Naughty Narratives

Image source: UNEC Updates My name is Adaora, a third-year Management student in UNEC. I am a fair-skinned Igbo girl from Nsukka, the town that plays host to the first indigenous university in Nigeria. By day, I'm the serious type, the type you see always carrying textbooks, looking like they have their life figured out. But inside, I carry a secret that would shock most of my course mates and any person reading this: I like girls. Girls are the most beautiful creatures on this planet. Living in Manuwa hostel at UNEC makes that secret both harder and easier. Harder because I'm surrounded by hundreds of girls every single day; and easier because no one suspects that I like women. I'm just another girl living in a female hostel. Hostel life in Manuwa Hall is different from anything outsiders imagine. No boys are allowed inside, not even brothers or boyfriends. It's an all-girls affair, and the rules create a kind of private world. Once the gates are closed and...

Image by Freepik 'That's a pretty ring.' 'Thank you.' 'You're wearing it on your engagement finger.' 'I am engaged.' 'How old are you?' 'Please mind your own business.' Emeka rests his head against the window and sighs. The bus chugs along. In his peripheral vision, he sees the intrusive neighbour pick up a book and flip through it. He thinks of Abigail. Ever since he'd started to send his things home in batches, Abigail had become sulky. This morning, when he'd asked if she wouldn't say goodbye, she'd said, 'Goodbye when you're leaving selfishly? It looks like I'm finally going to graduate and you're leaving? You couldn't wait until my last paper? Who'll cook? Who'll keep this place running?' 'My father already booked the bus, Abigail. There's nothing I can do.' 'Well, wahala for you and wahala for your father. See, I get it, you're done, you wa...

Image by Freepik Tosin's stare lifted from his phone to the cocktail and then, as if in slow motion, caressed me from my sandals, flitted to my gown, grazed my lipstick, and in that moment, I noticed the corner of his mouth twitch before finally meeting my eyes. I involuntarily gasped. What was that I just felt? I'd heard people describe intense attraction as electricity before, but it always sounded exaggerated—until now. Why him of all people? "I see you finally came out of the shadows." Tosin's voice carried authority, but it was soft at the same time. I was too busy wondering if all billionaires' sons sounded like him that I almost missed what he said. "Excuse me," I blinked, my eyes widening. His smile was sarcastic. "You've been watching me from over there," he nodded toward the spot I'd been sitting. "Do we know each other?" He crossed his arms across his expansive chest—he must gym a lot—and looked ...

Image by Freepik There he was in all his glory—Tosin Balewa, the third son of billionaire Harry Balewa. Tosin had quite the reputation: womanizer, party animal, not surprisingly the black sheep of his family and surprisingly a tech mogul in his own right. He wore a Celine white tee, Adidas sweats, and Levi sneakers. He had money, lots of it, and often parted with it freely. This weekend, I'd come to get my share. I made the trip all the way from UNEC, Enugu, down here to Abuja. Because I was only a student hustling her way, I had taken the night bus. I'd imagined several scenarios of how I would get him to notice me. In one of them, I was seated at the bar of the trendy club, pretending to be lost in an interesting conversation with the bartender, and Tosin would approach. He would insert himself firmly in the middle, striving to steal my attention for himself alone. In another scenario, I would be dancing and feel a warm presence behind me. This towering figure w...

Image by Freepik Thirty minutes later, as she sucks sauce off her index finger, Abigail says, 'I wrote a poem while you were away. Pass me my guitar.' Emeka gets it for her, watches her in what used to be awe as she does some warm-up strumming. They'd met at a Faculty of Arts party three years ago. Abigail had been performing a crass original with a loud band. Emeka had been at the front, shyly sipping tepid Coke, wondering again why he'd let his roommates persuade him to attend. While the Director of Socials was making a drunken speech, Abigail had come up to him and touched his cheek. 'I was playing for you, you know', she'd said, swaying from side to side. Abigail has never been able to keep still. 'I looked down from the stage and saw you and thought, 'Hell, I've found my muse.'' Emeka had said nothing, just looked, and Abigail had caressed his right earlobe and asked his name. 'Emeka,' she'd repeated, with rev...

Image by Freepik Emeka's clothes look like pleas; they hang helpless from the clothesline. His red shorts have bled into his white T-shirt, a splash of crimson blooming at the side before thinning into delicate streaks down the sleeve. The rain falls in a lazy, slanted drizzle, a quiet denouement after a roaring climax. Emeka makes his way inside, the sodden bundle clutched to his middle. Abigail is asleep. The pot of fried rice—the one Emeka missed three lectures to cook—sits on the blue rug. There is nothing beneath it. It is empty, save for a few chewed bones. Four spoons and two soiled dishes beside it. One holds diced liver. Abigail's friends have been here. Onyinye. Amara. Possibly Chekwube. The diced liver is from Amara's portion; she is wary of things she cannot afford. Once, she'd invited herself over when Abigail had a show. Emeka's hands shook as he set down peanuts and a bottle of Coke before her. She'd snatched his wrist and turned his p...

