Friday 14 September 2007

Private Reading

Hi guys, thank you so much for reading so far. I have chapter 6 out but I have made that blog PRIVATE HERE. If you are interested in reading and will help me with feedback and comments then please leave your email adress as a comment and I will invite you to the private blog (of course Sisbee, LOAS, Mimi, Shopaholic, Princesa, JF and all others who read religiously, I would love to have your emails :) ). I am doing this so my work isn't stolen or copied as I eventually plan to publish. Hoped you liked the small taste you got. Thanks a lot :)


phantomfiction@gmail.com

Monday 10 September 2007

Chapter 5 Part 2

‘What to wear, what to wear’ I couldn’t find anything as I rummaged through my wardrobe. I had tried on several outfits, but I wasn’t feeling them and there was a huge pile of clothes on the floor.

The D-'night' had arrived. After a week of trying to get back into the rhythm of work, it was finally time for me and the girls to let our hair down and party like it was 1999. My parents were pretty easy going when it came to people staying over so all the girls came over to get ready. Ose and Obi would be sleeping over and both Mimi and Tife lived in Lekki, not too far away, so would go home together.

I couldn’t help staring at Mimi’s outfit. She was wearing a short colourful sheath dress with green heels.
‘Mimi, please don't stand within a 20 mile radius of me with this outfit you are wearing’ I jokingly told her, 'Or maybe its not so bad seeing as you will be able to light my way in the dark.'
‘I don’t know why I have so many haters’ she muttered to herself as she applied her mascara.
‘You look like the rainbow’ Obi joined in, ‘Maybe I can find a pot of gold!’ She started searching under Mimi’s dress making her squeal.
‘You guys need to get over my exquisite dress sense. Add some colour to your life.’
‘When did you become Virgin Cola’s walking advert’ Ose asked, giggling. She was dressed in black cropped leggings and a red v-neck tunic.
‘So where are we going’ I asked, trying to change the subject before Mimi got upset. She had a short fuse and I wasn’t willing to experience it.
‘We should call around and find out what’s happening.’
‘Jen from hell called. She said there was a party at Six degrees north.’
‘We go there ALL the time.’ Mimi said rolling her eyes.
‘Well we can go somewhere else first, then as the saying goes...’ she raised her hands up in the air like a conductor
‘All roads lead to Bacchus’ we chimed in falsetto.
You guys we have 30 minutes or popsie will give us a lecture about driving around late. And Obi you definitely are not walking out of my house in that hoochie mama top. The neckline was low and revealed her cleavage.
‘I have my jacket with me for just that’.
Tife was the conservative one of the lot. She had on jeans and a cute tee that said…I’m bringing sexy back.

I finally settled with the first outfit I had tried on, a cute short black and white print Ankara dress by yours truly.
‘Madam Virgin Cola, what color should I accessorize with?’
‘Yellow’ she replied, pleased with herself.
‘We will be the rainbow sisters’

We set out at 10pm. My mum and dad were downstairs watching the News and we all had to go past them one by one like we were in a parade.
‘You all look really nice’ my mum said, inspecting each one of our outfits ‘and what lovely colours Mimi, just like the rainbow.’ I knew my mums seriousness was a lie. She was just being silly but Tife didn’t know that.
‘Inspector gadget’ I whispered to Ose.
My dad never made any comments about what we wore out. I think most times he found them quite strange.
‘Stay in one venue, don’t drive around at night’
‘Yes daddy’, ‘Yes sir’, we replied, knowing that was impossible.

We decided to go to Newscafe first. Contrary to the name, it was really a bar at the Palms shopping mall in Lekki. The weather in Lagos is hot and humid all year round so it was nice outside in the evenings. We decided against one of the tables indoors since it looked crowded. As usual Mimi rushed of to say hi to a group of people she knew, she knew everyone. Tife went in to say hi to Ray while Ose, Obi and I took a table and ordered some drinks. We were strategically positioned and could see everyone who arrived or left the building.

After discussing the wedding for a bit, and mingling for a little while, Ose and I started getting bored, so we decided to play our Mula rating game, but to spice it up, Obi would choose a guy and would then secretly rate his Mulaliciousness based on the 1 to 10 scale then Ose and I would write our numbers down and whoever was further away from Obi’s number would have to have a shot. Obi hated drinking, so she was the designated driver for the night. Our first victim was just leaving. Ose and I studied him and tried to guess what Obi’s number would be. He wasn’t bad looking, average height. I wrote down 5.
‘Obi, reveal the scores’ I said in a show host's voice. She had written 4, I showed her my number and Ose did a victory dance while we ordered some shots. I downed my vodka and we kept playing. By the time we were half way I couldn’t even guess anymore. All we did was giggle if the guy was overly mulalicious and we were getting so far off Obi’s guesses. Ose had a permanent smile on her face and was giggling stupidly for no apparent reason. Tife and Mimi had joined us by then and were enjoying themselves immensely. They joined in the game too and were a little bit merry by the time we were ready to leave. It had gotten late and there were only a few people around.
‘Lets go where all roads lead. I feel like dancing’ I said, smiling stupidly
‘Yes lets’ Ose said ‘Lets, lets, lets’
‘Oh boy’ Obi said, ‘You guys are clowns, can’t even hold your own!’ She said, as we drove on to Bacchus.

