It all started in 1990, when in a rainy season I had gone to the latrine to ease myself. I met a six-year-old primary one pupil who might have come to the female section to ease herself, but got stuck due to the sudden downpour. She was half soaked because the rain was with a little wind. I saw her with pity, the desire to carry her back to the class in order to join her colleagues came to me. Rather than do such a benevolent act, something in me decided to have canal knowledge of her.
It had never happened to me before. I was never a rapist. Was it loneliness? Was it that she was half soaked? No. Was I without a lover? No. I had more than three ladies in my custody as lovers. They were always ready to satisfy me. Most especially, Mary, a Calabar lady, that would, first of all, massage my body with shea butter oil before handling me the way a construction company would handle a difficult bridge.
Mary was an expert in the field of love making. If she handles your earlobe, hmmmmmm! And if it is sucking or licking of my breast nipples, aaaaaaaaa! That one was nothing but mesmerizing. And the main act: she would mount me herself until I felt like screaming for joy. She was quite great!
Just to see that I was not in control of myself, I was to meet her in a brothel in Iloro shortly after the school hours. Reason was that I had given Abike another appointment in my house. She was to sleep overnight. Abike is also good on bed. Unlike Mary, the tigress, Abike has only two styles. But in the middle of the act, she can turn you into a cowboy. She would have been a good singer, if sex was to be a ‘song’ issue. She knew where to start, stop and add interlude and even pause. Wonderful l-a-d-y!
To crown it all, whenever she was coming to my house, I knew that my day was to be completed. She knew how to cook good food. As she was cooking in the kitchen, she would rush to me and lift my hand up to caress either her bums or breasts. By the time she finished cooking, no more story again. It was a matter of “do you want to eat before you fuck or you want to fuck before you eat”. Up Abike, up me too.
I lifted Clara up as I later got to know her name, insert my finger into her private part. This was after I had initially romanced her. If you touched all her sensitive parts, she was scared. I boldly told her not to scream lest I would kill her and that she shouldn’t tell anyone, lest she would die. Truly I didn’t put my manhood into her, but what I did was much dirtier.
Up till now, each time I remember the scene, I still feel somehow. Reason was that, the first time she saw me, the look of saviour had come on her face. At least, this teacher would carry me to the class for safety. But by the time I was working on her, it became frightening for her. She looked so distraught.
God is always there for his children. Someone saw us and went to report to the headmaster. This was how it happened. When her sister didn’t see her, she told the class teacher who instructed that the older ones should search for her. It was in the process that a pupil saw her with me. I ran back to tell the class teacher who went straight to tell the headmaster. By the time I was accosted, there was no escape route for me! I was just looking like a fool and a hungry and helpless fowl.
Suddenly, the news had gone around that Mr. Michael had raped Clara, the one in Primary One inside latrine. Right from the far end of the town to the centre and nearer, many folks came to see my face or confirm the news. To worsen the case, the girl in question could talk very well, too much for her age. She even mentioned the colour of my pants and told the angry folks that I had a boil near my armpit. May be she knew this when I was using her hands to touch my sensory parts. And when they searched my body, it was not a lie.
It was decided that I should give the parents of the child some money to go for treatment in the hospital. The headmaster said he would not go or write to the school board before he sacked me. The parents of the child were ready to contact their lawyer. Many were disappointed in me. Verily, I too was ashamed. Some of the female teachers who were eying me before now were the worst of it as they cried more than the bereaved. The pastor of my church where I was the Sunday school teacher came. He was shocked.
To my surprise, the grandmother of the child popularly known as Mama Cook, gently came and told them to stop making noise. She looked at me from the head to toe. Not with disdain, she betrayed no emotion. She looked at the headmaster and the money I put on the table for the minor’s treatment. She said: “So, you have this with you and you can’t go and look for a sex hawker in the brothel? And looking at your age, you can father this girl five times all over. No qualms. Please let him go,” she said calmly but with authority .
“Hen? What did you say Mama? The headmaster asked with surprise.
“ Let him go in peace. Nobody should touch or say anything about this matter again,” Mama Cook said again.
“ But he had already molested my daughter….” The mother of the girl said with tears.
“Are you the head of the family to decide what to do? Would this money cure the leprosy on ground? Would this uproar wake up the dead? I say let him go so that God will personally punish him, according to his sin. And if you know that you have what it takes to revenge or handle him, I am going home,” she got up as the elderly ones there started begging her not to go in annoyance.
She came over to my side, and told me that what I had done was an abomination. That If I could do such a thing to hapless minor in the broad day light, how much more in the dark or in the night?
“I have told them to let you go freely. No charge against you and no punishment from the school authority. I did this in order to test God. I have been so good to all and I have imbibed the cultural heritage to all that came near me. “Majority of what you younger generation does are alien to our culture. And the way I see you, you can rape an eighty year old woman. Go in peace as I said earlier. But I know that as an old woman, only God can fight for me and my family”.
As she said this, she picked her umbrella. Efforts by the headmaster to give her a ride back home were nil. Mama Cook sedately went back like a child just learning how to walk.
That was how it all started. My pastor took me there the second day to beg the victim and her family. But we learnt that the family decided to relocate the child and her parents to another place where the stigma could be hidden. Up till now, I never heard from them. But the journey of my rape life started after that.
(To be continued)
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