If you won’t have sex with me, then why did you call me?
It was after she promised that his money was secure that he agreed to stay. Before all of these, she had insisted that he had his bath. Then she watched from the crack of the door as the water went down in lines down his body. Then she offered him dinner; beans and fried plantains.
As he ate, he said, “Is this why you called me here, you like to watch your men eat?”
She laughed. “No,” she said. “I just like to take care of people. It’s a common courtesy you see.”
It was her first time hiring a man for the night.
8:00 PM
The beginning
When Dolapo had picked up the stranger by the roadside, she was fidgety. Not just because it would be her first time picking up a man from the streets but because she was giving access to her home to a complete stranger. He could kill her, tie her up in her sheets and steal her money.
She had picked him by virtue of his disinterest. The other boys who peered eagerly into her vehicle had ‘strong’ faces. He was aside, smoking a cigarette. He seemed to possess a certain naiveté that she too possessed and so saw a kinship in.
“Me?” he said pointing at himself. He flicked the cigarette into the air and walked to her car and leaned over.
“How much?” she asked.
“10k,” then after he seemed to have sized her up. “15k.”
She licked her teeth. “Get in.”
As she drove, her fingers pressing tightly on the steering wheel, she said, “My name is Dolapo...”
He looked at her as if unsure of answering her. Then he said, “I’m jide.”
8:30 PM
In her house, he could not seem to hide his awe. Wide-eyed, he took in everything; the golden coloured light bulbs, the chandelier in the living room. He said excitedly, “You own all of this?” she offered no answer and he did not pursue it any further.
She was alarmed at his excitement, of his eyes taking in everything she owned liked the hungry youth that he was. In that moment, she realized he could really kill her, really wrap her body in sheets like the blogs said other had suffered and he would do it without an issue because she had sent everybody home; the driver, the gardener, the housekeeper.
In her moment of fright, she said, “Look, I don’t know if I still want to do this. I can still transfer you your money.”
He said, “Okay. But why?”
She offered no answers.
“You’ll like it,” he promised.
She did not need much persuasion.
9:00 PM
She insisted that he had his bath. During which, she watched as the water dripped down his torso, down his legs and finally through the drain. After he was done, she passed him a towel.
Then they sat for a dinner of beans and fried plantain. He did not say whether he liked it or not. Perhaps he did not know it was common courtesy to do so.
Instead, he said, “Is this why you called me here, you like to watch your men eat?”
She laughed. “No,” she said. “I just like to take care of people. It’s a common courtesy you see.”
9:40 PM
When he was done eating, he said, “Are we going to have sex or not?”
She led him to her bedroom, this little private world of hers. In there, she put on only the bedside lamp so that the entirety of the room was barely illuminated.
He removed his trousers. She stood staring. He climbed into bed still in his boxers.
She sat by his leg and awkwardly began massaging his feet.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Trying to make you comfortable.”
“I am comfortable.”
They remained in silence. Now he was growing impatient.
“Are we doing this or not?” he asked again.
“Can’t you do a bit of small talk first?” she asked. “Who taught you this job?”
“Nobody taught me.”
“Perhaps you needed to have been taught.”
10:00 PM
He said, “What is it that you would like to talk about?”
She said, “Anything. I don’t know.” She found herself feeling silly now.
“Is this your first time?” he asked. She stared at him. “Doing this. Hiring somebody?”
She said nothing but he knew in her silence and with it came a sense of pity from him. Now he did not seem so impatient or angry that his time was being wasted.
She said, “Look, how much do you make per night?”
“Depending,” he said truthfully. “Two or three sessions most times. Some nights, I’m not so lucky. But the weekend is usually when I work a lot.”
“I would pay you for the night,” she said. “I just need you to stay here with me.”
“No sex?”
“No sex.” Perhaps he thought her weird, she could not tell from his face. The room was dark. “What kind of women hire you?”
He moved his head from side to side. “Women like you. Busy women. Mostly business women and around your age.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“You are in your sixties,” he said.
She nodded. “How else are these women like me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But you are like them. There are a lot of lonely women in this city and they are sex machines.”
She laughed. She imagined those women now. Did they have a dead husband like she had? Did they have a daughter they barely spoke to or did they opt entirely out of marriage? Did they barber their hair close to the temples like she did and then dye it oxblood? Did they have loose fitting attires or travel to Dubai? How rich were this women?
