Ibinabo is getting on my last nerve. Who does he think he is? Does he think because I go out with him everytime he drops by and he spends a couple thousand now and then, he is lord and master over me? I do not know why i bother with him anyway. So what if he is cute, drives a nice...very nice car, lives in a nice house(note that I said house and not flat) by himself, and knows how to-do-what-he-needs-to-do. I mean, in the to-do department, he holds his own. Built right and knows how to work with his equipment and is quite kinky too. Just like I like it.
..........Back to the subject. HE IS IRRITATING THE HELL OUT OF ME!!!!!!!!
He called me like five times yesterday, but since my phone was dead and my charger had been left behind in school, I could not charge the phone. I sha packed my belongings after stocking up on cash and a morality lecture from pupsie food from mumsie and prayers from Gbadamosi (the miser would have to have his life depend on it before he gives out money and we kids have learned very long ago not to expect him to dole anything out. I mean, his wives had to lock him and threaten to have him miss an 'important' meeting- a party- before he released money for Ayoka and her sibling's school fees. Lousy! Razz Man! and I mean, he is quite razz!), I got in the car with the driver, Mr Peters and headed for school. Dad must have been in a very good mood because for once he listened to my mother's request to let the driver take me to school. 'After all,' she had said, 'You always say, you want to drive yourself and we can go together to Bintu's party and not worry when Peters gets home to his family.' She had been glowing when she had said that and dad had simply nodded as if half asleep. i looked at the two middle aged people. i wonder what they had been up to. I know mum waits for him like a dutiful african wife to come home every two weeks to be with her and us, the kids. i also know that Fatima, dad's second wife and mother of my three half-siblings waits for him to come back to her after out two weeks are up. The day, mum told us when i was about eight, that dad was taking a second wife, a part of me died towards men and has not awoken till today. Many people from other cultures do not know how it is that two women can agree to share one man and how the children appear to be cordial to one another. I do not know either. I have stopped hating my siblings in abuja. it takes too much strength. i have also ceased to acknowledge Fatima's existence ever since dad gave me a near fatal beating for disrespecting her in public. My mum had cried but she had not sided with me. 'If something were to happen to me today, she will take my place...if you hate her, you will not sutvive." she had told me while attending to my bruises. I do not hate fatima. it is my father who is responsible for all that is happening. I see my mother die silently each time he leaves for Abuja, or everytime he and Fatima appear as a couple in the papers. The children are always welcome in our home and to credit both mother and fatima, none of us feel the difference in abode, whether we are in lagos or in abuja. Farida, Hussein and Hassan are all younger than I and are quite adorable. that was why i could never hate them. Most especially Hassan. Farida is sixteen, and the twins are twelve, a few months younger than Sayo. Ayobami is nineteen, Olawale is seventeen and Sayo is thirteen. And my father is the proud father of seven children and husband two wives and only God knows how many mistresses.
Anyway, I get to school and check my messages when i get to school and there is an irate Ibinabo on there demanding to know where I was. Apparently he had driven to Ife from lagos to take me out. I was not there. where was I? He heard i went with some guys out. Where was I?
so I called him.
"Oh boy, wetin?"
"Where have u been?!"
"Why are u shouting? Good afternoon to you too."
He calmed down and asked me nicely where I had been, how I was and what happened. I told him that i had gone home and regaled him with the tale of the loosed-bowelled passenger. He laughed and forgot that he was angry and i felt somewhat sorry for him. I knew that the relationship was drawing to a close. It had been fun but he was trying to get in too deep. I knew that he liked to watch me sleep. I know because i woke up one morning to his unshaven face a few inches from mine staring intently. i had screamed into his face giving a full dose of morning breath but he did not even flinch and a couple of times lately he has been talking about love and me meeting his parents. the ironic thing about this whole issue is that, for a relationship that is structured totally to exclude strings and rarely to result in continuity and for both parties to simpy be consenting adults having a good time, Ibinabo has turned it into something else. he even has me answering 'yes' to the question of whether or not I have a boyfriend and last month, I completely ignored another guy because i was thinking that it would be 'disrespectful' to Ibinabo to even entertain the other guy's advances. What is wrong with me and my head?
First it was Chinedu and now it is Ibinabo.
He said he is going to come for me this weekend. Siggggghhhhhhh!!!!!
He is a good man. And I am being treated well. Do I love him too? I do not know. I must be coming across as very loose or cold or opportunistic or all of the above. I do not know. i have never put too much value on what men say. dad said I was his little princess. apparently that title expires once you reach a certain age because Farida and Sayo have both been his little princesses as well.
I am worn out. I have not studied and I have not studied for my economics test. Prof Ibekwe does not tolerate nonsense.
I need to find someone with handouts from the other lecturer's class coz Ibekwe does not sell them. he is old school. A firm believer in the good future of our dear nation. Poor man, he needs to wake up out of his delusion.