Onome stopped instantly as she grabbed me by the hand like a village girl been brought to the city for the first time and then greeted the man, “Good evening sir!”, he caressed his beards in a very confident manner, his ego exuded in such a way that you would know he was rich and feared nothing of a such, “Evening pretty damsels, can I drop you off at your place?”, and Onome who was all smiles earlier frowned immediately and replied “Thank you sir, our driver would soon come to pick us”, I never knew Onome had a driver so I played along with the ploy as she dragged my hand along with her, staggering as she walked in quickened steps, she muttered to me slowly “Please don’t look back, pretend he doesn’t exist”, of which I obeyed with all humility, the humming of the engine of the jeep could be heard clearly behind us as the car moved towards us again and the man brought his head out pleading this time “C’mon, that’s not the least I could do, I just feel obliged to do this to you and to humanity”, his baritone voice could serenade event the heart of a rock.
Minutes later we were in his car as he offered to buy us dinner at charcoal and spices in the highbrow area of GRA, Onome didn’t play her little mind game this time, she accepted his offer and then he took us to this near-heaven restaurant and then we ate as much as our stomach could be stuffed, it was when the bill for our meal came that I felt like saying sorry to him, if I had known that it was this expensive, I would have stick to one meal but he was the one who geared us with words like “have you tried their patolia molessia?”, who would not want to try a meal whose name sounds like a signature designer wear or perfume, “Ninety five thousand naira sir”, the young pretty waitress said, I could see jealousy in her eyes as she only stared at the man and pretended like were ‘minions’.
The trio of us discussed at length but in the middle of the discussion he paused and fixed his gaze at me saying “Can I spend the night with you?”, I stuttered in my bid to give him a definite answer, one that would not offend Onome and the one that would be most suitable for him, I flashed a quick look at Onome as she smiled which I took as good ahead order, as we walked out of the eatries she whispered to me ” Don’t worry, these old men can’t do shit,” I found solace in her words as my mind raced to scary news headlines like “19 years old girl found naked and dead in a popular hotel,” I was apprehensive as Onome assisted the driver in taking my luggage out of the trunk of the jeep, waved me goodbye as the old man dipped his hand into his trousers and brought crisp bunch of a thousand naira notes and handed over to Onome with a big grin and said “Take this for your transport,” if he could give Onome a hundred thousand naira for just transport, I wondered what he would give me that he was taking to his ‘slaughter’ house for a chunk of my waist.
The moment that car drove into this compound that was housing this architectural edifice, I knew this was probably where we were going to spend the night, it had ‘Golden Tulip’ written in gold color at the roof top of the hotel, the man old man stared at me and then stretched his hand to caress my thighs, and then pulled his hat off, he had a bald head that glittered even in the dark as he opened the car door and slowly came down while I followed suit, he grabbed my hand as we walked into the hotel, I could not phantom why everybody was holding my hand as if I was a novice but I guessed his was to soothe his ego, like a prized asset, more like a memorabilia of sort, to show off to other men who stared at us as we walked past them that I was his ‘own’. The receptionist stood up the moment she saw us and greeted, ”Ah! Good evening Chief Worlu,” and that was when it sinker-ed in me that I barely know the name of the man I was with for over three hours who sprayed cash at us and like puppets we obeyed. To be continue...
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