Page 43

Since morning traffic was a nightmare, Eketi settled for a friend's office in an impressive salon in Ikeja GRA. Two streets away from set.

She flexed her bare feet on the arm of the ergonomic chair he sat on and stretched. The hem of her crisp white blouse pulled out of her green skirt, revealing a belly-button ring. “Do you want anything?” she asked.

Timi's eyes kept darting towards the door. Eketi had lent him a face cap, but he didn't trust the glances he'd received as they hurried past the busy pink ground floor.

“Relax,” Eketi said. “I locked the door, remember?”

“Why are we here?”

“To untense you.”

He started to speak but she raised a finger.

“If anyone understands the hell you're going through, it's us, your colleagues. And what has made us suitable for this life is the ability to blur out the distracting lies and keep our eyes on the truth. But for that to happen, we need to know what the truth is.” She peered at him. “Do you?”

Timi frowned. “Do I what?”

“Know your truth.”

“Isn't it obvious?”

Eketi smiled. “Remember my hell?”

He remembered alright. The bullying had been so bloody, and just like him, she'd caved and made a video of herself crying, telling them how suicidal their words made her. Which only led to them calling for her death to rid the world of one more vermin.

When their relationship began making rounds, he'd dreaded a repetition, but he was quickly reminded that being gay and African trumped any kind of pervasion.

“Small girl–big coprophile?” he said.

She winced. “I couldn't stand a toilet bowl for months.”

Timi sat straighter. “You mean—”

“Partially true. There are people who would pay millions for the weirdest shit.” She exhaled.

“Anyway, it was supposed to be a one-time thing, but I continued, because who can resist such kind of money? I got greedy, and my activities eventually leaked. Though my ex-best friend, the whistle-blower, conveniently left out whose mouth was consuming whose poo.”

Timi wasn't one to concern himself with what people did in their bedrooms, and damn, this was too much information. “Eketi…”

She held out a hand. “Chill. I'm going somewhere with this. Months after the scandal, I realised why I'd continued and what truly disgusted me about the whole thing.”

“Why?”

“I continued because I liked it. The powerful feeling of getting someone off by debasing them in the worst way imaginable. Men going ape shit over my waste products did it for me. It was the weirdest, yet most exhilarating experience I've ever had. Made me less obsessed with you. ”

Timi held an inhuman grip on his imagination squirming to bombard him with pictorial presentations of the words pouring out of Eketi's mouth.

Eketi wriggled her nose. “Don't give me that look, you'll be surprised what people do when it's just them in their bedrooms.” She peered at him. “You probably have one or two fantasies you've refused exploring.”

His mind went to that night, a million years ago.

Alex, tenderly licking every inch of him, bringing him to glorious fulfilment.

And he, returning the favour, shame, elusive.

The many nights after. Plagued with dreams of that face, those eyes, and hands running over his skin.

Spilling into his own hand, with his mouth opened to the pants of “Alex” as waves crashed through.

He shook off the memories and the stirrings they evoked. What he had with Alex couldn't be compared to…this or anything. Ever. “If you liked it, what disgusted you about it then?”

She got up to extract two bottles of soya milk from the purple side-by-side fridge taking up a huge space in the compact office. She opened one and held it out to him. He grudgingly accepted the offer. It tasted like wet paper, just like everything he'd put in his mouth since Alex's disappearance.

Eketi tilted her head backwards, taking several gulps, then dropped the bottle on the table she perched on. “The people declared it wrong and bad, so I had to hate it. It disgusted me to hate it.”

“But isn't it…unnatural?” he asked.

“Maybe. But aren’t most sexual acts unnatural and dirty? I hated myself for months, because people's expectations demanded I did. I lived a tormented life because if everyone agreed it was an evil act, then I was evil, right?”

“You're not evil.”

She sat back down in her chair facing him. “Of course, I'm not. But I believed it then, until I decided to fully embrace who I was…am. A fiercely independent girl who occasionally likes to poop on people's faces and get paid for it.”

“Jeez, Eketi... ”

“I haven't done it since I returned from Dubai, so I'm clean? I'm focused on Red Tinsel, because even if I've accepted myself, I still have a public image to launder.”

His chest tightened. How many people were going to get hurt if he went on with his plan?

Eketi wheeled her chair close enough to brush knees with him. “Timi, we may not share the same experience, but I know enough to warn you we'll not get anything done if you keep denying your truth.”

“Denying…? Haven't you seen all the efforts I've been making to correct things?”

