Lagos Avenue

‘I had heard that police had raided Lagos Avenue. If that good Samaritan hadn’t come my way, I probably might have been paraded in front of the cameras and made it to the front pages of the tabloids that screamed: POLICE ARREST 54 ASHAWO GIRLS AT LAGOS AVENUE.’ 

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At last, he slid out after what appeared like a long time. I waited for the tickling sensation that had set my body on fire to subside, wanting to lean over and hold him tightly. After sex, a man becomes like a piece of log unless I feel strongly for him. On this night, however, I craved to nestle in the arms of this stranger, a man I had felt nothing for less than an hour ago, but who now evoked something in me. 

 First, he did not respond to my greeting after beckoning me into his vehicle. My second attempt at engaging him fell flat. I had said my name and hoped to hear something. From the bluish illumination on the vehicle’s dashboard, I saw him nod in a way that appeared more in tune with the rhythm of the music playing on the stereo. 

There was a good reason I always wanted to engage. The tone of the voice said a lot about a man. Beyond the words, I tried to read their character from how they spoke, to discern humans from the beasts. Not that I could change the outcome, but it prepared me for what to expect and how to take it. Sometimes, I wonder which is better—to be surprised by a predicament or know it ahead of time and suffer it mentally before confronting it in reality. My life had been an even blend of both, and I couldn’t say which was better. However, I still needed enough clues to predict the future, even if that future meant a few minutes away from the inescapable traps of the life I had chosen. Or rather, the cruel trap life had chosen for me. 

 Almost all the important decisions of my life ran counter to my wishes. They were mostly swim-or-sink choices, and when you’re in such situations, you lose agency in your choices. You yield to the capricious dictates of the universe and swim where the tide is bearable. The sensible thing to do is to get to safety first and decide which way to head. In my case, each riverbank of safety was soon menaced with so much danger that I had to continue swimming for my survival. It had been like what I once heard an elder in my village say: ‘If what is chasing you has not stopped, you don’t stop running.’ I had run into beasts, like the fat-headed young man who nearly beat me to pulp until I lied to him that my client, who was a big man at the National Security, knew where I was at every time. My only crime that night had been my insistence that I wouldn’t allow him in without a condom...

 

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