Still a fresh secondary school graduate —excited about finally making my hair that was constantly cut short, enough to display my yellow scalp, for six long years— It was finally time to step on necks and collect more hearts in jars. I was about to be the be a uni babe too (I thought life was that straight).
While waiting for my O’levels result, I registered for computer lessons cos you know how the devil just bounces on people and uses them as a workshop. I wasn’t going to be people, so I registered with some of my friends and secondary school classmates for computer basics. It felt like a mini reunion.
Legend has it that I had a much juicier butt than I have now (still beats me, cos isn’t it supposed to get juicier with age?), not like I believe it. But looking back at how men and boys lusted after me like goats at the sight of yam peels, makes it easy to believe. There’s also the factor of me looking older than my age cos my mother fed me fertilizers while growing up, but the juicy derriere remains my best bet. I was basically a handsome boy with curves, cos hello! Almost bald head and just ‘tondo’ earrings. So you see what I mean?
Just beside my training center (a cafe, actually), was a barber shop. This man had some ‘rich’ men as clients and one of them happened to be very much interested in me—a teenage girl still growing her hair with local hair styles. He started subtly and he gradually became expressive.
As the sweet baby Jesus junior that I was, I never in my wildest imagination would have thought a man as old as this man would think of me in a sexual way. He must have been in his late forties or early fifties. He was a good looking man and had a good dress sense. He looked like one who knows how to chop life. Like I said, he started subtly, with the barber (who was probably even older but thought himself young) as his middle man. The barber would send airtime to me without asking. This gesture, I wasn’t comfortable with (was never comfortable with receiving gifts from men who aren’t family).
At first, I didn’t give it much thought, cos I was Me, the girl who gets lucky with even strangers. But when the gesture became consistent, accompanied with questions concerning my welfare, I had to tell him to stop, cos it was making me uncomfortable. It was beginning to look like he had a mission. Did he listen? No!
You’re probably wondering how he got my number; he got it from me cos “friendly neighbour” and older people are supposed to have sense by default— my bad!
Anyhow, the Don himself finally contacted me without his mouthpiece, and I almost ‘sir’ed him to death. He still didn’t hit the nail on the head, but with the way he looked at me and called my name whenever he came for a haircut, I felt very uncomfortable. I started to act like I broke out of prison and was on the run, whenever I was at the cafe.
I went out of the cafe less and would only go out as a group and hide amongst my friends, pretending to be very into a pretend conversation. It was terrible. I avoided those two as much as I could. I was always a bit relieved whenever the Don was out of the country or state. Apparently, he travelled out a lot and from the look of things, his mouthpiece was getting something from him cos all that ‘hardwork’ couldn’t be for nothing.
The Don and his mouthpiece would call, and I’d hide my phone beneath my mattress and abandon it there for hours. I was tired. At this point, I was drained from turning down advances from different people and of being an almost-adult. I was close to hating myself cos I honestly hated the attention, I just wanted a normal life (which I’m getting now, by the way).
The last major memory I have of him was him calling me late at night—after his mouthpiece had sent me some airtime again— asking of my wellbeing and informing me he’d be out of the country longer than usual. So, basically, he called to get my clothes and shoe sizes, and to know which of the blackberry phones I wanted. I felt sick to my stomach cos for crying out loud, this man had grown kids and a living wife (I believe; though it doesn’t matter if there was a wife or not, cos I was still a child).
I told him to not bother; I wasn’t walking around in rags, and my phone was still performing its basic function. He insisted he really wanted to get me gifts—a big box of clothing and edibles— and I remained adamant on wanting nothing; I was fine. He tried to give me some money too, but I stood my ground. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to worry about bumping into either of them cos I was done with my training. All I had to do was ignore the several texts and calls from both of them, especially the mouthpiece.
I’ve seen things in this life o. Sometimes, I wonder if it was beyond my body. I wonder if it was my look of innocence, giving me the look of an easy prey, that attracted these men.
These were days when I still wore only skirts below my knees and without slits, just cos I was trying to hide my stretchmarks as much as I could. Days when I wouldn’t wear trousers without tying a cardigan around my waist or wearing a shirt long enough to cover the outline of my butt. Days when I was very uncomfortable in my own skin. I didn’t even think I was that fine— had skin flawed with stretchmarks; thought my mouth was too wide for my face; teeth reminded me of a shark’s; fingers were too long; veins at the back of my palms were shallow rooted; complexion was too flashy; bum-bum was too big; I didn’t even want breasts—this made it even harder for me to wrap my head around the unwarranted attention and magnetism.
There were also times I suspected my light skin to be the magnetic force. I guess I’d never really know what these men saw. Boys, I can understand cos teenage hormones and all that stuff. But grown ass men? I’d always wonder.
Or could it be fate telling me to try this sugar daddy thing? What do you think?