EKANEM by Orok Duke

***** EKANEM *****

I sneaked past the sentry at the mini gate, in a manner that would have given me a pass mark in the school of Ninjas, in Japan. I guess that my bravura was love driven. When you are bitten by the bug, you just have to obligate yourself to God. My mantra was, ‘’Lord! Into thy hands, I commit my soul.’’  Amen.

With Ekanem directing my path, I silently went up the stairway, manoeuvred through the labyrinth of furniture, sidestepped two pet dogs and three cats, passed through the laundry space and the general study and finally emerged in her room. 
Phew!  I had finally arrived at my destination. Or my destiny. But it was too early to tell. My people believe that anybody who dies in the quest for true love, goes straight to heaven. I was prepared to find out.

Give it to me, I want to have your babies,’’ she cried.
Oh yeah!
Then she started the phallic dance. A serpentine, Kama Sutra-like trance dance. Slowly at first and picked up pace and speed. Then slowly her blouse started riding up her flat sexy belly and the dark triangle below her belly became more visible.
I smacked my lips lecherously, knowing that the time will soon be nigh. Then the reverie was instantaneously broken. Asari, Ekanem’s mother sauntered into the room, wearing a facial mask and my turgidity became placid – momentarily. 

She did not even have the courtesy to knock first. But she did not stop her dance. She was still rhapsodized.

Then something happened. Something that I will never forget in my life.

I was still apprehensive. He father was a Colonel in the army and I was the visitor in their house, in the Army Barracks. I had gone to her house after her assurance that her father was going to be away to Borno state, where the military headquarters had been relocated to, because of the Boko Haram insurgency. It was common knowledge that the President had directed the Central Military Command of the military, to relocate to the theatre of war, away from the safety of the Federal Capital. Bornu state was easily the epicentre of the war against the Boko Haram insurgents in the north eastern part of the country.

Asari knew about us. She even encouraged our relationship and occasionally acted as the rapporteur over our lovers’ tiff. She also longed to be a grandmother, the youngest grandmother in the Nigerian Army Officers’ Wives Association (NAOWA). She was a part of our conspiracy.

Recently our relationship was getting too many knocks. The various bombardments, by nature, parents, academics, chores and general economic disposition on my end. It is this unwholesome decline that I meant to arrest. This love was not going to be allowed to continue to tear at the seams. And Ekanem was strong enough to brave the odds. She was the oil that I needed for my bush lantern. She gave me the fillip and the reason to stay on in Nigeria. Without her, I would have tried fought my way to Europe or America as an immigrant – legal or illegal. After all, stories abound of hundreds of Africans making it to Spain and Italy through Libya. Libya had become a transit point for all sorts – immigrants to Europe, Jihadists to Iraq and Syria, and refugees from the various war zones.


The moment Asari disrupted our privacy, events followed in quick succession that got me where I presently am.

‘’Lord! In thy hands, I commit my soul.’’ I still managed to mutter from under my breath. This was the………

……..(to be continued)

Orok Otu Duke
Duke Town

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