The Nice and Similar Travails of Asemota Jane

Too be very honest, this story is not completely based off a true one. The operative word here is completely. However, it is really a cliched, Evil Irumi kind guy meets the Beauty type. You do know the story of the Irumi right? The one where the really handsome guy comes to marry the girl with all the money and then halfway on the way to the guy’s house, she discovers he is actually a monster with his face at the back of his head and she regrets rejecting the other suitors? Basically, the original African story from where Shakespeare’s modified Taming of the Shrew appeared from. Okay, too long an intro. Just read will you…

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The Nice and Similar Travails of Asemota Jane

When she first met Eric she had been sitting at the side of a pool in Sapele. It was a sunny day and she and her friends had decided to come out to play. It wasn’t often that the sun decided to shine in Sapele and whenever it did, everybody came out. Everybody young and carefree that is, most of those who did not care or had no friends stayed in anyway. The truly unfortunate thing when she thought back to that day was that she had been alone. Perhaps if she had been with her friends, a fully clustered bevy of buzzing bees, the young men would not have come to her. But as it was, they did, and for her, that is how most of the story began.

He had come onto the poolside with a couple of his friends, apparently they had been expecting to see a full pool with naked girls most probably, like she had, but had been astonished to find no one save a listless DJ playing a very sad collection and a bored looking pool with a limp expression. That was a good metaphor right? She was beginning to act like that kid from Sanderson’s Steelheart books. They had been about to go when he turned and saw her. The expressions that had flitted through his face would fit a collage for a psychologist’s office. Of course he did not know she was looking at him, her face hidden behind huge LV – or was it Roy Bons? shades and the Blackberry Torch occupying the rest of it. The guys had had a whispered conference and then strolled over, Eric grinning like someone who thought he was a movie star, or maybe he was, he did look like a movie star that day.

“Is there anyone sitting here?”

She could have said Yes, but what she said was: “Aren’t there other seats there you can go to?”

“True, but I want to sit with you, and my friends agree,” he added almost as an afterthought, the amused twinkling in his warm brown eyes annoying her and intriguing her at the same time. That was how she let him in, with a pout and feigned indifference. Is it that easy to throw away a soul?

They had walked almost all the way home that day, laughing and teasing in turns and he had asked for her number. By then her friends had come and by some odd stroke of chance – okay, well not really, she had been paired off with him.

“Would you tell me your number?”

“Tell you my number? Who asks for a phone number that way?”

“Not your phone number, I’ll ask you for that later. I mean the number of boyfriends you have. A girl as pretty as you are cannot be single”

She had pouted and told him off, an expression which he was likely already beginning to associate with her acquiesance.

******

Ok..i am not a virgin she typed. But you ask to many questions sef..

Too*

What?

Too many questions..where did you learn to spell?

Go away

She dropped the phone in anger. This stupid boy, he was always teasing her about her spellings and intelligence. It made her feel insecure. Sometimes, she wondered why he was still with her. Her friend Blessing who she knew was also on his BBM was so much smarter. They read the same books and liked those same kind of rap songs. She knew she was prettier than Blessing by far. Eric had told her more than once that she was beautiful and that if he had been her boyfriend he would have been the happiest man alive. Why he wouldn’t just ask her out, she could not explain. Sometimes she wanted to scream. For someone so brilliant, how was he not noticing she was so much in love with him already? Perhaps it was because she was not smart enough for him. He needed someone smarter like Blessing. Her face crinkled and she grabbed her earphones, she needed to listen to music. Her phone beeped and the notification light flashed red.

I still like u tho..eveeen if you can’t spell

Even* she typed vehemently. You TOO you cannot spell

Please, that one was a typo jor

Mine toooo!

Too* don’t you even learn?

Ooooooo! Gettout jor!

But she smiled.

*****

The bus swerved around the pothole and threw her against the man in the red suit again. The man turned to her and smiled. She just stared forwards. She could be very taciturn when she wanted to be, and right now she needed to be. She did not have any time to talk to any men. She was on her way to Enugu where Eric was serving, though he did not know. They had not been talking for a while now. He had put up a series of pictures of him and one other girl on BBM and when she had stopped talking to him, the stupid boy did not even know to apologise, oh he could be so thickheaded sometimes. How could he have put up another girl’s picture, and with him in it too! If it had just been the girl’s picture she might have forgiven him with a strict warning but there he was standing with the girl and in one other picture even sitting with her at a table in some restaurant. She did not have any pictures with him!

Jane pouted angrily. She was pretty and she knew sometimes she could act a little petty after all, he was not her boyfriend and he had not even made any moves, but she knew he felt something for her and like as he might to deny it, she knew he did for her too. But why wouldn’t he just come out and say it? Was he afraid she would say no to him? She knew she had never given him a full come-on but he had to see it. She sent him messages everyday – well, almost every day and he had to have noticed. She was ready to break up with her boyfriend the minute he asked. But now she knew why he had never asked her, why he had never said anything. He had a girlfriend. Of course that was it, and he would be there sending her messages deep into the night and probably cheating on his girlfriend over in Enugu too. Men, cheats all of them.

