Until I Was Shameless

“Are you a virgin or what? Churchy?” Gina asked when I refused to take the pipe. We had gone to a club, it was my first time in the club. But for all Gina knew, it was my first time in a long time going to the club. I have seen club life in movies, but have never been there. Told Gina I’ve only been to the club twice while I was still in the university. Well, I did not want to seem too archaic. But to her, that was still me being too archaic.

“What has that got to do with this?” I asked screaming at the top of my lungs because of the loud music. She made a sign for me to calm down, letting me know I did not have to scream. She encouraged me to take the pipe and draw from it. Apparently, it was shisha, a “flavoured vapour”; she later told me. She said it’s harmless, but I had my doubt so I made a research on it later. It was not something I wanted to take after that. So I told her before hand that I was never going to take it again if we should go to the club.

As for the virgin part, Gina had asked because she believed once you’ve had sex once, twice and even more, anything more than four times was more; she said you automatically have the courage to do anything, from drinking to smoking. It was the way she tied sex to every other thing. She said it was the only thing that opens a girl up to wild life, the things they wished to do but could not.

But I was not a virgin. I had lost it in my first year in the university. Funny how I lost it to a classmate, and I had to keep my head bowed and tight for the first two sessions until I was shameless about it. In my third year, he came back. It was one of my most vulnerable moments, he must have noticed how I looked, the changes in the way I walked and talked. He noticed too much for someone who was already in a relationship with one of the girls in our class, “Becky”. He approached me one of those days, it was the first time we got to talk after I had given my virginity to him. The first time in two years.

“B!” he called, like b was for babe, but it was for Beatrice. I was surprised at first that he was talking to me, I knew he was the only one who calls me B, at least before we stopped talking. Well, the reason we had stopped talking was because he took my virginity. He was not prepared for it, sleeping with a virgin. He didn’t like the blood, he didn’t like the difficulty that came with breaking my hymen, he did not want to be reminded of it and that was the end of us, until my third year. It was the period where I was in a big hassle with my mother. I can barely recall what led to all the many quarrels, and if I want to find the root cause of how it all happened, I would be digging down to when I was still a little girl, perhaps from when I had come to fully realise and accept my existence as one of the many humans breathing the same air in a world where we all can’t see each other or know about the other person’s existence, save those you get to come across.

“What’s up with you?” Kelechi asked. I smiled not wanting to reply. I tried to move away but he held me back by the hand. He repeated the question and I felt trapped.

“Why? You think you can help me walk out of it?” I asked him. He seemed confused. Of course it was not something he could help. But he offered to try. How best could he help aside from listening, and I hated the idea of telling someone about my family problems. To me, Kelechi was no different from a stranger, giving him my virginity in my first year does not eliminate that fact. So I just told him I was going through a lot of stress and that I would be fine. We started talking and he eventually came over to my lodge one weekend… not eventually. I don’t know. I knew I had moved out of where I used to live during my first year. I moved out in my second year, and I had not invited Kelechi over. He had come to see a friend of his and that was when he knew I lived there as well. Perhaps, I got it all wrong, but I would stick to what I know.

“B!” he called when I stepped out of my little self contain apartment. He did not seem too surprised to see me, but I was. I went over to meet him, we exchanged hugs and then I stood by.

“Didn’t know you were friends with my neighbour,” I said to Kelechi. It was all because I did not know what to say.

“Didn’t know you live here either,” he replied with a smirk. He rubbed his hand on his head. The look he gave me made me swallow my dry spit. Well, that was the best I could do. I was clumsy too, I was clumsy and too slow to think. So when he proposed to see my apartment, I did not refuse him. We both walked into my apartment, and that was it. Like it was the only thing he had come to do, he grabbed me, his hand around my waist and then he kissed me. As much as I was not prepared for that, I kissed him back. I kissed him until I realised I should not be doing that. I stopped moving my lips, but did not push him away. He noticed I stopped and he stopped too. He looked into my eyes and asked me what happened.

“Why? Why now?” I asked him. I could not understand why he suddenly decided to kiss me again after two years. Why he suddenly had his hand grabbing my butt like we have been doing this for forever.