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chick lit, Fiction, In Pursuit Of Kyenpia, series

Truth Be Told (In Pursuit Of Kyenpia) by Sally

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When David poured that insanely freezing bucket of water over me, I sprang up dazed and without thinking, stumbled towards him. He grabbed me by the neck and had me in a headlock.

“Abeg, stop it!” I complained and aimed my fist for his balls but he moved away, put one leg behind me and I was down to the floor.

“Okay, game over,” I said, knowing I couldn’t overpower him. For the umpteenth time, I wondered why I didn’t join the army to get the type of training my brothers got. They always bullied me.

“Oya!” he gave me a hand and pulled me up and hugged me but I pushed him off.

“No dey try dat kain rubbish with me!” I warned him and for the first time, really looked around me. “What type of place is this?”

“I asked myself the same question,” David answered with a smile. You don’t know where you are, do you?”

“You brought me here?”

“Me? Rudeboy brought me here. You have been in this place for months. You basically run the hotel from here.”

I ran my hand over my face, “oh, that’s messed up.” I began fishing around for my phones and when I found them on the bed, they were both dead, soaked from David’s childish, birthday prank. He shrugged when I showed him his handiwork.

“Use my own.” He threw his phone to me and I dialed my secretary to come and clear my valuables from the house and also Rudeboy to see me immediately. As I ended the call, I noticed the girl from yesterday standing by the door—obviously just waking up—looking from David to me with a confused expression.

“Hi, I’m David,” David turned to her with a smile.

“Yvonne,” she shook his hand. “Or just I… Ivy.” She was still confused. “Leo, you’re a twin?”

“Obviously.”

She nodded slowly. “You never told me.”

I also never told you I was mentally unbalanced but you figured that out on your own. Clap for Ivy.

So, you’re leaving?” she asked, not looking too happy.

“Yeah, I’m leaving right now. You live here too?”

She gave me a funny look briefly and then the sad eyes returned. “I’ll miss you.”

Okay, what did that mean? I will miss you as a roommate or I’ll miss you as someone I slept with?

I looked at her fully, assessing her statistics. I found her just okay. She was not my type.

“Thanks for everything, sha,” she said. “The money came in yesterday morning. I wanted to thank you but you were not at home, so…”

“You’re welcome.” I didn’t bother to ask her how much. Later on, when I went through my accounts and discovered two million naira missing, I almost choked myself to death.

“Call me once in a while,” Ivy said with a smile and her normal features transformed to something stunning.”

I looked at her again and wasn’t so sure Daniel had not slept with her. We were both suckers for dazzling smiles.

“So, how far with today, nah, wannabe?” David asked. “Any plans?”

I gave him a wicked smile and he knew whatever I had up my sleeves were not going to go down well with his wife if she ever found out. But the truth was, she never was going to find out.

**********

It was a long day that found David tipsy and enjoying the city lights from my balcony back at the hotel. I had not done anything bad to him but almost got him killed three times. This was my own birthday; last year, he did worse to me.

“What’s up with you and that radio chick?” David asked me and I looked at him with a smile.

“Kyenpia?”

“Yeah, that one. You have been featuring on her show.”

I had no idea  but I said nothing.

“You really like her?”

No, Daniel does.  All the same, she struck us both somewhere deep.

“I’m crazy about Kyenpia. I think she’s the one.”

“She’s Ishi’s wife,” David said curtly and looked at me with a warning. I never did understand the relationship David and Ishi shared. Ishi was his other twin.

“She’s his friend,” I stated emphatically.

“Leo, Kyenpia cannot be one of your playthings. Ishi loves that girl. You don’t want to go down that road.”

“And who says I’m not in love with her too?”

“Daniel loves her. Not you. Until Daniel surfaces for real and decides to be the man that he is supposed to be, I advise you to stay away from her.”

I drew sideways and looked at David in annoyance. He had no right to butt in my issues and I told him that.

“You don’t want another family wahala on your head over this girl. Let her go, Leo.”

“Let her go? Where is this coming from? Did Ishi send you to tell me because I want to drive to his place now and stuff his mouth with my foot. What’s the whole drama surrounding the issue? I like the girl. I can’t stop thinking about her, day and night. No woman has ever done that to me. I see Kyenpia and I want to be a better man.”

