Dating : Now At Large: Short Story

I have something to say to you, my dear, Bill. I have gathered enough courage as thick as steel to say it today. Please, Bill, listen attentively and don’t get distracted by anything now, for this courage I have, can melt away quickly like candle if you don’t encourage it to remain strong. So, do I have all your undivided attention? Fine! I can see your affirmative nod. And I hope that in the end, you would still be standing strong, like you are now.

I left to do some shopping at the famous Lagos SHOPRITE store on the twelfth day of December 2008, just twenty minutes after you left home for your place of work. He was the person I never thought I would meet. I had for long believed that time had dispersed us so far away that we would never meet again in this world. I had to wipe my eyes twice with the back of my left palm to be totally convinced it was not my imagination that was playing out. I saw him clearly as he was shopping. There was nothing else I was about to do so much than listen to my instinct that urged me to stay away. I could literarily hear that warning. “Stay away! This is dangerous,” my instinct screamed. But I didn’t know he had already seen me and maybe pretended not to have. I had only taken two quick steps away, when his mouth gave voice to my name. His tone arrested further steps I intended throwing. I wanted to go, like my instinct kept on demanding, but I could not, as a force I didn’t know its origin came in strong and swallowed the voice of my instinct. There I stood like a statue as he walked up to me with his face full of smiles.

“How have you been? Long time,” he said, when he reached where I stood. I could not help but smile back. “Long time,” I replied. Then he went ahead to embrace me, which I received. It all felt warm and soothing, bringing back the past, rekindling long forgotten moments.

That was how I met an old friend of mine named Jimmy. Jimmy was my university boyfriend. We lost contact when I was posted to Kaduna for my national service while he served in Lagos. Distance made sure the friendship we had fizzled. Jimmy stopped returning my calls for a reason I didn’t know then. And that was it. Whatever was left of our friendship died. I first met Jimmy in my third year in the university. I was on my way to the library when somebody crossed my path. It was rather in a rude way, and asked if he could just have five minutes of my time. I thought he looked confident, smart and intelligent, even though I believed he approached me in a most unorthodox manner. I told him to go ahead and talk, provided it wouldn’t last longer than he said. He promised to keep it brief. Then I gave him my attention.

Jimmy told me how long he had been admiring me, and had come to the conclusion that his life would remain empty without me. I was looking down by now. Not because I was shy, but I just didn’t want to be arrested by his seductive charm that exuded, and quickly filled the atmosphere with romance. The time had now stretched beyond five minutes, and I no longer cared. There came a time I could hold out no more. My eyes met with his, and I saw something so charming I had never seen in any man’s eyes before. The chemistry was just there. So right. So perfect. I forgot myself as Jimmy talked on, basking in the warm glow his sweet words brought to my heart. “What is the problem?” Jimmy asked. This jerked me back from a romantic world out of planet earth that I had wandered to. I believed Jimmy asked that question when he got to know that in spite of my physical presence, I was far away. I smiled in response and told him I was sorry for drifting away.

I felt something for Jimmy, which love could not sufficiently be. And in my charmed state of mind, I told him I would give him my reply in a couple of days. It all soon became vivid to me. I knew I was in something more than love. But what? Something more than love at first sight you may call it. I could not suppress the feeling, no matter how hard I tried to fight it in my heart. My heart became divided into two halves. Both screaming at me in opposite manners. “Yield! Do not yield! Do not miss this golden chance! What chance? Do not make this wrong move! Come on! Say yes to Jimmy! He is the best around! He is not! Take this chance! Flee from it!”

I told Jimmy we could start going out with each other anyway. And every bit of it was worth it. He was so sweet. He was the listening type. On a scale of one to ten, the romance we had going on was ranked higher than number one until my discovery. I went to see Jimmy at his place on Christmas Eve, and met his door locked. I heard voices coming from inside. One was Jimmy’s and the other sounded pretty well like that of a man. I decided to wait by the door. The door opened after more than ten minutes had elapsed. A girl definitely in her twenties came out first, smiling, and looked all thrilled. I was not a three-year-old child when I saw this. I didn’t need to be told that she had enjoyed herself doing what unrelated young people of opposite sex would most likely do when all alone. Jimmy followed the girl out quickly with his hands around her waist. I could not just be deceived by thoughts that sprouted in my mind like seeds, suggesting the girl could be his sister. No man would hold his blood sister’s waist the way Jimmy held the girl’s! What had transpired between them was clear. Why were both of them shocked to see me, if not? Jimmy’s eyes were full of guilt. Guilt as thick as brick. I was disappointed in him and his conduct. I felt like dying. This discovery hit me so bad. It was like a sledge hammer suddenly dropped from above and on my head. My heart increased its beat rate. It must have been beating then at a speed faster than that at which light travels. Tears filled my eyes. It was so painful that the shock in me would not let me cry. Let me not bother you with the girl’s reaction, Bill. I guess it means nothing to you now.

I turned to leave, but Jimmy held my left hand in a flash, urging me not to, that he could explain his act. I looked into his eyes, then tears from my eyes dropped on my cheeks.

“No explanation will do,” my sorrow-laden voice came forth. With that, I shrugged his right hand off mine and left, running in a way very similar to the way an antelope that escaped being a lion’s meal by a hair’s breadth, would. I cried my life out when I got to my room. It is still a surprise to me till date that my eyeballs did not fall off. But tears they produced would go a long way to alleviating conditions in some drought-stricken East African countries, believe me.