There where lots of familiar faces at the lounge. I was trying to act like I wasn’t tipsy while saying hi to everyone. I gave up trying to look for a potential mate after scanning the room, I hadn’t seen anyone interesting and most of the others, I already knew. A friend of ours bought a round of drinks and I nursed mine, only taking a sip now and then. We had so much fun dancing…frankly, at that point, it wouldn’t have taken much for us to have fun. We were all a bit on the merry side and even Obi caught the dancing fever. I realised I needed the bathroom after all the drinks, so I left the group and made my way through the crowd. On my way back I tripped over some idiot who had for some reason bent over on the floor. I fell and twisted my ankle on my yellow heels. He was trying to apologise and help me up, while I was thinking of what best to do to regain my dignity.
‘I’m so sorry’ he said again, and his voice sounded so familiar.
I looked up and it was none other than Sexy Tade looking Mulaliciously ZERO. I became a bit flustered and tried to respond but my brain was already slow from the alcohol so I just kind of giggled. But suddenly I felt the most intense pain in my ankle and then burst into tears! He looked dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe it myself really. The combination from the shock of falling, to the humiliation to the pain must have done it.

‘Maybe you need some air, we should go out for a second’
I agreed because it seemed like a good idea and the music was starting to give me a headache so I hobbled out with him. We sat on the trunk of his car parked a little way from the entrance of the club and the whole time we walked there he must have apologized a billion times.

‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see you there’
‘If you apologise one more time, I might have to hit you or something. Seriously I’m okay now.’
‘So nothing hurts’ he asked
‘Just my ankle but its feels better’
‘Let me see’ his fingers grazed my leg just as I slapped his hand really hard.
I could see he was blushing ‘I’m sorry, that was inappropriate, I wasn’t really thinking’.
What a stud! That was all I was thinking. I knew the alcohol had made me less inhibited. There was no way I would be sitting on a stranger’s car under normal circumstances.
‘It’s okay.’ I said then I sat up with a sudden start as I remembered crazy Jen
‘Shouldn’t we go back in? Your girlfriend will be worried and my friends too.
‘My girlfriend?’ he looked confused.
‘Yes, your girlfriend...Jen’, I said slowly in case I was being incoherent.
‘Oh, she’s not my girlfriend. We are family friends’
‘Well I don’t think she knows the distinction because she implied that you were dating’
He lay back on the back window looking very relaxed. He was exuding sex appeal. Father almighty!
'What are you doing?'
‘You need to relax a little. Let your ankle rest for a bit’ he said patting the vacant space beside him.
I knew right then that he was a seasoned Casanova but I gave in and lay beside him.
‘Tell me something’
‘What’ I asked turning towards him. I couldn’t even believe I was being bold enough to flirt with the devil.
‘Anything..about yourself, your dreams, hobbies..anything’. So I told him about me, Zena my ambitions, what I liked and didn’t like. Alcohol made me very chatty. After a while, I realized I was talking too much so I asked him the same question
‘I think you are sexy’ he said looking at me with smoky eyes.
It would have been corny at any other time but it wasn’t.
Then he leaned over and kissed me slowly. I didn’t want him to stop… I had forgotten that I was out in public, I had somehow transcended to a place where there was only the two of us…until I heard a shrill shout.
‘Bitch!’

Wednesday 5 September 2007

Chapter 5 Part 1

I'm so sorry for not updating in ages. Work caught up with me. But i'm here now. Please remember to leave feeback, positive or negative. Thank you.

The next two weeks went by excruciatingly slowly. There were several public holidays granted by the federal government for the public to ‘prepare’ for the elections which was good because the tension between political parties was quite high with reports of attacks on candidates and their supporters by the opposing political party. Voting was uneventful in my neighbourhood. I convinced my parents to perform their Civic responsibilities, the zest of youth was still burning in me and even their cynicism couldn’t put out the flames. Unfortunately it wasn’t so uneventful in other areas. There were several stories of ambush and stealing of ballot boxes and even no voting in some states. The first weekend was the gubernatorial elections and we had a four day stay at home weekend. It was quite annoying to be forced to stay home. My mum and I entertained ourselves with the West African Idols show in the living room upstairs while my father monitored the elections on NTA and Silverbird Television downstairs, boring us to death. The next Monday, Mr. Babatunde Fashola was declared as the winner of the elections for Lagos state.

