“You must be a bastard!”
That was the last word she heard from her father as he hit her with an object he picked from the side of the c
hair, she could not even tell what it was because it all happened in a twinkling of an eye, but with the way it was shining, she assumed it was the bottle of liquor he had just finished.
She was meant to come home from school at 2 o’clock but the teacher in school had told her to ‘pick pin’ because she did not do well in the class work and the assignment he gave her. After the punishment, he told her to sweep the class and go home. She had no transport money and she was tired, this made her walk so slow with her bag dragging behind her. She got home by 4 o’clock. She knew what awaited her, so she tried to sneak inside, but she saw her father on the bed looking as if he had just killed a tiger. His eyes as red as the color of blood that gave him a deadly look which did not fit his black skin that was black not as a result of complexion, but as a result of dirtiness and drunkenness. She knew at that moment that she was dead.
“Where you dey waka go?” he dragged his question in a drunken voice that smelt deadly. She could almost see death standing by his side.
“Papa, I just come from school. My teacher punish me to sweep the class and pick pin, then I was very tire…”
Before she could complete the statement, there was a heavy slap on her light complexioned face that grew pink with pain, she screamed and started crying.
“Papa I swear, I no go anywhere, I swear” amidst hot tears, the room was turning and she was seeing stars.
With desperation, she tried to run away but she could not. He dragged her, raised her to his full 6’1 feet, smacked her ass and dropped her down. He laughed bitterly and told her how her mother had unfortunately pinned her pregnancy to him and how much of a bastard she is and he hit something on her face. She was happy she was dead.
She receives assaults from her father always and it is not a new thing anymore, she never thought he was her father and she wonders why and how her mother had gotten entangled with a man like him. His name is Eshupofo. He is always frustrated, he is never without his hot drink and people has nicknamed him ‘pofo the Drunk’.
Her mother, Lovina is not always left out when he is frustrated and it was already a routine. If he does not beat her with his fist, he would kick her all over her body or break his alcohol bottle either on her head or he use it to beat her till she cannot walk, it is always a surprise if she survived such ill-treatment. If the water he wants to use to bath is not hot enough or it is too hot, he would pour it on Lovina.
He is not the breadwinner because he has no job, her mother was a trader and business moved very well for her but they had little or nothing to eat every day, of course it is not surprising when you have a drunk as a father who would beat up your mother to collect her hard earned money from her and use it on liquor, come back to the one room apartment in one of the slums in ajegunle, Lagos around 12 midnight when he thinks his daughter is asleep and rape his wife. Then at the end of the painful and bad sex, he shouts “I LOVE YOU LOVINA!!!”
Eshupofo and lovina met on the most unlikely conditions. Although things were rosy with Eshupofo then, they were not just compatible. Pofo was lousy, always wanted a showoff and bragged a lot, had friends that were like him and manipulated him to do many things. One of those things he was manipulated to do was what led to the birth of Rose. Pofo had seen the beautiful Lovina as she stepped out of her fathers apartment to hawk the moimoi she was given to make ends meet. She was wearing a cloth that was no longer her size but because she nor her parents could afford to waste money on buying clothes when they haven’t eaten well, they decided to leave cloths alone. Her faded short jean skirt cried for help in all corners but she was free to wear it because people were wearing the same thing all in the name of fashion. The black round necked blouse was already grey from wash and her hair was black but packed in a very tidy way. A lady of nineteen, five feet four, nice flat tummy and nice rounded piece of bum, she had the hips that made a man cry for help and a lips that could be assigned to the artistic monalisa, her eyes could be given to Athena. Infact she was the description of perfection. As she advertised what she was selling, her voice was as clear as crystal, it sounded like she was singing, like a nightingale in the sky. Pofo became hot-blooded and did not know what to do again. All that was in his mind was that he must have her. He told his friends about it and they told him the fastest way to get through to her.
Early the next morning before he went to work, he had seen her and felt if he didn’t have her, he might die, so he walked up to her and stopped her in a manner as if he wanted to buy moimoi.
‘How much own sir?’ she said happy she was going to quickly sell everything that day, because a trader uses first sale to judge the remaining sales for the day.
