A slice of Happiness.
13th May 2020.
The women that I met in my line of work all had similar stories. They were either victims of rape at a very young unimaginable age, or their step fathers sexually molested them. The most common finger that pushed them into the ring of prostitution was poverty. Whenever I saw someone vomiting the bitter pill of their past that they had swallowed a long time ago, I had no choice but to stick my finger of shame deep into my throat and vomit my own lies of my own past. Many times I created different histories that never existed that it became difficult keeping up with the truth that never existed in the first place. Reliving memories I hadn’t lived and shedding tears about a past I haven’t visited yet. I did not have a temperamental dad who tore at my skirt when I turned thirteen and a mother who plugged pretense deep into her earlobes and chose ignorance over concern. I didn’t grow up around cousins who took me to the bathroom to show me invisible lizard eggs and ask me to touch the extended finger between their legs. I grew up around dining tables with foods piled from the center to the edges, under painted ceilings, in a two storey building in the town of Ewohinmi, Edo state. At a young age, I knew desire. It drove me, sustained my imagination, and kept me company as I dreamt my way through the thrust of ecstasy. I started touching myself in places I didn’t know exist when I turned fifteen. Our house had short walls and tall palm trees. During the rainy season, strong winds made the leaves beat themselves into a frenzy till it created a non-rhythmic sound. My mom always said the plants were living beings and they were simply paying homage to the rain. I often wondered if they heard me as I danced to their voices while my fingers kept digging in and out of me as I spiraled in and out of consciousness, keeping my breath galloping ahead of my imagination towards climax. Whenever my parents were in a business meeting, I would switch on the black and white TV set and watch the American music videos. The ones with half dressed women swinging delicate waists, bopping their heads and dancing seductively around other women. I preferred this to when they danced with men. The former to me felt so natural and in my naïve mind, I didn’t imagine that society frowned at my fancies. I became an addict in my fantasies and soon the sound of running waters and the sight of Vaseline lotion made me uneasy. It was like a vampire’s lust and disdain for blood.
I had defiled my mind and defined my lust a long time before a boy touched my body. The older I grew, the more conscious I became aware of my choices. In my thoughts, I was scared of being different, being a lesbian. When I was still in secondary school, the headmistress had caught two girls in the school bathroom. After giving them forty strokes on their buttocks in the assembly hall for doing ‘Ungodly act’ to each other, she expelled them. A week later, some hoodlums caught a gathering of men in Benin City who were masquerading a church for a secret hide out for homosexuals. They were caught, tied and burnt alive. The church was razed down under fire and spit. No one investigated the matter. Being gay is a crime in Nigeria and death is often the judgment. And so I grew up with fear and a deep longing for my own sex. One day, the Pastor in our local church who always gave sermons in Ishan language decided to preach on homosexuality. I could tell that my parents were very uncomfortable. They kept glancing at their watches. Soon, they engaged in a whisper of chitchat about family affairs. I listened to the pastor with a running heart and sweaty eyes. I listened to his fears, his judgment and his hate.
“All of them will go to hell. The Bible forbids it. Jesus forbids it. It is a sin. How can a man love another man?’ He laughed in disgust. The whole church echoed his disgust.
“Women can also love women too” I whispered inaudibly so that my mother would not hear me and hand me over to the pastor to throw me into the lake of fire.
‘Osenobua e gua ne be dia rio. God forbids it.’ The pastor added after the uproar had subsided. He broke into a song, which the choir picked up and the congregation echoed.
‘Ekpokpo suwa onwha ghi ime re. uwa no si Ose. Oyi mhen ni re. Uwa no si Ose’.
With the image of my body drowning in the lake of eternal fire, I thrust my body into the arms of my first boyfriend in SS3. I didn’t love him but he worshipped me and that was enough. To me, it was an experiment of self. And so I removed modesty from the attires I wore to his house and he wrapped his lust below my waist. It was futile. I had poured water on a basket. While he moaned and vibrated, I stood staring at the ceilings and counted the cobwebs at the edges of the room. I felt more when I was alone in the bathroom. After three more trials, I broke away and let myself free.
