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“Whatever you are not going to eat, it’s a very needless act to go ahead, perceiving the aroma”

That probably wasn’t exactly how that adage went but the interpretation meant the same thing.

—————— An hour and half later ——————–

After around an hour and thirty minutes or thereabout of talking raising voices and calming ourselves to avoid being bounced out of the bar, I made my way home from The Step Inn, thinking about a lot of things and about the possibilities of different outcomes of the different options I, Dave and Mickey weighed back in there.

“How come?” I thought to myself. “I swear. Women are the most powerful invention of the Man up top… just too damn powerful”

“Oga you never drive for Lagos road before?!… Abi make dem comot your glasses?!… mtcheww!” A bus driver shouted out at me as he made a swerve from his lane to mine and bursted into the connecting main road.

I shook my head and continued thinking, like the lesson I learnt some few weeks back wasn’t enough for me.

“Women can start and end national wars. They can turn a billionaire into a cab driver and can turn a cab driver into a billionaire. Sometimes you see old rich men, behaving like brainless goats just because of a woman and even some simple minded guys or players as they tag themselves these days would call themselves lady killers, when in truth they are the ones being led to the abattoir”

My phone rang.

Jermaine Cole’s “New York Times” jerked me out of my thoughtful time into the real time but my instincts instantly went against me picking up the call – for reasons unknown to me. The phone was face down under my car’s CD player so I wouldn’t even know and wasn’t alert enough to do my psychic guess thing to know who exactly the caller was but I just didn’t pick it up. After the caller’s third attempt, it stopped ringing. I sighed deeply.

“Memories!… We invest so much in making, breeding and feeding them when we are happy and head-over-heels, forgetting that they might be the same Monsters and Demons that will come back to violently haunt us when the party’s all gone sour” – ME (2012)

After listening to Dave’s story, I really couldn’t blame him ‘cos I’m a kind of person who before he passes judgment, puts himself in the same shoes and draw out the odds of possible different outcomes. I probably would have done the same thing or probably not, recollecting the fact that it could’ve been me relating my story of how I F’ed up to the crew. Dave was very lucky Femi A.K.A Doctor FM wasn’t at the bar or he would’ve driven a screw into Dave’s temple.

I giggled.

Women fight for gender equality but from my weird perspective, it’s us males that are supposed to be fighting this very fight. These powerful elements are always given the head start and I mean ALWAYS. Appear anywhere in the world, even in some churches, there’s always the gender bias rule. This made me remember one particular instance.

I was on a queue my bank’s branch on a Friday, that should be around a week or two ago. The queue was so long and everybody had their killer faces on. I plugged my earpiece to my ears, jamming Drake featuring Jhene Aiko “From Time” and just moved forward one step after the other according to how the answered customer left the queue. Suddenly a lady stood beside me and only by the movement of her good looking lips did I realize she was saying something.

“Sorry?” I said as I unplugged my earpiece from my right ear.

“Please sir, I’m really really in a hurry. My kid is waiting for me in the car outside and it’s really hot and sunny out there. Can I stay in your front please?” she spoke very low, either to add some spice to her already beggi-beggi voice or so the next person wouldn’t hear.

“Hian!… stay in my front?… I’ve been standing here for God knows how long and just when I’m the fourth person on the queue, you just emerge from nowhere and stare at me with your duck like face and sickle cell voice. Can I stay in your front?… No, you can stay in my pants. Get the hell outta my face before I yank out of the building all together” I said………. In my mind though.

Actually, I smiled and didn’t move forward as the answered customer left. She wasn’t dull either, in a flash she had lined in like an i-robot.

“Howfar na?”. “Bros!… haba!”. “Woman Power!”. “This guy is very stupid!”. “Shuu!… Just enter line like that?”  “bla bla bla…” other customers behind grumbled, swore, and complained.

“It’s her space. She was there already” was all I could shout back amidst all their protests and whining.

I lied, I felt it was a white one, she waited for me outside to thank me, she gave me a quick lecture of being a single mum, she was beautiful and the lil’ girl was cute, we ended up exchanging numbers, I had not called since and neither had she, but the thing is if it was a guy that tapped me, the first annoyance would be him making me unplug my earpiece when that kind of song was playing, then even if his grandma was roasting in the sun outside, it still would’ve taken a lot of thinking and consideration and possibly rejection of the request. So you see?

