DIARY OF A PLAYBOY

Nnenna

Chapter Seven

I remember the first time I saw the new Nnenna, it was a normal Saturday afternoon, very sunny outside and I had just arrived Nsukka in a bus, she was actually the first person to meet me at the door, I stood there for some moments staring at her, that wasn't the Nnenna that I had known growing up, when we were kids running around town, playing in the rain, wheeling tyres through forest pathways, Nnenna was this very skinny girl but then in front of me was a new Nnenna, she stood there with her voluptuous waist, what we referred to in Igbo as; ukwu nwere nti, ‘The waist that has ears, because of the way the hips shoot out at the sides like ears jutting out the sides of your head, she was so shapely, thick and all her curves were outlined on the tight grey gown she wore, she smiled at me and gave me a very tight hug, her big soft breasts pressing into my chest, it was at that moment I knew... I was in trouble.

Nnenna is the daughter of my mother's closest friend, I grew up with her in Onitsha, Nigeria, we lived in the same compound, two little children playing around, I haven't seen her in eight years since her family moved out of the state but I got an admission into UNN and when I told my mother, she suggested I go and live with Nnenna and her mom, fast forward to one year later since I've been living with Nnenna and her mother, she became pregnant, and yes I was responsible for it, I know, I'm a very bad person, my mother's friend lets me stay in her house but instead I got her daughter pregnant, the problem was that, as I was staying in Nnenna's house, it was hard to resist the temptation, the temptation being Nnenna and her big waist, I'd always go to her room to pretend to chat whenever her mum was not around, I told her about how I've always had a crush on her since we were kids but that was a lie, I didn't like her as more than friends when we were kids, if I ever liked Nnenna then it would be from when I moved to Nsukka and see the beautiful things that were growing on her body, the way her buttocks are rounded like osi-ite, big cast iron pot that the umuada used to cook during my grandfather's burial or how her breasts dangled around when she tied wrapper like they were two big calabash gourds round her neck that rested on her chest, every time we layed together in bed talking, I'd try to move closer to her, she'd always remind me that she has a boyfriend and that we could only be friends, I figured, if I’ll ever have a chance, then I had to do more than talking, I began to write her love letters, trying to soften her, she was a big lover of words, she loves to read poetry, so I wrote her some, it was still the same cheesy lines I've used on hundred other girls, 'I don't know what heaven feels like, but with you in my arms, it definitely feels a little bit closer.’ When that didn't work I tried something more erotic, 'I have no control over my lips, they might as well run naked on your skin until I hear you surrender to every breath I whisper in your ears.' I remember one night she called me over to her room because her mother was out for a night vigil, she told me she has been thinking of what I wrote to her, and she wanted to know what it felt like to have my lips taste every inch of her skin and that was when it all started, our communion of sin, every minute we had to ourselves alone in the house, we used it to devour each other, now, she is pregnant and she had told her mother about everything, I didn't even have time to prepare for what I met the day I came back from school, I hadn't known prior that she was pregnant; her mother suspected and had bought a pregnancy kit, so when I came home, she was sitting in the parlour with her mother waiting for me, immediately her mother asked me if I had gotten her daughter pregnant, my first reaction was to deny, I was surprised when her mother readily believed me, she called her a liar and insulted her for trying to accuse me, so just like that, I decided to keep going with the lie that I wasn't the one responsible, her mother pleaded with me to go and live in the school hostel, I packed and left their house, her mum and my mum slowly drifted apart as friends because my mother believed Nnenna was trying to accuse me of getting her pregnant, right now it's been three months since I left their house, I haven't heard from her or her mother, all my mum told me was that they packed out of Nsukka, I am sitting on my bed in the hostel reminiscing on everything that has happened in the past year, I was a player, I believed I could have any girl I wanted, I liked Nnenna's big waist but it was also the sense of conquering her that pushed me into chasing her, I knew she had a boyfriend, so sleeping with her made it all the more a conquest for me, now, I don't even think about her waist anymore, the only part of her body always on my mind is her belly, the fact that somewhere out there, Nnenna is carrying my child in it.