Chronicles Of A Runs Girl - S01 E52

2 years ago

Chronicles Of A Runs Girl - S01 E52

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 52

Awan eleyi badt!

Uncle China came out to look for us. I saw him walking towards Doctor’s car and shifted in my sit. Rotimi didn’t see him and continued nodding gently to the music with his eyes closed.

Uncle China knocked on the window of the driver’s side. I pretended I just saw him. Rotimi switched off his stereo then pressed a button to roll down the window.

“Oti yewo?” – have you checked her, he asked the doctor.

“Rara sir,” – no, Rotimi replied.

“Kilewan shey ninu oye?” – So what were you doing in the car with the AC on?

“Uncle C, my car no be clinic o.”

Uncle C bent down to look at me. I decided to look distressed, but in the darkness of the cabin I couldn’t be sure he saw the look I’d conjured up for his benefit.

“Amaka, oya, let’s go upstairs.”

I was shocked. He still wanted to take me to his bed? Or was he just showing the younger man who is boss?

Rotimi also got out of his car as I did. Uncle China slapped him playfully on the back and pinched his skin. The younger man coiled away and they both laughed at a joke they thought was private. I got it. I also got that ‘have you checked her’ meant have you touched her. I made a mental note to ask Mama if Uncle China knew I speak Yoruba.

“Doc, are you coming?” Uncle China asked.

Rotimi looked at me as if he expected me to decide for him. I wished he wouldn’t.

Uncle China pressured him: “You this young man, when I was your age I was fire! You are about to tell me it’s getting too late, abi? Ok, it is a command; you are coming upstairs!”

Rotimi was smiling sheepishly. He shrugged and that settled that. Images of Kike’s man and Charles Alfonso Paraku canoodling in bed filled my mind. But before I could feel my heart break and be overwhelmed with despise for what my life had become, Uncle China turned to me and added to my confusion. “You, you won’t play o,” he said.

My mouth was dry as I asked “Play what?”

“The water game,” he said. He slapped palms and snapped fingers with Rotimi. They both knew what the water game was. In my mind I was thinking, why upstairs? The pool is downstairs.

Uncle China led the way back into his big house, I followed behind, after Rotimi casually placed his hand on my back to urge me on. What was I getting into?

At the foot of the stairs we ran into a party waiting for the host. They were mostly men but a few of them had girls clinging possessively onto their arms. They were pretty girls who looked decent and clean, and then there was Mama, standing alone holding a half drunk bottle of Moët by the neck and looking worse for wear. I hoped she knew what the water game was.

We went upstairs and it quickly became obvious that not everyone was invited to that side of the party. Thugs working as bouncers held out their hands as if they were stopping gate-crashers from joining us.

We got to the now familiar landing and joined up with another gathering waiting for us. Men outnumbered women ten-to-one. I looked around for Mama but she wasn’t with us. I found Rotimi instead, standing at the back of the crowd, looking out of place.

Uncle China ushered his guests through a double door into a large lavish parlour. The room was freezing. Grown men jostled for chairs – invariably there weren’t enough for everyone. Girls sat on their men’s legs as servants brought dining table chairs to make up for the shortage.

I looked around for Mama but couldn’t find her. Had she been bounced? Rotimi was again at the end of the room, far from me. I wondered if he was avoiding me. Someone placed a chair behind me and I dutifully sat. Playful boisterous banter filled the room. I looked around and found that I was the only girl sitting alone. Uncle China was talking to a couple of fat-bellied men and Rotimi was accepting a bottle of Star from a servant.

I studied the few girls who had made it past the bouncers. I recognized something in them.

They were silent, concentrating on looking good, constantly touching their braids and arranging their outfits. They had the pensive disposition of cattle brought to slaughter. They knew the fate that awaited them and they were mentally preparing themselves for the task ahead. Getting paid for it doesn’t mean the sex would come naturally; you may not like the look of the man, he might have an odour that does not agree with you, your body may simply not be in the mood for sex. But you have to do it, and you have to pretend to enjoy it. You have to fake an o----m, and when he’s done you have to clean yourself up and be reminded through pain and bruises of how you just sold your body against all that society has thought you is right to do.