Image by Freepik Sebastian is in my apartment when I get back from work the next day, lounging on the sofa he got me on our first anniversary: white with black spots and stripes. Like a cow and a zebra all at once. He stands and walks to me. I remember to throw my arms around him and he presses me against himself. There is no time for words. With Sebastian, there is seldom any time for words. Afterwards, when he is exhausted, my sheets around his midriff, he points to my table and says he got me something. I catch my reflection in the mirror as I walk over to the table. My camisole is still on, and there are a few creases on my skirt. My hair is hardly tousled. There are two boxes on the table: One has a necklace and the other, chocolate. He got me this exact necklace a few months ago. But the chocolate is nice. I eat half the box while I watch him sleep. When I sleep, I dream about both of them again, my grandma and Iya Farouk. They are in the parlour. My grandmother is ...

Image by Freepik In Africa, the market does not exist in a vacuum: it is a social system, a thing that could be felt. It is a current that pulls stories from homes and villages and deposits them, raw and unvarnished, between the tomatoes and peppers. The story of Iya Farouk led me back to my own, to the women in my family whose strategies for survival were their own form of market bargaining. My grandfather died atop a gin seller with pendulous boobs. The way my mum tells it, my grandma received the news with blankness, the kind novelists reserve for strong independent African women. When they brought the girl to the village square (bawling and swearing that my grandfather had promised to marry her and that was the only reason for which she would sleep with a married man; her mother raised her right), my grandma asked why they wanted to burden the poor girl. Of course no one listened to her. She also asked that she see to the burial arrangements alone. They said yes, sure...

Image from Facebook If you sit in the UNEC Love Garden long enough, it will show you everything it hides. By day, it appears as a park full of borrowed joy and laughter; hawkers selling chewing gum, biscuits, pure water, and students going to the library. If you are like me, one who prefers to trek from my hostel to the school gate, you would know that passing through Okukwu Hostel, through the Love Garden is a shortcut that hides you from being seen when you have no money to enter the school shuttle. Nothing shames a UNEC student more than to be seen trekking to the school gate. The Love Garden is all these in the daytime, but when night comes and darkness descends on the campus, the place strips itself bare and secrets unfold. Everything happens at Love Garden. You will see some students burying their heads in faded handouts or textbooks that have already survived two generations of exams struggling to study with their Lontor lamps. You will also find others stretched out...

Image by Freepik In my dreams, I am unmarried and thin, and my younger sisters are married and fat, and I know this only because I stalk them on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. I have all the money I need, and I live in a little home with a small garden out back with a horrible view of Lagos lagoon. Everything is delivered to me. Everything: sex toys, books, and weed. I watch TV all the time and write occasionally. When I feel a little frisky, I go down to the supermarket and dally between the aisles, wondering whether to pick green handwash or blue and also with the hopes that I may bump into AsheKine. That was last year. Now, I want to walk around braless and bathe three times a week and have food delivered to me in bed. The only difference is, I want to eat. A lot. Perhaps when I stare at myself in the mirror and see a monolith with three chins and a waistline you can plan a trip around, I will get up and do something. Maybe eat some more. Maybe eat some more, because wha...

Photo credit: Wemove Tourism via Facebook One could get lost going there. There is no street number, no address. There are no fancy signs pointing to the route, save for a small signpost a few meters from it. That one too does not point to the waterfall. More or less, my dear, you have to find it by asking the locals for directions. They are as friendly as the place we are heading, so no fear. From a few meters away, one can hear the roaring sound of the rushing water. It could be somewhat frightening, thinking of a large volume of water making such a deep sound, as though a powerful nature-king were laughing heartily at you. The entrance too is not for the faint of hearts. A strip of six or seven long bamboo sticks are lodged across the first strip of water. The stream below it is not deep enough to scare you. One could actually swim across; not more than six feet deep. But if you are like us, who cannot swim, then walking is the other option. Ezeagu Waterfalls is not a waterfa...

Image by Freepik If there is an eternity, Iya Farouk will stand discombobulated in it. Perhaps she will gaze around and wonder why she isn’t on the road anymore. Perhaps they will let her peer down so she can see her body, garbed in the sunshine-coloured dress, bent like a swastika. Years ago, she was the stupid tomato girl who wheedled and begged and told stories so you could see reason with her: she had to roll in the mud to get her customer to buy at the price he did or tell fake stories that her neighbour stole whole baskets of tomatoes and pepper from her room. “If I lie,” she would touch her lips with her finger, pointing to heaven, “let me die.” Lots of times, after a bargain was not going my way, I would start to walk away from her corner—it was all I could call it, her little space on the culvert with a dirty tarpaulin shade—and she would plead with me to come back. Her desperation gave me a perverse joy. A year ago, before I moved to my apartment, I watched ...