HER.
And it started with your smile reaching out to him in the room after which he walked up to you and started the conversation. It reminded you of a scene in a popular movie you had watched recently where the ‘girl’ draws the ‘guy’s’ attention to her and he walks up to start the talk.
When he came close, you sniffed his cologne; it had a hint of vanilla, you wondered why a man would have on vanilla scented cologne. You had hoped that he wouldn’t be so feminine in character.
The bar had amber lightings, a rare choice for a bar but yet, his skin glowed in it. He commented on your dress and you thanked him; it was as if he sought for a remark for his tailored suit but you didn’t give him. He talked about his career, his family and you listened, partly, because you were interested; partly, because you were bored all along and you needed the kind distraction. You could tell that he enjoyed the conversation amid the pauses he gave. He would ask you what you thought about this and that. You tried not to give yourself away. You felt this indulgence ‘to not act too smart’; so, your replies were concise. He took pleasure in believing that he knew things he thought you didn’t know. At times, you would laugh. He would ask you what was funny: you never gave him the true reason.
HIM.
You had waited for Feyi all night. She told you she had forgiven you. She mentioned that to prove it she would come tonight to be here with you. You waited for her yet she didn’t come. It angered you in a way it had never before, even, when you tried to believe that it was a woman thing to do—to be fashionably late. You still didn’t want to justify this action of hers—promising and not fulfilling. You started to drink alone.
Across a lady had just entered, you straightened hoping it would be Seyi. Your anger started to subside and you reached for the minty gum you had bought earlier. You didn’t want her to know you had been drinking again. It was the reason for the fight anyway. You chewed and chewed, straightening yourself but the lady didn’t walk to your side.
The lady was light skinned with fine bone structure. It was opposite of what Seyi was. You had put everything on hold this night just because of her and yet, she didn’t come. Worst of all, she didn’t call. You didn’t know all the while you thought about what to do with the night you had been staring at Miss light skin. You saw her smile, a warm streak that spread across her face into her eyes, endearing and enchanting. She touched her nape and closed her eyes. Then, she looked away.
You were excited, hardly, had any woman excited you this openly not even Seyi. Your hands trembled as you stood up to walk towards her.
‘Hi.’ You whispered into her ears matching suggestive with suggestive.
‘Hello,’ she said as you sat on the backless seat beside her, ‘are you waiting for someone?’
‘Was. Not anymore.’
‘Okay.’ She said as she smiled again, an allusive and appealing smile. You thought about how the night would end.
THE WATCHER.
The night had just started for both of them. Tam realised that he had not mentioned his name to her. She mentioned hers; he first spluttered, arranged himself better and repeated the name—Ijeoma. As the crowd lessened, he looked at her intermittently searching for discomfort—to back his belief that bad girls found solace in darkness and number. She noticed the pressure of his eyes and would often look away. So as the conversation blossomed, he allowed her talk more, drink more and loosen her inherent calm. A kind of privacy was established between them through the give and take of their converse. Their laughter and words.
The bar finally closed. Ijeoma staggered as Tam helped her to the entrance of the bar. He didn’t understand why she had come, why she had allowed herself to get drunk especially by an unknown man. He pitied her because at some point in their discussion, he realised she was a smart woman: daring, successful and wise. But yet she had release herself to him. he searched her clutch purse for her address. She was giggling by his side and passers-by gave him the sympathetic stare as of one given to a husband who had a misdemeanour for a wife. He returned the stare. It only made perfect sense that he did.
Her address was on the filler in the purse: a paper that contained information about the bearer of the clutch. He thought probably she had predicted how the day would go—a stolen purse—or she would go home drunk of her own volition.
He carried her on his back and walked to the car park at the back of the bar. There were only six cars. His and five others—which looked too manly to be hers. He looked at her hoping she would say something but she was asleep already. Her hair— a mess already—was all over her face. It was a weave and her scalp showed the threads and the joining. It had been badly placed, he thought.
Tam sighed as he placed her on the passenger’s seat beside him. He would go to her place; he would stay there tonight.
Her sounds were throaty when he laid her on the bed. He waited for her to be still before helping her to undress for the night. He had entered the apartment with the spare key under the mat. He was disappointed that she had kept it there because it was too usual, too predictable. All through the night she had made him think; believe too, that she wasn’t predictable.
‘Where are we?’ she asked sheepishly.
‘Your home,’ Tam said as he took of his tie.
‘Do you want to sleep here tonight?’
‘I think it’s too late to have an option of anything else, Ijeoma.’ Tam stood to get a better view of her. He smiled as she placed her hand on her head and moaned.
‘I feel terrible,’ she muttered with a belch, ‘Come sleep here. I mean on the bed with me.’
He didn’t listen to her. She asked again but he waited.
The light brought little pricks of pain. She looked around a little shocked at how much her head thudded. Her clothes were on the floor. Her panties too. She walked through her apartment and found him there. Nearly naked on the couch.
‘What are you doing here?’
He turned and faced her, his eyes swollen. His face alighted by the light. He greeted.
‘I brought you home,’ he answered.
‘Did you do anything to me?’ She asked as she touched her head saddened by his bear bottom.
‘Yes, of course. You asked me to.’
‘I was drunk and you should have known I was in sort of a personal conflict.’ She said.
Tam stared blankly he had never been awoken to a confused woman before. He laughed at her. Again. Again.
‘You are blaming me, really?’
‘Yes,’ she said lightly now.
‘You are telling a stranger to predict when you have inner conflicts. Personal conflicts or wars are not predicted my strangers, miss.’
‘I am not blaming you. I’m just saying.’
He picked his clothes, wore the trousers and waited for a reply to drop t give her.
He replied, ‘Even at war, there is always sex, my dear. ’
She looked at him with reserved hatred just as she raised her hand. Her slap was womanly: soft, full of hunger than anger. He held them to kiss them.
‘I trusted you,’ she cried. The words made him laugh especially how she made trust that blatant, most especially how easy she made trust seem.
‘Trust is overrated,’ it was all he said afterwards.
Ijeoma waited for reality to dawn reaching for it with her heart, her hands and all she possessed but as she walked towards it; it ran away—the reality she had worked all her life for.
His words kept on circulating her space, her domain of existence, in all their conversation she agreed with one thing, trust was truly overrated.
Ijeoma never saw Tam again.
TARE ABANG 