Tales ~ A Little More

I've had this story for a while now. It was shy of a thousand words. I made it longer. It has a complex plot and it wasn't an easy story to write. I struggled a bit to keep it balanced else I lose the entire story and start over again. I hope it finds you well.

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The day we first tried it, I had just finished eating and as usual, sneaked out to my friend's house in only my panties. It was a Saturday. I turned five the day before and Mama bought me a gown. It was a soft silk material decorated with flowers. I never liked too many colours and flowers made me sneeze, but I loved it. Maybe because it was my first birthday gift from her. Normally, each year, Mama would coo about how fast I was growing, so I was surprised when I came home after school and she handed the dress to me. She hugged me too. That had never happened before.

The gown made me think of Papa. He was the one who bought me the gifts. Mama would complain about how he was spoiling me when she thought I wasn't listening. The months that followed Papa's departure, I thought of him often. His smiles still made me laugh. I would mimick his voice and his jokes. Mama overheard once. Later, I saw her cleaning her wet eyes. I waited for her to say something. She didn't. Instead, the dress came.

Ife was waiting for me when I got there. Usually, we would begin with hide and seek before moving on to playing soccer with pieces of stones and bottle covers. I learned from Obi. I would pretend not to be watching while he arranged the bottle covers the same way players assumed their positions on the field. Sometimes, I would help him expand them – by beating them with stones – then bend to desirable shapes before tying them together with a rubber band, to serve as goalkeepers. He wouldn't let me play, not until I was six. I never minded. I loved watching him play with his friends. Obi was my elder brother.

Ife had a different game in mind that day though.

“There was a game I saw on the TV,” she whispered.

“Which channel?” I asked.

“My brother came home with it,” she shrugged.

My eyes widened. She saw my expression and nodded. We were never allowed to watch films on the video machine, especially on weekdays. The only thing we got to watch was cartoons and the local news channel on weekends, and educational tutorials on weekdays. I wanted to ask her how she did it but decided against it. I already felt the excitement of a new game. She took my right hand and dragged me to the front of the house.

Ife’s house was huge and round. The only place we had some privacy was in front. We made it our place. It was there we did our school homework. I was a little confused when I saw she was leading me there but I said nothing. She motioned under the long benches lined up at the veranda. They were reserved for visitors. I crawled under one and stretched. The floor was matted by dust and I knew my buttocks were dirty. Mama wouldn’t be happy when she washed my panties.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

I inhaled her breath mixed with stale onion as she climb in beside me. I wrinkled my nose and waited for the game to begin. I felt her fingers on my lap. My eyes flew open. I wanted to laugh and slap her hand off but her eyes were closed and her mouth half open. I stopped and looked down. I watched her middle finger trace the hem of my panties before prying it open. We were both breathing hard.

After that day, something shifted. The air was never the same when we were near each other. I never understood what it was and I was a little scared to ask. I started to joke about it in school but stopped when she began to cry.

“That wasn't the game,” she sniffed.

I stared at her in confusion.

“It was a hide and seek game. You see, I was going to show you how to play. I don't know what happened. Please don't tell anyone.”

Still confused, I held her hand and let her cry. With Ife, there were no words. We snuck out every week and played our little game. It remained a game to us even after we understood what we were doing. We couldn't stop. Each time, we would pause midway, averting our eyes. Each time, we would continue. We let out fingers do the talking.

At home, Mama hugged me more. Sometimes, she looked at me like she wanted to talk but would sigh and shake her head before looking away. I wanted to tell her about the game. I wanted to describe how it happened and how Ife cried when I mentioned it. I wanted to know if Ife's tears meant it was wrong. She always cried when we did something wrong. I wished I could ask Mama but she didn’t talk to me much. I wasn’t sure she would understand. She had always been quiet and it got worse after Papa. She would sit and stare into space. That was before she started hugging me, and now, it was all she did. Maybe because Papa wasn't there anymore. I loved hugging her too but I kept the words to myself.

Shortly after I turned twelve, Aunt Uju came and took me with her to Port Harcourt. Mama broke the news to me on a Tuesday, when I came home from school. During their last visit, Aunt Uju was telling Mama how she needed a girl in the house now that her older children had left. I didn't know if Mama made the decision because of that, or if it was because girls my age were leaving our small town for the city to stay with relatives. You'll have a better life there, was all she said. When I told Ife, she was very quiet. We didn’t play the game for the rest of the week. She also refused to see me to the bus station.