“Then be a better man! Take your chances, go to her and tell her how you feel! Stop joking around because when you play those games, you’re hurting not just another person, but yourself! Yes, physically you can handle anything. You’re tough but you’re an emotional and psychological disaster waiting to happen. Leo,” he lowered his voice, “you think you’re strong but you’re not. That is why you switch from time to time because you never know how to handle pressure when it hits you. You run away and hide like a little child; it’s as if you’re trapped in some part of your childhood. One minute, you’re all grown and the next, you’re like the average teenager with hormones all over the place. You have to stop. You’re destroying yourself. That part of you called Daniel is the real you. He wants to live, he wants to come out. He’s the one who loves Kyenpia but you’re not allowing him stay long enough to turn your world around. He wants to be you but you don’t want to be him because Spirit still controls you. You’re still afraid of his voice and threats and each time you want to break free, he takes you back to those times he caged your little mind as a child. Spirit shouldn’t have that power. You need to know that he is just a shadow of the captain and you have to completely erase him. Grow up, wannabe. I miss my brother. I miss you insanely. I want Daniel back, but first Leonel, you have to go.”

I was silent for a long time. Everything he said was right. But it did not sink in. I took his words and stored them in my memory for later. I would come back to them when I had the time. At that moment, those words were not for me. I was in serious denial.

David and I gisted some more and later visited our mom at the fountain. He didn’t hold back his tears. To him, she put him to sleep twenty-five years ago and never came back. He didn’t have the chance to say goodbye. Her disappearance ate him more than it did me. They had a very tight bond. I knew I should tell him the truth but my alliance was with the captain.

Later that night, when I got back to my suite and had a hot shower, I turned on my iPad and logged into a particular IP address on the net. Once I got in, I retrieved recorded footage gotten from live video feed taken from my entire suite. I had no idea what to expect since I had been away for a long time but I wasn’t prepared for the shocking footage that met my eyes when I rewound back to the point I left off. As I sat there watching what Sugar and her friends did to me, I didn’t know whether to cry or to thank God for somehow keeping me alive. I lifted my shirt and my fingers felt the scars on my side. I hadn’t paid much attention to them earlier but now it all made sense. I reached for the new phone I just bought and fumbled around with the buttons. Straightaway, it dialed Sugar. She didn’t answer the first time but when I dialed again, she answered me with a sleepy voice.

“What do you want, Leonel?”

“Nice one, Sugar,” I said. “It was not in the plan.”

I imagined her getting off her bed, probably to stay out of earshot from the person she was in bed with.

“What was not part of the plan?” she asked.

“We need to talk. It seems our deal went awry.”

She paused and then finally burst out laughing. “I see what is happening. Somebody is finally awake and realizes he can’t play the game of the big boys.”

“We need to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about Leonel.”

“I’m on my way,” I said.

I heard her muffled voice; she was talking to someone.

“Okay, you can come.”

The phone beeped off and I hurriedly dressed into something. Sugar’s place wasn’t far and was even shorter because the streets were virtually empty. In a couple of hours, Lagos wakes up to a new day of mundane, ferocious race for survival, a race against time. I wondered if it was worth it sometimes and that’s the problem with people like us who look at life from a glasshouse and not a peephole. We never really quite understand the rat race because we are larger animals in the food chain (or so we like to think). Excuse my digression.

Sugar’s gateman let me in and some guard frisked me at the front door before I walked in. The house was quiet and dark but I could see the reflection of the swimming pool cast over a massive painting of a half-naked man on the wall on my left. On my right was a staircase that led upstairs. I took double steps up. It was obvious she wanted to meet me in her private parlor since she hadn’t come down to meet me.

“I’m here!” I heard her say and saw her standing at her bedroom door. So far, in the short time I knew her, I had successfully escaped her sexual claws (well apart from that unholy night).

“Tired of hunting me?” she laughed and her heavy breasts without a bra bounced all over the place. Very unattractive. I closed my eyes briefly to banish the image of them bare but I was unsuccessful. The horrific frame of her nakedness from the rape video was still etched in my mind.