She had not seen him since that sunny day so long ago in Sapele and most of all that had been said had been over the phone and via BBM. She knew she missed him, and she knew she could not base love on simply a few text messages and flirty night calls, but she knew how she felt, even if she did not know what it was exactly. And here she was now, going to Enugu, the closest she had been to him since that day almost seven months ago, but she would not call him.

Later that evening…

Hey..

Hey

I am in Enugu

*****

They met at Polo mall. It was the closest landmark he could describe to her. He served in a school somewhere in Trans Ekulu and his house was close to that place and did she want to get Coldstone icecream first or go to his house and eat Indomie noodles. She laughed and said his Indomie must be really terrible and ten minutes later they were at his house.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said as he opened the door.

His house was small, but it was neat. A centre rug took most of the tiny space and a record player took up the rest. She had never seen a record player in the house of anyone not her father’s age before and it was intriguing. She examined the records in the rack. She did not recognize most of the musicians, except Elvis Presley and Oliver de Coque. The record player also had slots for CDs and an aux cord, so she quickly plugged in her phone and selected a playlist. Michael Jackson started off with Speechless, Eric looked amused, but she did not care.

She had only three hours to stay at his house, she had come to write an exam in the city and was staying with her aunt, so she could not stay out late. Before leaving the house though, she had given herself strict instructions and one of them had involved not playing a single song on that playlist. But she did not care.

The noodles were actually nice, but she teased it anyway. He just smiled and said she could definitely not make better or he would buy an entire carton that night for her to cook. She told him then that she could not stay the night that she had to go home, and he had replied, then we need to make the most of it. This was when he kissed her.

His lips were so soft, they caressed hers in a warm fit, his tongue pressing firmly against them as he sucked deeply. His hands played across her face cupping the nape of her neck as he arched her backwards pulling her closer. Jane threw her hands around his neck, her own body responding of its own accord, the warning bells in her head now tolling a supportive melody. His tongue flicked against her teeth prying them wider as he reached into her mouth. She gasped as her need swelled and her insides flooded. He pulled her closer, lifting her as though she were a doll and gently placing her on the bed, his lips breaking apart from hers slightly. She could feel his warm breath upon her face as she opened her eyes, the feverish glint of need in his eyes, and then the slightly parted fullness of his so soft lips. Then the warnings in her head kicked in, and she sat up.

“No Eric, no,” she said.

Confusion and a bit of anger flit across his face. No, she thought, no. She wanted to shout, It is not that I don’t want you Eric, I want you so badly, but you have to understand, I have to follow my principles. It is the first time I am coming to your house. Give me that much Eric please. She did not know how to say it.

“Please, Eric, not today. I can’t”

“What do you mean?” his voice was husky. She felt the stirring again in her centre.

“I can’t. I need to go home. When I come again”

“Okay,” he said and drew closer. “One last kiss then”

I’ll make love to you, like you want me to, sang Boys II Men.

*****

It had been short. But she did not mind. It had felt wonderful and besides she would be coming here tomorrow and then it would be longer. She washed herself in the bathroom and when she came out, the room was already arranged. The rug had been straightened and the bed was as neat as when she entered, everything was the same except for the smoothly muscled nude man in the centre.

When he kissed her, she had felt something break open. She had grabbed his shirt and flung it off his shoulders the same way he had taken off her jeggins, both of them working with a haste that bordered more on insanity and a crazed need than even a desire to have at each other before their more rational senses kicked in. Though it was likely an amalgam of both.

Sliding into her furry wetness, he had been hard and hot. The first stroke had filled her and he had sharply withdrawn, going in again almost immediately and pulling out sharply again to her aching need before plunging in, each stroke deeper than the last. Finally he filled all of her, reaching deep into the caverns of her desire, stroking passions and wants she had known she even had. The pleasure built as his lips, those soft lips played across her belly and around the deep brown of her hard nipples, his hard muscled buttocks swinging deep into her with every stroke. Suddenly he had jerked and, pulling out lightning fast had erupted all over her belly with his milky seed. As each drop fell against her, it stroked another string of need sending tremors of hot flashes racing through her body. She felt sticky, wet and hungry for more. Her glazed eyes looked up at him, at his grinning face and she said, “I love you”

*****

As they walked out to the junction, she said, “I am supposed to be leaving Enugu next tomorrow, can I come here instead of going back to Sapele? I will cook for you, real soup and stew then leave on Sunday”

He smiled. “Let me think about it sha”

Those were the last words they ever spoke to each other. He never called to know if she got home safe, and while she waited for the call with a torrent of words to accuse him with when he did, she finally realized she waited in vain. She left Enugu and never returned, and he never called her or sent a message even while his Display pictures changed on BBM. She deleted him as soon as she got off the bus at Sapele.

Disclaimer

• I like to think I am smoothly muscled.
• A lot of people tend to disagree with me
• I always call people to know if they get home safe…okay, well, I send Psychic messages sometimes. Don’t blame me, the Nigerian network is poor

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