KWENU! Our culture, our future

The Aphrodisiac

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Safiatu was in her prime when she came to the United States from Sierra Leone. She charmed both young and old men in the community at first sight. To seductive Soukous and Makosa lyrics and sardonic rhythms she wiggled her slender frame, and massaged her buxom chest with extraordinarily long fingers, garnished with heavily decorated long nails, song after song in parties. She lowered kinking hips in heapy swerves, raising crotches and inducing giggles. Enamored of adoration, she caused her admirer’s tempestuous heartbeats, who queued to waltz or chat with her.

They called her, Just-cam-titi, meaning; ‘new-arrival,’ especially men enthusiasts. Insecure new weds, tormented by Safiatu’s flamboyance, mockingly called her by the moniker as well. For a recent immigrant through a family sponsored reunion visa by her uncle, Joe and his wife, her character had become quite stricken in the community.

Joe was a modest and barely known man in the community before Safiatu arrived. But he had now become well-known man by many. And it all began when a recent sonogram report showed his wife was pregnant with triplet.

Joe and his wife worked extra hard, saved money and bought Safiatu’s air ticket. The couple’s initial intention was to have Safiatu help them raise their triplet. Instead, men who barely knew Joe called his house to ask about Safiatu, to establish friendship and to establish reasons for visitation mainly to see Safiatu.

For a newcomer, Safiatu’s taste had become quite ostentatious; she shopped in the most upscale women’s apparel and accessory outlets. She left Joe’s wife, who was suffering from puerperium, by herself, with her newly born triplet, to go on endless dates. She rolled at her bulky haunches bundled in skimpy low cut jeans with whale tail. She joked and laughed copious with her friends over Joe and his wife’s initial intention for her to help take care of the newborns gone bad: “Den feel say mi na babysitter, but ah! Den go lan nor for bring other pursin kan na Amerika wit da kine slavish mentality.”

Joe was now under serious pressure from his wife who had vowed to kick Safiatu out of their home and pay back the money they spent on her coming to America; “bor ah sweh ee ngo pay me hard-woke labor sweat money back way ar use for buy ee ticket,” she avowed her intention.

Joe’s countenance was sour from the constant pressure from his wife because of Safiatu’s ingratitude in a meeting with Safiatu about his wife’s concern.

“Safiatu,” he began, “we heard you her causing rumor in the community that we brought you here to enslave you?” he asked.

“First of all, ar nor wan for be part of any hypocrisy—‘talk-talk’,” she pouted.

“Safiatu, this is a simple question,” Joe admonished her.

“Yu need for ask den wan dem way wuna all di sidon talk ‘but me, norto me for ask,” she replied rather sharply for Joe’s comfort.

Astounded by Safiatu’s reaction, Joe stated, “Well it happened that you are an adult and there is very little we can do to help you, especially in the society we have found ourselves. But just allow me to render a piece of advice; the human body is like a machine; you can work it hard and get the utmost out of it within a short period or you can work it steady with good maintenance to last you for a very long time. It’s all up to you,” he sheepishly gave in.

“Well, ten God yu know dat, ‘it’s all up to me’,” she mimicked Joe.

“I think we were wrong to have sponsored your coming here in the first place,” Joe managed another response submissively in an effort to keep her niece’s sardonic tongue under control. “My wife and I will appreciate if you can just refund our hard earned money we spent on your air ticket, at least,” he stated finally, the reason for the meeting.

“Ar know say—na dat yu call me for!” she snapped, fumbled into her purse and took out ten crispy hundred-dollar bills, tucked them in her uncle’s palm, “here!…, how much more ar owe yu,” and walked out, slamming the main door behind her before Joe could react.

The extra money Safiatu was making did not come without feuds with married women over their husbands. Many of them called her at home and cussed her out for hoodwinking money from their husbands through peddling herself to them. She had been in isolation for two months following an awful incident that had sunk her in a somber mood lately.

***

“Are you Safiatu who’s sleeping with, Sorrie, my husband?”

Sorrie was a man who was spending his family fortunes on Safiatu. But he had taken it one-step further: his feelings for Safiatu had outgrown just dating her to very emotional love affairs more than any other Safiatu's many dates. This situation had caused him an awkward problem in his family.

On this day, Sorrie’s wife asked Safiatu at the entrance of a party hall frequented by Sierra Leoneans. But she ignored her, swayed her haunches, as usual, away from Sorrie’s wife. Wrong move…, Sorrie’s wife was provoked by her friskiness and thought aloud, “Now I can see why he wouldn’t leave you alone,” referring to her husband. She chased Safiatu and confronted her in a bitter argument. A crowd of married women, many of whom were victims of Safiatu’s hoodwinking or at least had heard of her bad character, joined Sorrie’s wife to humiliate Safiatu in raucous exchanges of cussing amongst the female partygoers that escalated to the intervention of the county police.

I Wish I was not at that party to face such humiliation..., She thought.

"…She wouldn’t have had someone to fight with,” unconsciously saying the other segment of her thought process aloud, sobbing with limped head on Sorrie’s right shoulder.

 She frequently broke down in tears with her head flaccid on Sourie’s shoulder in invocation of that terrible encounter with the women.

The women had always longed for a fight with her and she had often avoided them by just dismissing them as she did that day, ignoring them without uttering a word. But the tactic did not work this time around with Sorrie’s wife. The partygoers cussed her out and booed at her. Mortified, she had been in isolation for a while now, avoiding contact with the public as news about the fight saturated the community like a bushfire.

