by Vina Fenty
I was lost in work some minutes later when my door burst open, I knew it was her, and I didn't raise my head to acknowledge her presence for a few minutes. When I finally did, I had a silly smile plastered on my face.
I saw realization enter her eyes. She had just understood the game that I was playing, and she didn't seem to like it. Tejiri and I had always had a knack for understanding each other without talking. I could predict her moves like I would a wild Wolf, and she knew me more than I knew myself.
We could be in a room full of people and still communicate without talking, just our eyes. It was something short of magical.
She closed the door and turned the knob as she said, "Get up, Amara."
Her voice was low and relaxed, and I tried to gauge her mood. I decided that it would be a bad idea to disobey her, so I scrambled to my feet.
"Come over here, bend and hold this table. Don't move, don't look back," she said.
A rush of excitement traveled down my spine as I imagined where this could go from here. I did as she asked even though I felt stupid, bending over my desk like that. I felt her move behind me, and the heat from her body was enough to end the feeling of stupidity that wanted to take over me. She grabbed my waist and thrust her crotch into my butt. Fuck! I took in a deep breath but otherwise remained still and quiet. She bent over my back to taste my hair and kiss the sensitive spot around my neck. Her hands went around my body and cupped my full breasts, instantly finding my hard nipples, which hardened even more. Tejiri was out to kill me, and she was succeeding, I was already feeling faint and breathless. Her hands stopped suddenly, snaked their way in between my thighs and started to rub them. I didn't hold back the low moan that escaped, and unlike the last time she didn't stop, she only pushed her hands further until she was rubbing my clit through my lacy panties. I threw my head forward as I let Tejiri assault my senses. She stopped minutes later only to drop to her knees, she pulled my dress up to expose my thighs and panties clad butt. I heard her inhale my scent before hooking her fingers into the band of my panties to tug it down, I wiggled out of it to make it easier for her. Once she had it, I felt a quick movement, and before I could tell her plans, I heard the door open and close. Tejiri was gone, leaving me naked waist down with my legs open and dripping wet. She was gone, along with my panties. Tejiri!
******
2007, FGC ASABA
The next day after Tejiri and I made out in the dark back at the hostel, she suddenly became cold to me. She refused to look me in the eye the next morning, and when she left the hostel, she didn't come back to me for a long time.
I was in class moping when Luke came to sit beside me and said, "hey, beautiful. I didn't hear from you again."
I looked into his beautiful eyes that I have been avoiding all week and looked away in disinterest.
"I'm talking to you, Amara."
"Come, Luke, leave me alone. If you don't mind, I am trying to think about my life. I'm not interested."
He looked shocked as his mouth fell open. He must have thought I liked him seeing as we had held hands and even kissed if you called that show of shame a kiss.
"So it's true. You and that Senior girl are practicing lesbianism. I didn't believe the rumors, but now I know for sure. I'll deal with you and that stupid lesbian senior in this school," he said as he stormed off, leaving me stunned.
Lesbian, a girl that liked other girls in a way that a guy would. It was the first time I had heard that word, and when I had checked it out, it referred to how I felt about Tejiri, but I had never felt like that for another girl, so was I still a lesbian? Why had Luke said the word 'lesbianism' with so much irritation and disdain?
Luke kept to his promise, and he started to act like the devil that evening while I walked to the dining area to get my dinner.
"See, it's that lesbian, Joe, come see her before she passes. You're going to hell stupid lesbian!" They screamed, and I felt so embarrassed that I looked down till I passed the boy's hostel, grateful that they hadn't mentioned any names.
After dinner, I cornered Tejiri at the back of our class.
"You cannot keep ignoring me. I am sorry for yesterday Wolf."
"It's not about you, Amy, what we are doing is wrong, we are too young to be experimenting with sex and girls don't kiss. Boys and girls kiss."
I looked at her like she had two heads.
"How about when we get to eighteen years? Can we have sex then?"
I asked seriously, but she burst into laughter, and I couldn't help it, I joined her.
"What? I'm serious."
"Amara, you are just silly. I am talking about us doing something sinful and against God, and you are talking about waiting. We have to stop."
The idea of stopping was too painful to even imagine, so I flipped the thought out. Sin? Who were we hurting?
"How is this a sin? I know my ten commandments. It's close to adultery, but neither of us is even married. We..."
She stopped me from speaking but instead dragged me to the hostels where she pulled out her Bible and opened to chapters in the old and New Testament, which condemned what we were doing and showed them to me. She just had to go and know every damn thing, this Tejiri, she had to go and know the Bible. I wanted to hate her for showing me that, but the love I felt for her wouldn't let me.
That night I cried till I slept because I loved Tejiri, but it was a sin.
The next day at the Assembly ground, it became apparent that the devil was out to get me. Just learning the words homosexuality and lesbian, learning that it was a sin, and to top it off, the principal, Mr. Ovie, shouted out a grave warning against homosexuality.