11:00 PM
That morning, she had stood by the mirror, holding up her fallen breast. She told him now about this. How she had suddenly become conscious about how she looked. How she wished the gentle folds of skin under her stomach away.
“You are in great shape,” he told her. He was lying on his stomach, looking at her just beside him. “I think you are still fit and also very beautiful. Any guy would be lucky to fuck you.”
She looked at him. It was easy for him to say. He still had youth on his side. His stomach was stretched skin over muscles, no folds. His calves were not drooling yet.
She asked, “What is the oldest woman you have ever done this with?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe seventy, eighty.”
She felt slightly better. “And the youngest?”
“I believe she was thirty six- if you’re still talking about the job.”
She felt self-conscious again.
11:30 PM
She told him, “You are a young man with prospects. Why are you doing… this?”
He laughed and she was surprised by the sound of his cackle. “I came to town to stay with my older cousin. There was no job and people, men and women, were always prepositioning me. That’s what happens when you are a beautiful person. So I said yes.”
“To both men and women?” she asked.
He laughed and said nothing.
“You look old enough to have finished school. Did you go at all?”
“Yes. I have an HND.”
“Is it personal that I ask this? Did you ever imagine yourself doing this?”
“No but then again, I never really thought much about the future. I didn’t do well in school either.”
“Do your parents know? Again I’m sorry with all these questions.”
He laughed. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t know with my father, he’s dead. We were not close with each other anyway. Neither am I close with my mother. I send her money where she is. She leaves me alone.” Then he seemed to want to go on a rant, “See, I know it’s looked down on but I think I am doing something important here. There are lonely people and I satisfy something… not just sexual but emotional for them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and I don’t think anyone should judge the women that hire me.”
“Would you feel okay if your wife hired… someone like you?”
“I hope to fulfil all husband duties if I ever do get married.” He looked at her, “I meet a lot of people. Their spouses are dead or some are divorced. Sometimes, they are still in the picture. With you, I can’t tell.”
She looked at him. “I think you already know.”
He shook his head.
“Well, I’m one of the lonely women in the city.”
11:30 PM
She told him about her dead husband. “I would tell this only to you. When he died, I felt a bit of relieve. Does that feel wicked? I don’t know, I used to love that man. I don’t know what happened?”
He said, “Sometimes, people grow apart.”
She looked at him. They were both sitting shoulder to shoulder on the bed now. “You sound smart for someone who was bad at school.”
“But not life,” he said with a stupid smirk.
She told him about meeting her husband while at university. “He was the first and only one for me,” she said. She laughed and said, “When I first did it, I don’t think your parents had even thought of conceiving you.”
She told him about her daughter that lived faraway.
When she looked at the bedside clock, she said, “Jesus! It’s already 12. I am barely ever awake by this time.”
12:30 AM
He was telling her about his first heartbreak. She replied with groans. The bedside lamp had been turned off and they were immersed in a comfortable, air-conditioned, darkness.
He said, “Dolapo? Dolapo? Are you still awake?”
She groaned. “You remember my name?”
“Do you remember mine?” he asked.
She said nothing.
“Are you asleep?”
“No,” she said drowsily. But she was in fact asleep, slipping in-between a wakefulness and a dreamless slumber.
2:30 AM
When she got up to pee, she could hear his gentle snoring just beside her. She had almost forgotten about him. She got up with an effort from the bed.
When she returned to the room, his face was illuminated by the light of his phone’s screen. She turned on the light bulb.
He glanced from her back to his phone and perhaps because he had seen the alarm on her face, he said, “I’m just texting my girlfriend.”
“You have a… you have a girlfriend?” she stammered.
“I’ve told you before,” he said.
She did not think that he had. “I do not remember.”
She watched him typing into his phone then slowly and unsure at first, she unhooked her bar from behind and freed her breast.
When he looked up from his phone, he did not betray any sudden changes in emotion. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly, then began to quickly wear the bra again.
“No, no, no,” he protested, getting up from the bed and rushing to her. “Don’t do anything. You are perfect.”
She said, “I know you’re just saying that.”
“Is it working?” he asked.
She laughed. She walked to the mirror in the corner and stared at her breast. “I should get liposuction. You know, remove all the fat from my stomach and maybe also get a breast augmentation.” She was holding up her breast and he was behind her.