Aunt Uju’s house was very different from ours. Here, everyone was loud. The took things without permission and said things the way they wanted, except for Chinedu, the youngest. He was about my age, and the only child in the house as his older siblings were all away in the boarding school. I was enrolled into the same school as him but he still never said a word to me. I wasn't sure if he disliked me or if he was shy. Not even after the incident.

It had happened in the evening, a year after I came to live with them. Chinedu and I were always the first to return home. His dad’s car was parked besides the flowers in front of the house. He ran in with a smile on his face. I shrugged. He loved his dad. It reminded me of Mama. When I came into the house, Chinedu was gone. His dad took my right hand and propelled me to his bedroom without a word. I wanted to ask what he was doing but I couldn't. The day before, he had let us watch a movie on the video machine. He had sent Chinedu out just before the scene. He didn’t tell me to close my eyes like Ife’s mum always did with us, when she allowed us to watch a movie. I had no idea why she made us do that, not at first. I noticed he was staring at me but I kept my eyes glued to the TV. For the first time in my life, I was nervous.

The nervousness was back when he quietly closed the door and pointed to the huge bed in the middle of the room. While he did what he wanted with my body, I was thinking of Ife. I wondered how I would explain this new game to her. If she would be happy or sad. I also wondered if she had a new friend now and if they played our game.

Chinedu wouldn’t look at me after that. Not that he really looked at me before but he grew more distant. That night, I heard Aunt Uju arguing with her husband. I wasn't the first or the second. For the first time, I felt sorry for Chinedu. It had become a pattern for him, one he recognised. I wanted to apologise.

By the time I wrote my Senior School Certificate Exams and got admission into the university, I perfectly understood what was going on. Chinedu's father still played with my body. Sometimes he would complain about my rigidity. During one of his arguments with Aunt Uju, he told her that she was the one related to me and not him. That she was free to leave if she wanted to. I never understood why Aunt Uju stayed. She would cry after each episode. Mama and Papa never argued that way. I was only a child but I knew Mama was always happy when Papa was around. Chinedu got tired of consoling her and began to lock himself in his room.

I stopped coming home after the second semester of my first year. I hated the shoutings and how distant everyone and everything was. I missed Ife. She would know what to do if she was here. I missed Mama too. I thought about going to her but I hadn't seen her in almost six years. The one time I went back to spend time with her, I did with tears. I was sure she wouldn't let me go back. But my happiness was short-lived when she sat me down to explain why I shouldn't say a thing like that ever again. She reminded me of Ngozi, the thirteen year old girl who said such things about her father and the oldest chief married her to save her from the shame, and to give her baby a name. When Aunt Uju came to take me back, Mama asked her not to bring me again.

She never visited either, and her silence wouldn't stop echoing in my head. So I stayed. School became my home. I tried it with some of the boys but there was always something missing. I never recognised what it was, not immediately. That made me try harder during my first three years. In those short years, I often wondered why like Aunt Uju, I had stayed. Why I had waited till I was in the university to take a stand. I thought about it often because I wanted to understand Aunt Uju's choices. Why she continued to bring me pills and boiled water for me to take a bath. Maybe because I loved her. I wanted what Mama couldn't give me. I searched for it in her, but it never came. I also wondered why Chinedu's sisters hardly came home.

It wasn’t until I graduated and was taking a stroll on a cool evening that it came to me, vividly this time. I always liked looking at girls and I blushed when they looked back. I would ignore the warm feeling when a girl touched my hair. I went out with boys, fairly because I liked them. Again, because everyone expected you to. But this day was different. I was standing, hands in the pocket of my jacket, staring at the little ice-cream shop across the street and wondering whether or not to go in for a cup when she approached. I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I didn’t notice her till she stopped in front of me. I turned and couldn’t look away. I didn’t move when she traced my hairline down to my cheeks with her index finger. I was still transfixed when she reached into her bag and brought out a card.

“Call me,” she whispered and slipped it into my pocket.

After a night with her, I knew I had found what I was looking for. Difference was, I didn’t want it, not with her. There were only two people I wanted to see. I would try one more time to find answers from one, and completeness from the other. That moment, I realised it was time to go home.

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