Eketi sighed. “I see myself so much in you, it's eerie. We both know you've been off waaaaay before this latest news came out.”

Timi fixed his gaze on the black whorl wallpaper behind her. “Acting is hard.”

“So is doing what you've deceived yourself into thinking is right.” She reached for his belt buckle.

He batted her hands off. “What are you doing?”

“Praying with you. What does it look like? I told you I brought you here to untense you. What's more relaxing than a BJ from a beautiful woman?” Her fingers found his zipper. “See it as practice for later scenes.”

Timi flew out of his chair, and Eketi joined him. “Two truths can co-exist, Timi,” she said softly. “The love you and your father shared, and the love for your man.”

Timi's heart stopped. “You—”

“Some of us have experienced heartbreak so many times the signs jump at us.

And someone's glaring absence makes it kinda obvious.

I didn't want to believe it at first, but after watching you guys, it kinda makes sense the only person capable of getting through to you would be someone like Alex. We, women, never stood a chance.”

Love? Missing Alex was a physical ache in his bones, but love? That was some fakeass shit. A loophole created by humans to justify their selfishness. “You don't know what you're talking about. ”

Eketi clicked her tongue. “Your denial is soooo much worse than mine. Both of you.” She picked up her soya milk. “At least you didn't go around injuring people.”

Timi gripped her bottle as she tried taking a sip. “What do you mean? Who went around injuring people?”

She pulled it out of his grip. “Agu doesn't want it disrupting the shooting.”

“Why would Agu know about this? Stop jerking me around.”

Eketi sighed. “Your assistant stormed his house three days ago. Got into this huge fight with his men.”

Timi's chest caved in.

“Agu wouldn't say more than that. I can't tell why, but since it was a day after you made that video…” She shrugged. “A girl gotta connect the dots. Though, I still can't figure out how Agu plays into this. Does he have a hand in—”

Timi had begun heading for the exit, a droning noise drowning every thought in his head, except to get to Alex and ascertain he was as whole as he'd left him.

Eketi hurried after him, then thrust his forgotten cap into his hands. “Cover up, I'll drop you off.”

When they got back on set, Timi paused as he got down. “What did D'Yoyo whisper to you?”

Eketi said, “I already showed you, but you didn't choose it. You can still get it up for this team, abi?”

Timi gripped her hand. “Thank you. For…telling me. And we're just friends, okay? There's…nothing “

She patted his hand. “If you say so. Things will soon be fine. I promise.”

He hesitated. “I have to-”

“You're useless here anyway. Go.”

At the LM, Nejeere, who surprisingly was still around, blocked the driver's door. “Where are you going alone?”

Suleiman and Dagger he'd dismissed, and Jaja, stood several feet away, watching .

The plea in her eyes immediately put things into perspective. “You knew,” he said.

“It has nothing to do with you, Timi, and he's mostly fine. Just…please focus on what you returned for. Okay?”

Timi stared at her. Was this what love did to people? She had no idea he'd eavesdropped on their conversation, but here she was, stripping herself of everything Nejeere, and putting on a face he didn't recognise.

“What do you think you're doing?” he said.

She didn't flinch from his hard stare. “Section D. Subsection vii. Work comes first. Always.”

Timi blinked. Never did he think his own rules would be used against him, or that it would ever sound like absolute garbage.

He'd been about heading to the Fash's to ask for Alex's house address since his call to him had gone unanswered and it wasn't stated on his employee profile, but maybe he didn't have to.

Nejeere's mask had slipped, and he couldn't give a rat’s ass what she knew or didn't know anymore.

Alex had gotten into a fight with Agu, nothing could stop Timi from seeing him.

He stepped closer. “What's his address, Nejeere?”.

She pushed away from the vehicle. “Why would you—”

“Not going to ask twice.”

She stared up at him, then her hands fell off the door. “I don't know.”

The embarrassment in her stance convinced him she'd said the truth, and pity doused his triumph. Whatever they had, it was nothing like what he and Alex had. And if there was any chance of them having something in the future, it still wouldn't compare.

He climbed up the LM, started the engine and poked out his head towards where she stood by the pavement.

“Inform Maxwell and D'Yoyo I've had to take the rest of the day off. And Nej…” he waited until she met his gaze.

“I'm willing to forget what just happened.

But don't you ever step out of line again. Understood?”

She stayed frozen briefly, before giving a stiff nod. “I apologise.”

“Good,” he said, then drove off in a screech of tires.