door.

“No one babe. I’m just singing a song. Y’all done?”
“Yes we are, she replies. Ade should be here in a minute or two.”

She wrinkles her nose as she walks towards her table.
“What’s that horrible smell? Did someone die in here while we were gone? Jeez, it’s awful.”
“But I don’t smell anything”, says Charles with a nonchalant shrug.
“You wouldn’t, even if somebody waves an open jar of rotten eggs right under your nose.”
“True, we all can’t be ferrets you know”, he claps back.

She gets to her corner and pulls open a drawer, brings out a can of air freshener and generously douses the room with a rich cinnamon fragrance.

****

Charles stays up late watching television before retiring to bed at a quarter past eleven, and wakes up with a start exactly one hour after - heart thudding. The nightmare this time has been terribly vivid.

He is running around inside a quiet sunlit forest, chased by an unseen enemy. His shoeless feet sink into the boggy forest floor as he runs around in confusion, until a fallen log hidden in the undergrowth trips him and sends him sprawling. Suddenly the insect from the office is standing tall beside him as he lies on the ground. It has that sinister smile on its face again and after staring at him for a while; it waves one of its gigantic forelegs as if beckoning to his pursuers. Hundreds of insects of all shapes and sizes come crawling out of the surrounding trees towards him. Every time he tries to get up and run, the dead leaves on the forest floor mimic claws and drag him back. He watches with growing dread as the crawlies swarm up to where he is and run up his legs till they cover his entire body. As he opens his mouth to scream, they swarm down his throat…

The familiarity of his bedroom calms him down a bit, but he can’t get back to sleep immediately, so he gets up after a while and goes to the refrigerator in the kitchen for a glass of juice. It is almost two hours later before sleep mercifully finds him again.

****

“Charles dear, there's something coming out of your ear."

At first he disregards her comment as a prank. Regina’s notoriety for practical jokes is well known in that office. However when she says the same thing again thirty minutes later, he decides to get up and check.

"Ewwww Charles, she says as he passes her desk. That brown stuff coming out of your ear is really gross, and smells bad too. Please go to the bathroom and take care of it."

The bathroom mirror confirms her observation, there really is brown goo coming out of both his ears. He wipes at them with his handkerchief and more seep out. Alarmed he runs back to his drawer, gets his pack of cotton buds and runs back to the bathroom. The first bud goes in white and comes out soggy and brown, as does the second. He is about to use the third when he notices two brown wiggly tips rapidly increasing in length in his right ear hole.

Charles watches in horror as an insect's head follows.

Plop!

The bug makes a sound as it wiggles out and drops into the white porcelain wash basin. It is exactly like that one he squashed in the office, only smaller. His mouth opens and hangs in shock when another follows, and another...

A guttural scream from the direction of the male toilets tears through the quietness of Craigs & Co.

****

Two figures, both male stand beside a bed in a quiet hospital room. The green bedspread contrast sharply with the white walls and the shiny aluminum bed frame. Charles lies asleep on the bed, his hands out of sight in the white containment jacket. His face is a mass of ugly welts, as if someone had been trying to draw uneven lines on it with nails and his ears have huge plasters covering them.

The doctor checks the charts hung on the bedpost and talks to the nurse, speaking in barely more than a whisper.

“Are you following the prescribed treatment regimen?”
The nurse nods affirmatively before replying in the same tone.
“Yes doctor. He gets a double dose of Thorazine every six hours just like you instructed. He’ll sleep until it’s time for the next shot.”
“Good. Keep that up for the next forty eight hours and then we evaluate his condition again. Meanwhile, make sure his hands are always secured.”
“Yes doctor.”

Both men turn and walk out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind them.

Charles opens his eyes exactly five minutes after their exit. At first he looks perfectly normal, until his roving eyes settle on the big brown insect standing right in the middle of the metal table beside his bed.

The caring earth, our mother,
Out of love, she gave us her all,
She gave unmeasured, of her cache of treasures,
She gave willingly of her life juices, she gave her blood,
For our sustenance, she gave chunks of her core.

We called them different names, her gifts,
Gold, Silver, Oil, Coal, Water, Wood, and even air,
Natural resources, gaseous, liquid and ore,
We took all she gave, we took for use, unregulated, and we took for waste,
Whilst lovingly she gave, in belabored grace,
Us, little Oliver Twists, we demanded for more.

In our rush to consume, we forgot,
That her stores, infinite they weren’t,
Until a day came, and we asked as usual,
To douse our thirst, clean water, for our industrial bellies, victuals,
But alas, her larder stood empty,
After ages of taking, we’d finally plundered her to a finish.

Given time, she would still have come through,
Given space, she would still have come through,
But no, now was our operative word,
Being beings of impatience, all we knew was to ask,
Our rabid hunger, fed unhindered on her innards,
Until finally, exploitation extinguished her life force!

The caring earth, our mother
There she lies in repose, eyes closed, and finally at peace,
Choked to death, of our selfish grabbing hands,
As we, unrepentant children of gross consumption,
Argue on how best to divvy, her battered corpse.
©Maskuraid

She wanted a car.

She wanted something big, something flashy, something unique and attention grabbing.
In her own words, her car had to be "something loud and totally unmissable, a 'one in town'."

You see, my woman is 'she who must be obeyed', and it was in my own interest to provide a car exactly as she had requested, down to the last parameter.

So I thought long and hard. For close to a week I took my brain to task on what kind of car to buy my baby to fulfill all the conditions she’d spelt out, without me having to look for brother KOK (the patron saint of ritual money). I thought and thought, until I had my Eureka moment (or so I thought).

Looking back now, I’m sure it must have been the devil himself that whispered the suggestion in my ears.

Sha, long story whittled down, I went and bought her an ambulance.

Yep, genius move right? Big, attention grabbing, loud (wicked siren) and unmissable, one in town too (tell me how many guys you know who bought ambulances for their ladies).

She hasn’t said much since I gave her the keys. She didn’t look too pleased, but she told me to hop in so we could go for a ride. I’m worried though, because she had this funny look in her eyes as she said she also had a surprise in store for me. She said it was a big one, and I wonder what it is, because we just passed Mowe, and she hasn’t slowed down one bit.

Abeg my people, did I do wrong by trying so hard to please her?