“Come in,” she said.

“No, I’d rather stay here.”

“Don’t worry Leo, I’m not going to rape you,” she laughed again. “Come in.”

“I just said no.”

“Come,” she walked to me and dragged me. At that point I was like if anything happened to me again, I deserved it. She led me into her room and it was dark like the rest of the house. I feared that she had all her gang members hiding in corners, ready to spring an attack on me.

“Turn on the lights, darling.”

At first I thought she was talking to me but when the lights went on and I saw the captain lying on her bed only in his boxers…

Wtf?

Contrary to what David said earlier, I was no kid. I knew when a man had needs that had to be met and for a man the captain’s age to be around someone like Sugar, he had to satisfy that craving. Sugar is called Sugar because she is sweet. Granted, she is on the fat side but she has the full cushion for the pushing. Trust Yoruba ladies and their behinds. So I understood the captain’s needs but to bring me up to their lust nest was unsexy.

“Hi, son,” he said.

Son? Why son? Why not Leonel or Spirit? What was this meeting about?

“Should I tell him or do you want to?” Sugar asked the captain.

“What’s…there to tell me?” I asked cautiously.

“We’re getting married!” For all she was worth, the weight, the braless boobs and bleached stretchmarks, Sugar was bouncing up and down excitedly like a twenty-five year old. I glared at the captain. Did he know this same woman screwed my life almost to oblivion? Of course, he had to know, yet he smiled at me with that tongue-in-cheek smile I hated so much. He was the beginning and end of the word ‘perversion’.

“Say hello to your new mother, son.”

Son, again?

“Welcome her to the family. I know everyone else would be pulling their hairs at this turn of events but I need you on my side. I need you to know you’re supporting me. Of course, it’s all political but Sugar is my guilty pleasure.”

“Let bygones be bygones, Leo. Your father has forgiven me for what I did to you. You should too. And I want to thank you for bringing us together.”

I didn’t know my mouth was hanging open until I felt saliva come to my lips. I swallowed. They both were looking at me in anticipation of what I had to say but I was speechless. How long their relationship had been going on, I had no idea but I blamed myself. Why? I freaking did not know. I badly wanted to retrieve my memory cards from my destroyed phones to find out what trails Daniel had left for me to follow. As it was, there were just too many holes. Why was Sugar thanking me for bringing them together? She and I had a deal before I disappeared and I never had the chance to see it through before she molested me. Did Daniel continue with the deal or did he go for revenge instead? I doubt that he sought revenge because if he did, Sugar would have been out of our lives. I needed answers and I needed them desperately.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” the captain asked.

I knew he was full of shit, yet I couldn’t help feeling that I was second place in his life. I felt played and I was jealous. I wanted to say “hey, daddy don’t marry her! You’re sixty-one years old and you have been a bachelor for a long time. You don’t need her to make you feel like a man. Besides, you have me and I am a handful!” But I held my thoughts in.

Yeah, I was still a kid. I just couldn’t picture my dad with a new wife. Was Sugar going to have a child that I had to call my sibling?

Hey, sibling, did you know your mommy raped me? Oh yes, she did. And I have proof. Do you want to watch?

“Leo please say something,” Sugar begged.

“No. No, I have nothing to say.”

With that, I turned around and walked away.

© Sally

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MAKAYLA by Aturmercy

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Makayla is 1 today. Yay! Happy Birthday, Darling!

here’s a poem written by my dear friend, Aturmercy

Makayla went to the bowls of hell and beyond
Conquering where many have lost
Overcoming all odds
Standing proud, firm and tall

Victory is Makayla!

Demons from hell
In this pure heart thought they could dwell
They battled fiercely against this angel and lost
The courage of this angel cannot be bought

Courage is spelt M-a-k-a-y-l-a!


Sworn to care,
The Hippocratic Oath becomes a dare
The betrayal of some quite clear
Makayla rose above all their sneers
A joy to her forebearsTriumphant is Makayla!In search of the meaning of victory I need look no further than Makayla
Seeking for a reason to go on
I find strength in Makayla

A blessing truly is Makayla