I would prefer you start with a good morning’, he said as he kept looking at her body and licking his dry lips.
Good morning sir, how many moimoi do you want? As she bent to pick the number of moimoi he wanted which gave him easy access to view her cleavage
All of you, he said, staring inside her blouse
Ah! Sir! It is three thousand, five hundred naira sir! She could not believe her eyes, she had just increased the sale by one thousand naira. She prayed he was serious.
Okay, he said and he brought out the money and gave it to her, he said, keep on selling the remaining, I don’t eat moimoi especially in the morning. He winked at her and left. He felt so good he had put a smile on her face and that when he asks her for what he needs one day she would not hesitate. He could not wait. As he turned around to look at her, he saw her dancing and that same bum shaking violently, his whole body woke up as if he was dead before. He said under his breath, ‘I must taste this babe, even if it is my last mission on earth.’
She could not hide her excitement. She had her normal sale already and an additional one thousand naira, just five houses away from hers, she started singing and dancing. She had to still go to the junction where she would still sell everything and get additional money. She looked up to God and thanked him for answered prayers. As she was going, she turned round to look at the man who had done this to her and she saw him lick his lips in a very unnatural way. She felt something was wrong. She hid the money and ran to the place where she sells. When she got there, she saw her friend, Lara, they had been best friends since childhood, but Lara had gotten married and had given birth to a little baby boy. Rumor had it she was raped by a mad man and instantly a man came to seek her hands in marriage, while she was still considering it, she found out she was pregnant and she had to agree to the man’s proposal, he told her parents he wanted to go slow, but when the parents also discovered the pregnant state of their daughter, they told him to be fast about it. They quickly did everything an he went home with her, 7 months later, she gave birth to Lancelot. As lovina sold the moimoi, her worry grew, so she had to talk to lara.
‘Lara’
‘Ehn’
If any man is looking at you and licks his lips like this, giving the demonstration of how she had seen the young man do it. What do you think he is telling you?
Laughs hysterically. Hmm!! If I were you, I would shake my buttocks at him, put a finger in my mouth, lick it like sweet and smile at him. He likes you so much. In fact, if he now starts giving you things, he wants to marry you, don’t you know that that’s how they pass their message?
Lovina didn’t seem comfortable with the answers, but this was her best friend since childhood.
She trusted her so much and even trusted her judgment, so she went home and looked forward to seeing her helping angel the next day.
Of course her prayer was answered. He came to the same spot at the same time and did the same thing. Every time he actually wants to touch her, he feels scared to do so, and he just stuck to the plan of being good to her.
Then he was with his friends one evening and they while drinking, one of them explained how he raped his wife to get her to marry him. The other explained how he pretended to be very loving to marry his wife whom he now beats like a talking drum. One explained that he really loved his wife before marriage, but after marriage, he discovered she was a dirty pig and he hated her. When it got to his turn, he said, he really just feels like having sex with that girl but he doesn’t know how to ask her. Then one of his friends shouted, ‘you don’t tell ladies you want to do it, you just go there, either by force or gently, they tell you the type of game to play.’ He trusted their judgment, of course, they were married men, so he asked again, ‘what if she is a virgin’, they all exclaimed, ehn? One of them said, this is the twenty-first century, there is no virgin anywhere, if there were virgins, all the girls, small girls I am sleeping with should be virgins. With this he calmed down. Told himself he was going to plan his rape escapade and he must be successful, so he assigned some people to check what she does in the night. They told him, she was always sent to their neighbor’s house to fetch water and she would pass through a dark road where there was an uncompleted building by the side. He thought in his mind that it was so perfect. So the next night, after one week of seeing her in the morning and giving her money. He drank himself to stupor and set out on his mission. He stayed in the uncompleted building silently and waited for her to pass, as she was going, she was singing with such sonorous voice, he loved it. As she came to the door of the building, he lept out and descended on her, carried her in with her mouth covered with one hand and the other arm used to carry her on his shoulder. She screamed but nobody heard, while he was raising her skirt she tried to struggle, so he banged her head on the wall and she slummed, he then raped her and discovered she was still a virgin, he ran out and left her in the pool of her blood.
—–To be continued
