CANDY FLOSS BOUDOIR

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety".


“Now who said that?”

She reflects gloomily as she stares out the window.

“Benjamin Franklin, that’s who… so very true too”, she thought as  she thought back to the day they met.  

Opeyemi, in all her six feet tall splendor undulated across the car park. Aware that all eyes in the Kaduna Polytechnic female hostel car park were trained on her curvaceous form. 36” 24” 38”, in a mini shirt dress. “La inllah Inhalahu”. One of her admirer’s exclaimed.

Pouty lips twitched, feline eyes crinkled, and light bulb smile came on as Halima’s sermons filled her mind. “Fine babe no dey suffer, use your beauty while age is on your side”.

Opeyemi agreed totally. Beauty and poverty are enemies.

She recalled mama’s poverty etched face. So like faded, flaky paint, hanging loose with bits of sand and cement clinging on adamantly.

Obviously there at one time but now, it might as well have never been.

“Watch him salivate” whispered Halima, mentally planning the thousands of naira she knew was coming her way.

“Alhaji Waziri, meet my friend that I’ve been telling you about”.

Jostled back to the present by the incessant ringing of the doorbell, “Wait”, she mutters irritably as she hobbles to the door, each step more painful than the last.

“Auntie good afternoon” chippers Sekinatu her house girl, bearing in a load of groceries and a dense perspiratory odour.

“Everything don, cost for market now oh auntie…”

Opeyemi mentally switches off the jabber as she stares at Seki in all her glory.

Stout and black as night, tufts of woolen hair scattered messily on her oversized head, the only word to describe how she feels about Seki is envy. Seki has freedom.

She raises a long elegant hand to stem Seki’s monologue as her head thumps harder reminding her of her battered state.

“I’m going to lie down”

“Uncle nko? E dey come today? Make I cook stew?’

She turns and looks at Seki who lowers her lashes over beady eyes.

“If he doesn’t come you will not cook? Opeyemi asks in irritation.

“Nooo, auntie, I just dey…”

She eases herself down on the bed with the care of an old woman whose bones need coaxing for even the smallest of movements. Biting her lower lip at the pain on her shoulder where Waziri had repeatedly punched her the day before.

As the pain leaves center stage, her mind wanders back to the day they met.

He was leaning on a Mercedes convertible. Tall slim and drop dead gorgeous.

Creamy chocolate skin, like coffee with just enough milk, midnight blue baby curls and an aquiline nose proudly proclaimed his Shua Arab ancestry. Eyes a woman would pay for. His mouth marred the heavenly face. But then Havelock Ellis, the great weirdo philosopher did say that “The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw”.

Perfect bow upper, juicy ripe bottom, but with a cruel downward slant which at that time only increased his appeal.

Opeyemi was living. Polo clubs, five star hotels, exotic boutiques.

She loved the air of the polo club, a pungent exotic mix of expensive colognes and the raw odour of horseflesh, dung and dust.

Super rich and classy people, wannabe super rich and classy people all mingled, chatting in “fune”, real and put on.

Chukkas, handicaps and Argentine horses, she learnt quickly, impressing Waziri, immensely. She belonged here.

Once while watching Waziri play, one of the northern governors had beckoned her, she turned away, “a bird in hand…”

Imagine Opeyemi Oluyele rebuffing a governor. This was the life.

Besides Waziri’s family were Northern royalty, therefore bigger than any governor.

“Polo, the game of kings”.

She almost always forgot that theirs was a business arrangement. But at the end of every liaison, Waziri reminded her, by the hefty bundles of crispy naira notes he handed her.

They were inseparable for three months until Waziri was posted to Lagos where his family was.

‘Alhaji Waziri na big boy for NNPC, convince am say you wan serve for Lagos’ advised magajia Halima, as she hugged Opeyemi and boarded a bus home to Kano.

‘Ah Halima, I go miss you oh! Who go dey give me advice? Opeyemi asked sadly.

“You no get problem naw, Alhaji Waziri dey take you seriously, na me remain, any way sha, as I no fine, I go take youth take find husband” Halima giggled.

The acrid sweet smell of burning rice assails her back to the present.

“Seki, Seki!”

She calls out as she hops off the bed and hobbles into her wrought iron and leather living room. A little austere for her taste, but then…

In front of the wide screen television, Seki contorts to music from MTV base.

“Sekinatu!” Opeyemi cries.

Seki comes to a jerky stop, pauses, sniffs the air then giggles unapologetic into the kitchen.

She flops on the chaise lounge only to be propelled up again by the putrid combination of body odor and burnt rice.

She picks up the air freshener and sprays it in the general direction of the split unit air conditioner, and flops back as the air circulates the scented moisture beads.

TO BE CONTINUED.....