I became a prostitute at twenty. When I started, I realized that I was the oldest on the block. Everyone else had found their sexual potentials at sixteen and less. Perhaps I wouldn’t have ran from Ewohinmi to a dingy apartment with Adesua and five ladies in Upper Sakponba road if my mom hadn’t found me and a lady kissing ferociously in my room. Her name was peace. I had met her a few times in Agbado market in Egwa. I knew she was different like me when she smiled at me and held me longer whenever we exchanged hugs. A few times after hugging peace, I visited her shop one evening. When she tried to pull away after a short hug, I held her longer and planted my lips on hers. She drew back and cocked her head. I feared that I had misread platonic for intimacy. I stuttered and thought of a lie to cover my tracks till she smiled and said.
‘You are bold o. what if someone had seen you?’
‘Oh. I wasn’t thinking.’
‘It is all right. How did you know? ‘
‘I don’t know. I just like it when you hug me and I felt..:’ words failed me,’
‘We should meet at my house this weekend. My mother will not be around’
‘Okay’
‘Okay’
She wrote her address on a piece of paper. When I stretched out my hand to take it from her, she pulled me deep into her dark stall and kissed me. That was how my first relationship began. Peace and I rocked each other’s world. The comfort and temporary peace we enjoyed when we were together was the only time we were invisible to society’s judgment. We created a world of secrecy and ecstasy around each other. A world that burnt out of existence when my mother caught us in my room. Judgment was put on hold till my father came back from work. My mom told him the full picture. She added colors and exaggeration while I knelt down between them. My dad flogged me with the metallic head of his hard leather belt till my two eyes bloated out and I felt a rib in my thighs.
‘We should take her for Deliverance service. Pastor Erhomose is very powerful. He will exorcise the demon’ Mom said
‘I would rather have a prostitute for a daughter than a lesbian. This is your fault’ he turned to my mom.
They left me in my bruises and headed to the sitting room to explode in a full blown tussle of blames and choices. That night, I packed clothes into a travelling bag, stole money from my dad’s room and ran away.
*******
I share a studio apartment with six women. Women who are young in age but old in bondage and lust. We stayed in Egbe Street in Upper Sakponba. Upper Sakponba road is the city of vices. Some would say it is the most populated area in Benin. It is a home for confra men and prostitutes. It is a normal sight to see buildings with churches and beer parlors in them. After a hot morning of listening to God’s word, people chilled their heads in the gallons of palmwine sold in the beer parlour. It was a sight to see young girls and protruding stomach. Most of our customers were yahoo boys and married men. Girls who couldn’t get into secondary school either learnt trade or spread their legs to climb the ladders that society had constructed for them. The city came alive at night. Prostitutes who stood at the edge of the road to attract the center of men’s attraction caused traffic congestion and the beer parlour allowed us to use their shops for finding customers. They made money from this. The nights were short and dull and the day was loud. We always shared our stories or sometimes if the room wasn’t too hot, we talked about our history. I was closest with Adeusa. She was the one who had found me, brought me to the apartment and let me heal for a month before she made me start trading pleasures for money. Adesua was the only one that knew I was a lesbian. I had told her everything when she found me.
One day, Ofure, one of the girls was narrating her experience about one of her customer Dr. Osaro. We all knew him. He was a quack who sold pregnancy pills and also performed clean abortions. He had tried to rape Ofure after giving her three bottles of Gulder. Ofure dramatically recounted how she insulted him and beat him up. Among us all, life had been toughest on her. Ofure had grown up with seven sisters and a prostitute mother in a one room apartment. Whenever any of her mother’s lover came around, they all went outside and sat on the verandah. Some days when their mother forgot herself and moaned loudly, they sang so their voices would drown their shame. When Ofure turned fourteen, four of her sisters got pregnant at the same time. One of them said her pregnancy was of the holyspirit. She claimed that she was still a virgin. The girl’s name was Magdalene.
