Love's true lie

Being in the farafina creative writing workshop has been a very beautiful experience. I've learned plenty and hopefully I've gotten better at this writing thing. We're supposed to do things we wouldn't normally do, "stretching our writing muscles" in Ms Chimamanda Adichie's words.

 I haven't really written sex scenes before, not because of religious reasons or because my mother reads my blog (well that's a little chunk of the reason), but because I think sex scenes should be well done. I wouldn't write a sex scene unless I think it serves the story and it would be realistic. No flying monkey stuff for me.

The story I'm putting up today doesn't have a sex scene but is very sexy, please let me know in your comments if you felt it was well done and if it felt realistic.

“You’re ashamed of me”

She was tired of this attitude, his sensitivity was the only unattractive thing about him. His skin and muscles still glistened from the sweat of their most recent love making and she already wanted him again. She wanted to trace the rivulet that ran from just under his left nipple to his slim waist. He would push her away if she bent to taste those beads of sweat and start a rant about her not taking him seriously and all the things he liked to throw at her when he felt uncomfortable. His lips were moving, he was saying something. Fuck it! She was going to get another lecture.

 “You’ve zoned out again”

His voice was sad and dejected. He’d fallen in love with a woman who had calculator for a heart, but with a body that he ached for even in his dreams. She couldn’t get enough of his body but she didn’t want to be seen with him, she didn’t even want to make eye contact when she came to the bar. She shifted closer, bringing her breasts with her. He closed his eyes in an almost futile bid to resist temptation when he heard a sound he had heard daily in Ekosodin.

She found herself on the ground with his body covering hers, one minute they were on the bed and on the verge of a quarrel, the next minute he pushed her off the bed like she was a plastic doll and held her down with his body. Surely there had to be a wrestling move like that, she must have seen it in her wrestling watching days. The memory of those Saturday afternoon spent watching wrestling  had her smiling until she heard him whispering something really stupid, something like “I love you”.

“Was that a gunshot?” she asked, the sound she had heard finally registered. Unlike him, she hadn’t lived in a university cult stronghold, it was a sound she had associated only with movies. His heart was pounding in her ears, she could feel his breath. The hot bursts of air from his mouth and nostrils warmed her teeny weeny afro. He was still whispering that stupid thing, that irritating mantra. That thing about love. She strained at his weight and he shifted his body to make her more comfortable but he didn’t want her to see the bullet hole just yet.

“Get off me” she said, it’s not like they’re shooting at us.

“Your body makes a good mattress” he said, his voice reflected his smile. 

“Yea, yea, my body’s a regular wonderland right?” she was smiling back and rubbing his gluteal muscles. She wanted to trace the fine hairs at the point where his butt met his thighs, she liked the shudder that ran through his body when her index finger lightly trailed the hollow in his back down to his beautiful, beautiful butt. When she replaced her index finger with her tongue, his deep throated moans made her feel like a conquering hero in a melodramatic movie sex scene.

 Just as she raised her head to lick the throbbing vein on his neck, she saw the bullet hole on the wall and screamed. He quickly covered her mouth with his palm and held her tightly. 

“It’s ok darling, I’m here, its ok” he must have told her that at least fifteen times as her body shook violently. When she’d stopped shaking, he knelt and pulled her up, then he carried her to the bed and sat down beside her. He called the security desk to get the details of the incident, the gunman was masked and he literally vanished from the camera feed after running into one of the hotel’s many corridors.

“Who would want me dead” she wasn’t really asking him, she just wanted to hear her own voice.

“No one, Onome. I’m sure it was a stray bullet or something” he said.

She rolled her eyes, “Stray bullet? In the best hotel in Lagos? Do you think at all or you just utter the first words that enter your head?” 

“No darling, I don’t think, bartenders don’t need to think” He stood up from the bed and went to the wall mirror. She went up to him, held his waist and buried her face in his broad back.

“I’m sorry Osaro, I guess it’s the tension talking” she said, “You tried to reassure me and I snapped at you” He turned to face her as he removed her hands from his waist, he tilted her head so they were eye to eye.

“I meant what I said when we were shot at” he told her “I love you, I know you don’t want to hear it but it’s true”. His eyes never left hers.

She removed his fingers from her jaw and suddenly found the floor tile pattern very fascinating. She looked up and said “Please Osaro, don’t tell me you love me. It complicates things”

“Leave matter for Matthias jare. If I were a phoney speaking lawyer, you’d be loving me like Romeo and Juliet. But as I be bartender, nothing for me.”

“If I weren’t a graduate, would you have pursued this thing between us? Would I be in your room at this moment?” His words grated in her ears, they sounded like truth

 “Don’t be ridiculous, you know I don’t care about such things” he sniggered in reply and she expelled the breath she didn’t even know she’d held.

 “Let’s live in the moment” she begged, “What does love matter? We were just shot at”  

“Love matters Onome, it matters more even now. Life is short, we just got a reminder” The frustration in his voice made her want to bury his head in her chest and hold him like he was a five year old.

“I don’t know how to love, I’ve never had to. I could tell you what you want to hear, but you matter too much to me” She said in an almost broken voice.

She watched him clench and unclench his fists in a fierce rhythm, “Is this where I hug you and tell you its ok, absolve you of the guilt of hurting me?” He sounded like he had a cold.

“That’s your decision Osaro” she said “but I can give you this promise- I’ll never lie to you, ever”

He hugged her and kissed the top of her short hair and whispered words she couldn’t quite make out but she knew they were words of love.

 She let herself relax in his embrace but she knew she was a big fraud, she knew she had already learned to love him