CANDY FLOSS BOUDOIR 2

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FIRST PART

True to his word, Waziri influences her posting to Lagos for N.Y.S.C.

“The man don fall pata pata” Halima gushed over the phone.

“Anyway sha you dey worth am, you be fine babe”.

Mama prayed for her, for Waziri’s continual generosity, advising her to ignore her father’s dire warnings. Baba watched, with what now seemed to be a perpetual frown on his lean face.

“Is it money from his tailoring that will set you up as you have finished school?” Mama questioned, pushing her face closer to Opeyemi’s for emphasis.

Her face deeply grooved in-between ridges of flesh  by hardship.

She was only forty-seven yet she looked sixty. Poverty has stamped its ugly footprints all over her once beautiful face.

“But it put her through school?” Baba retorted.

“Polytechnic na school?” Mama derided.

“Abeg after your service year in Lagos, Waziri will put you in university for masters o jare”

She recalled the days before leaving for the N.Y.S.C camp.

The only time she left her suite at the Lagos Sheraton was to go house hunting with Waziri’s P.A.

All she did was watch movies, spend time on the phone with her family and Halima, and order in exotic sounding meals.

Then she found a cute two-bedroom apartment in VGC.

They traveled to Italy to purchase the furniture and though Waziri wouldn’t allow her choose any of the furniture but her bedroom fittings, they went ahead to have fun while the furniture was shipped home.

Then he bought her a “tear nylon”(brand new) Mercedes GL 450.
What more could a twenty two year old girl ask for?

“Auntie I don finish” Seki interrupts her thoughts. “You go chop now?”

“No, just bring me Panadol Extra from the medicine cabinet”

She watches Seki’s oversized bottom as she waddles away, making a mental note to buy her another bottle of deodorant.

“Strains of Chante Moore’s “Candlelight” filter into her ears, the words lashing at her heart. She yearns for romance.

She looks around her swish prison as twilight streams in through the voile curtains like gold dust, casting an orange hue on the cream décor.

Tears fill her eyes.

She turns around to find Seki watching her.

“Auntie bodi dey pain you? I fit press am with hot water for you?”

She offers with a smile that further distorts her features, yet slyly escapes her ever-watchful beads… eyes.

She ignores her and swallows the painkiller.

Seki shrugs and makes her careless exit while Opeyemi watches.

She suddenly looks at the clock and jumps up a second before her conditions comes to mind.

She grimaces as she hurries to her suite.

Light bulb smile flickers on weakly at the welcoming sight.

This is her sanctuary.

The only room that represented her in the house. Yes, including the kitchen.

Didn’t Ralph Sockman say, “Be careful that victories do not carry seeds of future defeats”.

She wished she knew this, several life times ago in Kaduna.

Would it have made a difference?

“Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together” says Petrarch, the father of humanism. Maybe not.

She looks around her room again, comparing it with the one she shared with her two brothers in their low cost house in Kaduna. Opeyemi has come a long way.

Her taste, soft and feminine, her person, still very much a little girl inside, living in a grown up world. Pink in all shades.

A fuchsia shag carpet covered the floor, while dusky pink and white tie and dye voile curtains covered the windows. Ruffled fuchsia and white chintz edged the air conditioner. Her four poster bed was covered with dark and light pink stripped silk sheets and a baby pink duvet. The door to the adjoining bathroom stands ajar and a neon pink bath mat peeks out.

She smiles again as she gingerly steps out of her clothes to have a bath.

Waziri liked her bathed and scented on arrival.

The room always gives her a boost.

Waziri called it her candy floss boudoir.

Unlike the other rooms in the house, he’d given her free rein in here and she had created her dream.

Her smile disappears and pain shoots through her as the shower comes on. The warm water runs over her and the pain slowly subsides as  the needles of warm water acupuncture her aching form.

“My amariya“ Waziri would call her.

London, New York, Paris, Milan…He indulged her passion for fashion.

Lois Vuitton cases bursting at the seams with designer apparels, accessories and shoes.

So her service year went. She worked under the title P.A 2.

Whoever heard of such nonsense? His wife did and got hot under the collar.

Waziri dealt with that though, he sure knew how to keep his women in check.

Life was one big playground for Opeyemi until the skeletal hands of reality gripped her existence.

He didn’t want her to get a job.

“So one yeye man will start disturbing you? No way!”

Business?  “Ok prepare a feasibility study”

Subsequently, “Your feasibility study? I’ve read it. We’ll discuss it some other time”.

Some other time, “Don’t I take care of you? What’s all this stress about? Are you looking for an opportunity to cheat on me?”

Bored! “I’ll send over the I.T guy from my office to hook you up to the internet”

Marriage? “Ope, what’s gotten into you?


TO BE CONTINUED.....