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Great Writing - Home > Short S. > The Threesome: Titi, Esi and Nike (c)
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| The Threesome: Titi, Esi and Nike (c) | |
| By Iheoma | ||||||||
| 14 April 2006 | ||||||||
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Have not finished this piece but is the beginning of a short story on the complex relationship of three individuals in Lagos, and what happens when this relationship breaks down. Is supposed to be part of a collection of short stories about Lagos. Titi picked up her phone and pressed 2, it automatically dialled the house, “bitch, I hear you want to kill yourself. Yes, what stopped you! Well he’s mine now, so there! Next time, try and do a proper job” and hung up. Titi felt absolute satisfaction in what she’d just done infact she wondered why she’d never done it before with the others. She’d just experienced a revelation. Her reasoning was flawed, it was not a secret she was having sex with Esi, it was also not a secret that Esi had refused to leave Nike, the mother of his two children and financial backer to all his air-brained ventures. If Titi had any sense, which was clearly not the case, she would have suspected that the scenario was not right. After all, in this very Lagos, of Hiv/Aids, which wife will still be hanging around a husband such as Esi. Had she not called Nike at home before, after her miscarriage and rained curses on her; had she not trailed her to work one hot day and fought her to a standstill, in the middle of the car park, like market women with onions to sell and Nike had won, hands down. Even still, Titi refused to leave Esi alone and vowed that Esi was hers, whether he wanted it or not. Titi unscrewed the brown coloured bottle, took out two pills and swallowed them with a shot of brandy, taking and placing a third pill for good measure in the middle of her tongue. She refilled her glass with more Remy Martins, the choice brandy of high society Lagos and started plotting her next move. Titi as she was fondly called was baptised Funmilola Titilayo George, and was the middle child of twelve children in a polygamous household, very much used to emotional drama, daily intrigues and downright struggles for supremacy. Isn’t that how it is everywhere? Luckily, her mother, mummy to everyone else, was wife number one; there was Mama Bukky, wife number two and Aunty Tayo the last wife, the prettiest and the one that schemed the most. Aunty Tayo, kept everyone on tender hooks and it was she that picked a fight, acted as peacemaker and ended the quarrel, when she got tired, of course. Wife number three, she was the one wife who caused the most problems and ensured that her husband did not take another wife, after her. Titi’s mum being the first did not stop the constant internal fights over whose turn it was to sleep with the big man, or why one wife had a new car before the others or who thought their children was more intelligent, prettier or generally well behaved than the other children. Titi really could not pinpoint exactly the one time there was not a crisis, but one thing was clear, she had learnt the art of manipulation and to lay a claim to anything she wanted. Titi had been so used to fighting, she had never learnt the simple possibility that she may not get everything she wanted and she may not even be entitled to what she wanted at that particular time. Lying hazardly on the tan coloured leather sofa, Titi drifted in and out of consciousness and imagined her mind playing tricks on her, was Esi standing in the room with her? She re-adjusted herself and turned her head a little, while still encased on the sofa. Her right foot dangling precariously on the arm of the sofa. She was reminiscing on her time with Esi which had grounded to a halt in the last five days. Titi had met him at a wedding party she’d gate crashed with her cousin Tosin, who’d been invited to the wedding. It was a high society wedding and Esi imagined her reputation had ensured that she’d not been invited. Why then, had all her friends and cousins been at the wedding, and not her. She’d imagined that in the scheme of how things worked in Ikoyi, she was not expected to be that bold by appearing at a wedding in which she had been deliberately excluded. Titi did not care. That morning as she got dressed with ease, selecting a well sewn lemon and gold skirt and blouse lace outfit to match her solid diamond ensemble. The diamond earrings alone, hung on her earlobes as bait, while the necklace showed off her neck line and her mixed pedigree. Her hair dresser had been summoned from the outskirts of Ogba and had taken a full hour to prepare her super fine hair. He’d chosen a very simple style, her hair had been swept back, off her neck and into a bun above her head. He’d complicated the style by using diamond hair pins. The very hair pins she’d got as a trophy for dating another friends husband. At the wedding, she spotted Esi at the grooms table and decided that he looked too delicious to be left alone. With confidence gained from years of being the other woman, she walked towards him and introduced herself. “Nike, what was that all about, everybody is watching you, you that that right?” asked Tosin a little embarrassed. “Nothing why? Am I not allowed to speak to anyone”, Nike had said, pulling her chair closer to the table as she sat down, while staring hard at the card she’d just been given. Three days later, she called Esi, two days after that they became intimate with each other, three years later she was officially the “other” woman. Esi was caramel fudge in complexion, almost six feet plus, muscular and dimples to die for. His he-goat beard was dyed brown for further effect, took great care of his appearance by wearing sought after customised light linen outfits of a man well travelled and had a keen eye on the ladies. Titi imagined that each time she kept him longer with her, she’d expect Nike to call but she never did. Three years into the relationship, Titi sensed that Esi had changed and was working hard towards satisfying his in-laws and stopping his wife from leaving. But she had not changed, in fact, Titi realised she wanted one more thing from Esi and stopped taking her contraceptive pill. Nothing happened. The fact she did not get pregnant immediately only heightened the stakes and Titi took to making life just that difficult for Nike. She concluded that Nike was not going to have Esi at all. Five days after her phone call to Nike, Titi realised that Esi had left her and gone back to Nike his wife. He’d not returned any of her calls and had stopped visiting the expensive apartment he’d rented for her three years ago. She imagined Nike with a triumphant smile, Nike had won again. This time Titi was forced to do something. As a lady of substantial wealth, she began by buying up all his out standing contracts, this was easy to organise and Lagos being Lagos money could change hands without questions asked. You could always find someone who felt slighted and Esi had lots of these after him. One humid afternoon, Titi arrived to see Romeo TakeAll who managed Bank Robmeblind an international bank housed in the tallest building in Lagos and right next to the British High Commission on Walter Carrington Street. Titi like Esi had benefited from his numerous and questionable loans to his friends without any collateral. He’d provided Esi with such questionable loans several times in the past. It was not hard convincing him to cooperate with her. After all was he not a highly corrupt official. Very slowly, but with precision Titi starved Esi of the necessary cash needed to continue with his contractual obligations to his outstanding business ventures. This she did in the usual way of high society girls. Very slowly, Titi came to understand that it was over and the expected financial ruin she had orchestrated and planned had not come to fruition. Very slowly, she acknowledged Nike was the boss. Nike’s husband Esi was going nowhere. Her lover Esi was never coming back. The afternoon she realised she had lost out in the high chess game with Nike, Titi dressed up in all her finery ensuring she wore her sought after diamonds, swallowed all the contents of the pill bottle and drank the remaining brandy Remy Martins. There was nobody to say goodbye. Nike breathed a sigh of relief. Esi looked for another victim. Lagos high society continued as if nothing happened.
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