After Ofure had finished her escapade, Ebosata began hers. Her voice was so tiny and she sang like a squeaking pipe.
‘Babes, One Ozwo yesterday give me ten grand and he no do anything’
‘Talk true’ Omonigho, the youngest among us leaned in. I could see the vein stretching out her eye lid as she struggled to get the description of the man from Ebosata.
‘And God go dy bring useless doctors come my side’ Ofure hissed.
‘Where you meet am?’ The seventeen year old Omonigho asked again. She had been bombarding Ebosata with questions since she began leaving no space for her to answer.
‘Na yesterday o. you know sey I package wella and I wear confirm make up as per we dy Easter. We gat to celebrate Jesus Christ. Na so this pure nigger reach my whisper sey he can be friend. Na so I charge five k for friendship so that he go run comot. Guy man bring out ten k. I chuck money inside bobby follow am’
‘Imagine sey person use you do blood nko. You know sabi sey na so they dy use people do blood money?’ I couldn’t tell if Adesua’s concern was sarcastic or genuine. She didn’t like Ebosata.
‘Or perhaps he was gay’ I said.
‘Na talk be that?’ Ofure hissed. Slowly, the conversations dried up and the girls went back to their single space for reflections.
Later Adesua reprimanded me for bringing up any mention of gay in our discussions.
‘It makes people suspicious’ she said.
‘How?’
‘Just be careful.’
‘I am.’
Be happy and content with here.’
‘I really wish I could. I want to live in a world where I will be accepted as a lesbian and not a prostitute’
‘You cannot’
‘Why?’
‘Because of the same reason you left home”.
Before Adesua could apologize, I had already run into the bathroom to cry my eyes out. I thought about Peace, my mom and the metallic head of my dad’s belt and cried louder. Adesua kept knocking on the door. ‘I am sorry Osas. I am sorry.’ I opened the door and let her wrap her arms around my wet face. I slept in her bosom. When night came, we didn’t transform into the women we were, instead we held eachother’s arms and slept again.
I found a slice of happiness the day a car pulled up at me. It was almost midnight and I was standing at my favorite junction in Ogba Street when a woman in her twenties called me from the other end in the street.
‘You are very pretty’. She said as I reached the car. There was a man sitting beside her with earplugs in his ears.
‘Thank you’. I wanted to tell her how her golden locks made her look like a goddess. But prostitutes didn’t give complements until after payment.
‘What is your name?’
‘Osas”
‘Oh. Are you part of them’ she pointed at the group of girls behind us.
‘Yes’
‘Good. How much for a night?’
She drove an expensive car. So, I gave an expensive price. Adesua would be proud when I tell her of this escapade. I imagined Omonigho tearing my attention to get the full details as Ebosata leer in jealousy.
‘Thirty thousand’
‘That’s good. I will pay’.
She looked behind me again and stared ahead
‘Is he always this shy?’ I pointed to the man on the wheels.
She laughed out and spoke slowly without fear. ‘Darling, the service is for me. You see, I enjoy a different world of pleasure. So are you in?’
It felt like a trap. I looked behind if a police van was waiting for me the trap to hook me before coming. I looked behind and checked if a group of mean faced men were running towards us with fire and tires. I looked ahead if my mom and her pastor were coming with a chain to tie me and throw me into the lake of fire. I could smell the metallic head of my father’s belt. I bit my tongue to make sure it wasn’t a dream. The pain made me regret the action. The woman mistook my joy for doubt and added.
‘I will pay you double if you want’
‘No. it is fine.’
I threw myself into the back seat. The car drove a few minute before she told the driver to stop. She joined me in the back seat.
Her hands were stroking my laps and I felt a sensation that I had thought was lost a long time ago. A time when the rainy season made the palm fronds behind my window beat against themselves and made me imagine an ecstasy that only my fingers provided.
‘I think I am going to like you pretty’ she said.
I buried my lips in hers and added. ‘Me too’.