The weekend after, the Presidential elections took place and once again ordered to stay home for a three day weekend.

Apart from eating, sleeping and exercising, I had a lot of time on my hands and since I decided to start dating again, it seemed like a good idea to be proactive about it. Being stuck at home, the first thing that came to my mind was to join dating websites. A year ago, Emily, a friend from University had gotten married to a very sweet guy she met online and they were having a baby. Internet dating couldn’t be all that bad right? WRONG. I locked myself up in the study upstairs, logged on to google.com and searched for the top dating websites. The results came up

Top 5 Online Dating Sites

1. eHarmony
2. Dating Direct
3. MatchMaker
4. Match.com
5. FriendFinder

I signed up to all five as Foxygirl and joined Hi5 and Facebook, two networking websites. Lara, a friend from Nysc met her current boyfriend on Hi5. I was going for overkill.

The process of signing up was hilarious. For eharmony I had to describe myself on a scale of 1 to 7 using Stylish, Beautiful, Shapely, Overweight, Fit, Sexy. I out 7 for all of them. I also had to answer several questions relating to my personality and what Kind of qualities I was looking for in a partner. Smoker? No, Religion? Christian, Children? No, Height? 5”8 and above, Education? Graduate...it went on and on. It was a similar sign up process for all the other sites.

When I eventually got through the maze of questions and answers, I was disappointed to find out that most of the sites had no matches for me. So I decided to check out the profiles of others who had signed up in Lagos. To my horror, some of the profiles read

CletusBaba

well,i will like to meet some that is well behave, that is as the ability of keeping a relationship. some who as got the understanding of what it takes to make love. well to my own personal underatanding. i belive love speaks not the distance but the heart. i dont care if my lover is far away from me .it can only take me time to see and get her ,but if she is very serious and relly want me i will make her the queen of my heart.

TrendyBobo

Nationality-Nigeria
Marital status-married For me marriage is ruled out
I have Children?-two daughters
I want children?-No
My education-M.Sc; MCIT(UK);PhD
Profession-Sea Port manager
My income-Low
Smoke?-No
Drink alcohol?-Very, very rare(3rice a year/less)
Music- Jazz, Blues, Country, R & BFavourite artists: Nat-King Cole, Tito Puente, Mighty Sparow, Kenny G, Don Williams
Religion-Chrisianity
Romantic?-Yes
People that attract me in order of preference: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces, Libra, Taurus, Sagitarius Leo, Gemini,
Colour Combination:-red,white, blue,purple, black

Handsomenigga

I am very handsome and i am equally looking for a very beautyful american lady between the age of 28/34 i will appericiate whoever gets intouch with me for a long term relationship.

WillieP

My name is willie a men of 28 years of age i am single looking for a real and serious relationship,I am honest Godly and sincere and i will like me opposite sex to be an ardent church attender someone that beleives in God, i dont work i am a permanenet sunday school teacher in my father's church but will like to meet a woman to spend the rest of my life with someone who is very honest loving caring sincere and intelligent.....

What a waste of two precious hours of my life. I would never have it back. What a choice! I would rather shoot myself. Most of the men there were hungry leeches looking to prey on foreign women who would marry them and make them citizens of their country…even if it was Iceland. They would renounce their Nigerian citizenship with the drop of a hat. Certainly none of them were of dating caliber.

I spent the rest of the weekend reading some books on dating which my mother had purchased and I had refused to read. Seeing as I was bored I decided to pick up a few tips. She seemed happy to see that I was reading them and my father found the fact that there were books on dating hilarious.

Why didn’t I have this when I started dating’ he laughed out.
‘Dating my foot, I don’t remember going on any dates’ my mum replied.
‘What do you mean, I took you to my fathers farm’ at this point he was nearly rolling on the floor.
My mum couldn’t help but laugh at what she called his nonsense.

I didn’t know how else to be proactive except to wait for our night out the following week to see if I would meet any interesting guys. I wasn’t looking forward to joining the dating scene. Starting afresh and having to get to know someone from scratch again seemed daunting which is why I hadn’t bothered. I knew I would have to kiss many frogs to find a suitable prince and that didn’t sound very appealing. I wished I could just have discussion with God face to face. I would tell him that I wanted to meet a tall dark handsome guy who would actually walk up to me and tell me a code that God had personally given him, which I already knew of course and that would be it. Who was I kidding?... God wanted me to do some work too.