He said, “Let me hold it,” and before she could say anything, he held her breast and squeezed softly. “I like it,” he said. “It’s soft.”
She said nothing.
“Dolapo,” he began. “When we get old, parts of our body would sag.” She wanted to tell him that she had never quite felt young and free from responsibility. There was always something to do, someone to look after and suddenly here she was.
When he squeezed her breast again, she burst into laughter and turned away from him.
“What is it?”
“It feels ticklish,” she confessed.
He was staring at her and saying nothing. Then, “What do you want to do now?”
“I want to dance,” she said.
“What?” he asked confused.
“I want to dance.”
They danced without music, hips swaying, hands interlinked. She bragged, she said, “In my youth, I could shake my waist very well oo. All the other girls were jealous. Ha! But now I don’t want to suffer a hip surgery.”
When he itched closer to her in their dance, she could feel his erection. She glanced at him and he, without looking at her said, “What do you want? I’m excited and you’re an attractive woman.”
They settled back on the bed with him laying on her stomach both of them heaving with exhaustion. When their breathing had gone back to normal, he said, “So what should we do now?”
She said nothing.
“Dolapo, let me take care of you the same way I have done for others. Would you like me to go down on you?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Oral sex.”
She sat up on the bed. “What is that?”
He laughed but it was more endearing than it was mocking. “You are really oldschool,” he said. “Look, it’s when I use my mouth in your...”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh…”
“So?” he asked. She said nothing and he took her silence as compliance. He held her panties at the waist and began to pull them down.
“Wait,” she said. “I did not, you know… take care of down there…”
He laughed. “No problem.” He began to edge down again.
“Wait,” she said holding his head. “If we do do it…”
“Don’t worry, I came prepared. I have a condom in my pockets.”
“Okay. Well I bought a pack this morning. It’s in the drawer over there.”
“Okay.”
“Wait one last thing- can you turn off the lights first?”
3:20 AM
Her back was ached now in an extreme moment of ecstasy. Her fingers curled, she grabbed the sheets, she grabbed the sparse hair on his head.
He said, “You are very wet. I want to go in.”
She said nothing.
“Dolapo, I want to go in,” he said.
“Yes, yes, please do.”
4:30 AM
They were lying idly on the bed now and listening to the hum of the AC.
He said, “I would soon be going,” and she immediately understood what he meant.
“Your money. Yes, your money. Can I make a transfer?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
She picked up her phone on the bedside drawer. She asked for his account number and he recited out the digits. “Bank?” she asked.
He told her. Then, “The account name is my name,” he said mischievously.
She looked at him.
He smiled. “Jidenna Anosike.”
She typed in her phone for a bit. “I can barely remember my daughter’s own name at times.” Then- “I’ve sent it,” she said. Her phone beeped first from the debit, then his beeped too. He picked it up and stared at the screen. “Thank you.”
She said nothing.
They settled back to sleep. She linked her hands into his.
5:30 AM
When she woke up, he was not beside her. Instead, he had begun preparing to leave. He was already in his boxers and was wearing his trousers.
“You are leaving?” she asked.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you until I was done preparing.”
She said, “What is the time?”
He told her.
She said, “You don’t have to go now. Is it not too early? Stay a bit.”
He said nothing.
“Please.”
He climbed back into bed.
6:30 AM
By now, the sun’s light had found its way into the room through the curtains.
He was fully dressed now and she saw now how cheap his clothing was. She was in a dressing robe herself.
He said with a cocky smile, “Will I be seeing you again?”
She said, “I don’t know. How are your weekends like?”
“I’m usually busy,” he said. “But I can make out time.”
“How much do you charge for weekends?” she asked.
He told her and she let out a loud, “Jesus! Women in this town are rich oo!”
He smiled. He laughed. Then as if unsure of what he was doing, he said, “I can give you a better deal though. I’ll just leave my number with you.”
“Okay,” she said. He called out his number for her. She saved it on her phone.
“Dolapo,” he said. “I really enjoyed my time with you.”
She did not ask him if he meant it because she wanted him to mean it. She would like to reminisce later on the thought that he really did enjoy her company. She felt giddy like a teenage girl with a crush.
6:41 AM
She saw him off. From her verandah, she watched him make his way to the gate. After he opened the gate, he turned back one last time and waved at her. She waved back at him. He walked out and closed the gate behind him.
She lingered on the verandah for a bit. She wondered when she would make that call; if she would make the call.