"A junior boy cried to me yesterday that a senior boy wrote him love letters and tried to touch him. Homosexuality is against God, against nature, against yourself. It is not allowed here, and on this vein, Prosper Akhare is at this moment expelled from this school. Juniors, beware and be wise, flee from sin and temptations and report to school authority any form of sexual molestation from your seniors, especially the homosexual ones," he shouted with beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He was almost foaming from his mouth.
A silence fell over the assembly ground, and my eyes found that of Tejiri in her line. She looked sad and sullen, and it was a reflection of my expression.
After the assembly, I went to Tejiri's class, and she stood up to meet me halfway when she saw me.
"Guys, see whose wife has come to call her," senior Chichi, said while the whole class burst into laughter.
I should have been angry, sad, and ashamed, but all I heard was the word 'wife' and the insinuation that I was Tejiri's wife did nothing but make me swell with pride.
Tejiri, who was the timekeeper for the school at the time, headed to being the head girl when she got to SS 3, stared down at them, and they stopped laughing immediately.
She turned back to me to catch my smile, and she rolled her eyes before grabbing my elbow and pulling me out of the class.
"What is it?" she asked impatiently as I stood there, pulling my skirt up and down intermittently.
"I just want to tell you about the things Luke said yesterday as I was going for food. They were screaming and shouting the word 'lesbian' at me."
"Oh God! I don't think I can ever leave you alone in this school," she said thoughtfully, and I didn't understand what it meant until Tejiri started flunking all her tests.
She hid the papers from me, but I stumbled on them one day, all folded neatly with huge zero on them. The test papers were mostly empty, and the few times Tejiri wrote in a few of them, was to write the questions without even attempting to answer them.
I stormed to her lair that evening with the folder of papers, and once I jumped in, I threw them at her.
"Don't tell me you cannot define 'osmosis' or that you cannot solve this equation I said almost stuffing the sheets of paper in her eyes."
She eyed me wearily before speaking, "sometimes, you almost do act like my wife. They are right."
As expected, Tejiri flunked her exams and was asked to repeat SS2 while her classmates went higher to SS3. She lost her prefectship position, and her parents, though supportive, couldn't understand where the failure had come. It was all very humiliating for Tejiri to repeat a class, but she didn't mind at all, and it was when we sat down side by side in the same class for the first time that it dawned on me that she had done it for me.
* * * * *
Present Day
I sat down at my desk, wet and bare, feeling exposed and angry.
Some minutes later, Stacy came into my office and sat opposite me.
"What gives? You look like someone stole your husband, but you are dressed too well to look this way, Amara."
I rolled my eyes into my head. I would sooner buy the person that 'steals' my husband a car than feel bad. I chastised myself for that thought and then chastised myself for chastising myself. I didn't love Sam, so it was a logical thought.
"Tejiri pushed all of the wrong buttons on me, Stace, I feel like strangling her."
"Oh! So you and the boss are on a first-name basis now, eh? What did she do?" Stacy asked seriously, but I let the question hang, seeing as I could not say she had me bent over my table and all that. Instead, I gave her another piece of information.
"She offered to take me to dinner today to catch up, that's why I am dressed up. I don't want to look shabby because these rich people like to eat in fancy places."
Stacy chuckled, "you look super good. Anyways, I came to run some ideas by you."
I was lost in brainstorming with Stacy for a few hours. After she left, I focused on work and almost forgot that I was naked under my clothes. By closing time, there was a knock on my office door as Avery stepped in and said, "the boss said to tell you that she is waiting for you downstairs."
I nodded as I realized that it was possible that Tejiri still didn't have my mobile number. I thanked Avery as I quickly packed up my stuff and followed behind her carefully, given my high heeled shoes.
When I got downstairs, I went towards Tejiri's parking space and saw her black SUV already running. The driver jumped out and quickly got the door for me. I climbed in and was immediately faced with big brown eyes.
**********
2008 FGC ASABA
Having Tejiri in the same class wasn't such a drag. Usually, I came in the second or first place. Having her in my class, she practically opened my head and put mathematics, physics, and chemistry in it. She would tutor me using the languages that I could quickly grasp. The results came in, and I came second to her, of course, but my percentages were an all-time high. I had strong A's in all of my subjects.
Then she started taking me to the ICT room to teach me the basics of a computer. Kudos to her for showing me the beginner's guide to computers, but I soon left her and zoomed past her in computer software knowledge. The ICT teacher was very impressed, and he taught me my first lesson in coding. It was the first time he had met a student who genuinely wanted to learn without being coerced.
Another thing that became obvious was Luke and his gang's hatred for Tejiri and me. They called us names at every chance and wrote hate words on our desks and in papers pushed into our books. Tejiri asked me to ignore them, and I did blame her for putting us into that mess.
One evening, out of the blue, Tejiri called my name, and I raised my head to hers on our joined bunk beds and she said, "I love you."