Forgiveness was one thing I never contemplated because I could swear with my life that Jimmy didn’t deserve it. He was no human being I wanted to set eyes on again. How I wished I could when he came in twenty minutes later. His mere looks and face, which said how sorry he felt, began to dismantle the hedge of dislike I had erected between us. Oh! That infectious charm of his again! It caused a lot of welcomed stirrings in my body, and I didn’t know when I fell into his arms. We were now making love like we never had. What else? We both got carried away by pleasure, moving further away from real life with all its troubles, and closer to that delicious peak called orgasm. It wasn’t bad getting there at all. It was much sweeter than honey. Jimmy explained to me later on that the girl that shared his bed with me was in his life before I ever showed up.

“All wasn’t too well with my relationship with Amanda when I began to admire you,” Jimmy further said to me. He said Amanda was at his place the day I saw them, so that they would sort out the friction in their relationship. “I told Amanda you are the new girl in my life but she wouldn’t take that,” Jimmy said again. “And somewhere along the line we could not help but do it.” Whether Jimmy was telling me a lie or not wasn’t an issue as far as I was concerned. There was no way I could blame Amanda for wanting to keep having a lick of the honey called Jimmy. I couldn’t get enough of him too, so I let him have me again in my room while I had him too. My relationship with Jimmy then experienced much better times until the national service broke it up. Then I swore to take up arms against Yakubu Gowon, that former Nigerian military head of State, for allowing the birth of the compulsory national service scheme for every Nigerian graduate of a higher institution, who is not up to thirty years of age. A scheme that has long lost touch with present day Nigerian realities, a scheme groping in the dark in search of elusive relevance.

Months into my relationship with you, Bill, I met Jimmy again. It was in a popular street in Lagos. Broad Street to be exact. I hadn’t seen him in three years. He still was attractive. We embraced each other, and he followed it up by quickly landing a kiss on the little tip of my nearly flat nose. He noticed my countenance changed because he expected my response to his kiss to be a smile. A ravishing one at that, that should say, give me more. Poor him. He never knew that life had made out another path for me through its abundant vagaries. Jimmy did not hesitate to try to know why my response was a cold one. Then I told him straight away that I now have you. And that you and I are planning to get married. Jimmy’s expression changed. I saw a man who got wounded. Time stood still for him. His usual glow got shut down. In utter distress, is the phrase that best captured his mood. I saw a rattled man whose fine personalities came tumbling down. He just became a shadow of what he used to be, before my eyes. But he still managed to demand that we go somewhere we could sit and talk. We later left in his car.

“Where is this?” I asked Jimmy when he stopped near a house.

“Can’t you see? This is my house,” he replied. I was thinking about my pleasant past with him as he drove. I was so lost in it that I forgot to ask him exactly where he was headed.

“I am not getting out,” I told Jimmy with as much firmness as I could gather in my tone while he tried to convince me to come into his house. “Let’s go elsewhere,” I demanded. His voice alone had by now begun to get me attracted, especially when he began to beg me like a child, to come out of the car. His spell on me was still very much potent. The more he begged me, the more I got teased without his knowledge, until it got to a point I felt so guilty for refusing a man who had practically swept me off my feet with tears that came to stand in his eyes. Jimmy welcomed me and made me feel at home in his house. Our discussions quickly became those that bordered on our past and why his contact with me was severed during our national service. Let me spare you that reason now, Bill. I feel I should. Do you want to know why? I see your nod say no! So I became more relaxed as my discussions with Jimmy went on, and embraced other issues. Jimmy did not forget to tell me how he had been looking for me. His search took him to my former residence where he got to know that I lived there no more. I asked him why he was looking for me. He said his mission was to propose. So I fully understood why the engine of Jimmy’s life got knocked when I informed him I was set to marry you. It was jealousy that got the better of him. Bill, you ought to know how you men react to things like that, don’t you? Now I see you do. That quick nod of your head tells me so.

I told Jimmy he was requesting what I could not give. And that was my all. He stood up from where he sat next to me and held my shoulders. He started to shed tears like a little girl. Sympathy took hold of me and forced me to hold him close to myself. Then we both cried on each other’s shoulders. I loved Jimmy, I must confess to you. And I have never really got him out of my mind all these while. Jimmy started touching the cleavages of my chest as well as the contours of my waist region, as I made to comfort him. It all was getting intense. Bill, you are not a fool. I don’t need to tell you what transpired next. It was only after the show was over that I realized what I had done to you. I know you’ve never strayed in our relationship that still goes strong. This has ensured that I lack enough courage to tell you this until today. Guilt flushes through my whole body every time you look into my eyes and kiss me. Please forgive me.

“This must be a long joke, Jessy,” Bill said to me when I got to the tail end of my tale. He was going to smile, but the one that flashed on his face disappeared with the speed of lightening. Bill had only returned, so relaxed, from the Lagos amusement park. He just loved to unwind there. And I had embraced him before I began delving into my past so stripped around by Jimmy, like the strips around a tiger’s body. “You are joking,” Bill said to me again. Then he began to sag like a plant that had lacked water for many days. Bill collapsed on the floor all of a sudden. Fear arrested me at once. I screamed. I fidgeted. I had to scramble for the refrigerator near-by. Then I returned with a cup of chilled water, which I splashed on his face. It worked! It just brought what I most wanted. Bill was revived! He got up and simply departed from my presence. Now at large. I should never have talked?