Nonetheless, Sorrie used the incident to his advantage because of his love for Safiatu: delighted that the incident had taught Safiatu a lesson to stay with one partner. For him it pleased him that most of Safiatu’s boyfriends shunned her after the incident. And so he visited her regularly, gave her moral support, and consoled her to overcome the disgrace to which she had been subjected.

But Safiatu had her own agenda, which Sorrie did not know about. She must teach Sorrie’s wife a lesson: She must show her that she was more of a better ‘woman’ by snatching Sorrie from her. She persuaded Sorrie to abandon his wife by making her intention clear to Sorrie that relocating was the only chance he had to continue seeing him. And Sorrie was too madly in love to call off Safiatu’s bluff. They moved to another state, thereafter, where there were not many Sierra Leoneans.

***

 As a computer Engineer, and with the prevailing information technological job boom, Sorrie secured a job with a relative ease in a big corporation in Atlanta, Georgia. He traveled constantly out of state to do consultancy jobs. Well familiar with Safiatu’s past, traveling out of state, away from her, was not to his liken. But the money was too good to pass on. As planned, he completed the divorce process with his wife, and remarried Safiatu nine months later. They lived a warm and cozy married life at first as though they were a perfect match. Now very comfortable with his wife, Sorrie traveled more frequently with increasing out of state contracts his company won.

Meanwhile, Safiatu became bored and lonely at home. She reestablished a relationship with a younger man she was seeing when she was living in Maryland. She invited him to Georgia and enjoyed good times with him each time Sorrie was away. Rumor riffed around town that “An out of state male visitor is always in their home when her husband is away,” which Sorrie was yet to confirm.

This made him anxious. In a pensive mood, Monkey nor ba lehf in black hand, he reflected on Safiatu’s past. He avowed his aims of validating the rumor; I must catch her in the act, he anticipated his resolve, after which, I’d not waste more soap and water on that metaphoric black-handed monkey. So, he set up a cloak and dagger plan to catch her with the boyfriend white-headed in white cloud.

He pretended to give the rumor deaf ears by showing much more love; he brought flowers and gifts home every time he returned from an assignment. He continued to surrender his paychecks to her as if nothing was wrong; she in turn deposited them in the bank, paid the bills and spent money at her will, including her boyfriends traveling expenses and weekend stays.

On that day, after a long period of pretence normalcy, Sorrie told Safiatu, “I am going to New York for two weeks this time.”

“Baaabyyy, why two weeks?” she asked.

“You know baby, we have more computer security jobs coming in after nine-eleven,” he replied.

“Hmmm…,” she muttered back but actually in anticipation of two weeks in good times without him.

Sorrie went ahead to purchase an air ticket to New York and booked a hotel room in a hotel in downtown Manhattan. When he arrived at the hotel, he called Safiatu to announce his safe arrival as a husband would do normally. At the other end, Safiatu was pleased that the caller I.D. registered the following message:

Grand MCone Hotels and Resorts; 212-xxx-1234.

He stayed in New York for three days before he returned home in the middle of the night unannounced. He was even more so anxious because of the ill-prospect of coming home to find someone in his bed with his wife.

Nervously, he inserted his keys into each slot and turned them carefully to avoid causing noise. He was rather disappointed to find out he couldn’t open the door as fast as he wanted; Safiatu had secured the door with the extra security bolts from inside. He rang the doorbell, knocked, kicked and pounded the door with both fists and feet violently and furiously. But there was a long delay instead before Safiatu opened the door.

Meanwhile, Safiatu was busy straightening up. She adjusted the whole room free of any romantic milieu as the doorbell rang, and feet and fist pounded ensued. Confident that she had managed the situation well enough, she came down, very well in control, pretended to be very sleepy when she opened the door. It all seemed normal in the house when Sorrie came inside.

“Are you trying to break the door?” Safiatu asked in a soft and pretentious tone and sleepy mood.

“But why aren’t you opening the door in the first place?” Sorrie asked nervously.

“What do you mean? Can’t you see I was sleeping? But who was expecting you any way? Common baaabyyyy, don’t be silly,” she ran those long nails through the back of his head. She pulled him by his neck-tie straight to the bed, breathed warm air in his ears, “I missed you baaabyyyy, common…, I can’t wait any longer…, I dreamt being with you every night while you were away; hmmmmm, Yes!; my dreams have come true; common baby…, make love to me…, now!, give it to me now, do me now! – I love you baby – I missed you baby.”

It pleased Sorrie to learn that the rumor was in fact, a black lie. He felt more affection for Safiatu now that the rumor of her unfaithfulness was unproven. He followed her lead straight to the bed and proceeded to a prospective romantic entanglement with his vixen. He was dissuaded into lovemaking intended to sedate him to allow the boyfriend to live safely.

In the closet, the boyfriend slammed his fist in his palm in frustration as he listened to husband and wife’s groaning of pleasure, especially Safiatu’s fake moans. The boyfriend imagined Safiatu’s agility in bed. The thoughts and feelings were unbearable for him, and he could not contain himself any more—came out of his hiding and grabbed Sorrie off his wife.

They ganged up on Sorrie and beat him senseless. They grabbed whatever they could from the house, drove by a twenty-four hour drive-through bank, cashed a check equal to Sorrie’s total savings and drove off.

They laughed aloud at Sorrie’s foolishness while the boyfriend counted the money and called Sorrie “stupid.” Safiatu merged into highway 95 north ramp in the little sport car Sorrie had bought for her just too close in front of an eighteen-wheeler truck before Joe’s words flashed through Safiatu’s mind like the cannonball of fire she last saw, “…your body is like a machine; you can work it hard….”

www.kwenu.com: Simply surprise yourself yonder!