She said it faintly, so faintly that I almost didn't hear it. I started to cry, and she held me to her chest as our fingers interlocked. We didn't bother to talk, but I felt like it was the best conversation ever with our palms joined, and our hearts beating as one. I loved her too, I had fallen in love with her from the very first time I had seen her. Tejiri wasn't just my best friend, she was everything to me, and I loved her more than I ever loved myself. I didn't give a hoot about sins and unnatural attractions, none of that made any sense to me, and I never did entertain those thoughts. No one in the world could convince me that this magical, pure, and beautiful thing I had with Tejiri was unnatural, perverse, or even a sin.
*******
The first time in my life that I would experience real fear was on that fateful evening at the orchards area.
I skipped happily as I ran to meet the love of my life. I knew something was wrong when I started hearing shouts and loud slaps. My heart leaped into my mouth as I ran towards Tejiri's spot. She was there kneeling in the middle of five boys, including that useless Luke and Joe. They were shouting and slapping her while she tried to protect her eyes with her palm.
"Look at you, you think you are a man? Do you want to be a man? You can't be, you have breast and pussy, you stupid lesbian!" I heard Luke say with so much hatred.
"Let's show her what real boys have," Joe said, and they all agreed as they started to remove their belts.
"No!" I screamed as I ran to hold my Wolf.
I knelt beside her and gathered her in my arms.
"You stupid gang of hooligans. It will never be well with you lot. Wait till I tell the principal this. I wish I never met you, Luke, you are a beast."
I said, spitting on his leg. He looked pissed, but I could care less. I would fight, kill them all, or have them kill me before I would see them assault Tejiri. Luke made to slap me, but his friends held him back, and they all shuffled away like the pack of losers that they were. I looked at Tejiri, who still looked blank and lost. I led her to her favorite spot and held her till she came back to earth.
"I'm so sorry Tejiri, I should never have left you by yourself."
She chuckled and looked at me with admiration in her eyes.
"Who would have thought that you had any fight in you?" she said as our mouths met hungrily.
It was funny that she didn't know what I was capable of when it came to her. I would fight a thousand Luke just to make her safe.
The next day I wrote Tejiri another note telling her that I would never leave her. She had lost a lot, and I was prepared to lose everything, in turn, to be with her. I passed the letter to her halfway into our Agricultural science class. She slowly opened it and read it as a smile plastered on her beautiful face. She turned the other side of the paper and started to write, and I nearly died of excitement while I waited and wondered what she would write to me.
She soon handed it to me, and I read it with so much joy that I felt myself levitating off the ground towards the moon. It was the very next week that our lives would change for the worse.
CHAPTER NINE
2009, FGC ASABA
"The principal is calling the two of you at his office," a junior student said as she stood beside our bunks.
Tejiri sat up in confusion as she found my eyes. It clicked in both our heads that we were in grave trouble, and I think we knew what it was about. I wished I could have been braver, but I feared the worst not for myself but for Tejiri, who had already lost one year.
We dressed neatly and walked to the principal's office together. To our surprise, we met both our parents in the office, while my father was weeping profusely, Tejiri's just sat in deep thoughts with his head bowed. I felt alarmed immediately as I mumbled a greeting.
My eyes fell immediately to the note I had sent to Tejiri the other day, flapping around in my mother's hands. She waved it in the air as she looked at me, disappointed.
"Amara, I and your father did nothing wrong. We didn't go to the sea to ask for you, God gave you to us. We raised you right, taught you the word of God, how did we go wrong. What did we do
to deserve you being so perverse?"
My father stood up in anger and slapped me hard. I fell backward, and Tejiri caught me. I could tell from the way she was breathing that she was beyond angry.
"Don't hit her again Mr. Okorie, it is my fault, I was the one that lured her into it," Tejiri said with clenched teeth.
Her father, whom I was meeting for the first time, had the air of a prominent figure around him. Her mother sat there with so much sophistication, her back straight like a rod while she watched.
"Tejiri, I am disappointed in you," her father said as he started pacing.
Tejiri started to cry as her mother finally broke down and stretched her arms for Tejiri to enter. Tejiri did so. My mother and father began to cry, none stable enough to comfort the other.
The principal just stayed at his desk, and when it seemed like he had seen enough, he cleared his throat, and we all turned to look at him as he said, "enough of the crying. God bless the kind Luke Emezie, who came to me with the report of lesbians in my school. These are young children who should study and face their books but here writing love letters and kissing around the school. I even heard that they have sex right here in the school like a couple of loose prostitutes..."
We both gasped at his last statement, we hadn't been having sex around the school. Luke was such a beast.
I opened my mouth to deny, but the stare from my mother shut me right up.
"Sorry to say, but these children are a disgrace. I would have humiliated them on the assembly ground. But because of your position as a politician and renowned businessman, I thought it wise to keep it hush-hush. Since she has agreed that she lured this poor innocent junior girl, I will advise you to withdraw her from the school and get her to write her WAEC somewhere else, Mr. Akpore. If you leave them together, I promise that they would continue with their perverse addictions from the pit of hell."