I nearly hit the car in front of me since I was unaware that all the cars were stopping ‘cos of the red light. I slammed the brake and let out a sigh.

“It could’ve been me sharing or rather, confessing my escapade with Titi, my friend’s girl to every member of the crew. Four of us that is, and inarguably, I would’ve been lynched on National TV. Even the thought twitched my stomach sour. That wouldn’t be anything like Dave’s confession. June was single. Nobody’s girl and even if she was someone’s girl, we didn’t know who it was. But messing around with your friend’s girl, Nope! “Hommies don’t shit on Hommies yards”.

A loud honk sounded behind me. My car was stagnant even after the green light.

“I’m so sorry y’all” I said to myself like it was supposed to be a broadcast message for all those I’ve inconvenienced. I stepped on the throttle and made a right turn, the last turn before getting home. For some reasons I didn’t know, I just couldn’t wait to get home. My apartment – The standard definition of a bachelor’s abode.

I got home, found my way into the bathroom, hung my cloths in the closet and straight into the shower. I stood there for around five minutes, just allowing the water to run over me like it was supposed to wash my thoughts away. The water felt cool. Then, like it was running some ironic assignments, the cooler the water felt, the deeper in though I got.

As unpredictable as I am, I was not thinking of Dave, Titi, June, Doctor FM or whoever was already in or going to get into the confession saga. I was thinking about Elizabeth or Lizzy as she introduced herself. Lizzy was in her late twenties although she didn’t tell me but I did my psychic thing. She is a single mom with a cutie of a daughter around four years old, fair skinned and a broad sweet smile, nice soft pleading voice, height around 5’7 and should weigh just around 127 pounds. Since that day at the bank, no party had attempted making contact. Good enough.

My phone rang again from inside the room and I contemplated going naked to see who was calling. It could be Dave, Mickey or… No I don’t want it to be Titi. This wouldn’t be the best time. On second thought, I decided to leave it and call back after my unnecessary self-prolonged shower.

Thoughts changed, and it was back to Dave’s narration.

Dave stood up from the chair he was sitting on, like a victim of the mischievous ‘sit-on-a-pen’ secondary school prank, grabbed June by the waist and planted his mouth deep into hers. They kissed long, rough and passionately like a reuniting couple after seven years. Next thing you know, June had pushed Dave onto the king-size bed and before any protests could be made, she was upon him like a demon ready to possess. Moments come when logical reasoning can’t be accessed and you either use your reserved determination or you simply enjoy the period of captivation, discarding any possible consequence.

Clothes were being yanked off, and in less than a minute, all ‘Believe’ had on were his pair of black socks. According to him, since I wasn’t there, it was all happening in the speed of light and thoughts were always two steps behind actions. Right under the sheets, Dave was grinding, pushing and thrusting June so hard and fast. The only time he stopped was when June got up, pushed him unto the bed and sat on him; slightly moving up and down – Change of style.

All through the act, all that was on his mind was Titi.

In less than half an hour, the deed had been done. However unplanned and unintentional, June and Dave lay next to each other, staring at the ceiling, sweating and panting.

“Woo… You’re still the boss Dee”

No reply

“Did you enjoy it?”

No reply

“Are you alrig….”

Dave shoved the bed sheet aside before she could finish the sentence, dashed for his briefs and dressed up “I’m about to be engaged for Christ’s sake. What have I done?… Damn!” he grumbled and mumbled.

June remained in the same position, just staring at him like he was acting.

He felt like arrows were being shot at him from different angles. – The height of guilt, or thereabout.

“What am I gonna tell my fiancée?… what?!”

He angrily found his way out of the room to where his car was and in no time was on his way home without a word to June nor a reply to his mumblings from her either. And that was when he called me.

My phone rang again.

I snapped out of my thoughts planet and quickly stepped out of the bathroom, toweled myself and wrapped the wet piece of clothing around my waist.

I checked my phone’s screen and it was just an MTN number. “who the hell is this?”

“Hello”

No reply

“Hello, who is this please”

“Good afternoon. This is Elizabeth”

“Who?”

“Lizzy! We met at the bank and I’ve been calling for close to an hour”.

Mature Minds Talk.