RIPPED (OFF)

GIRLS' TIME ALONE

Incidentally, when Lyon and Martha took their freedom and finally left Vavula, they also left behind a promise to consider the tranquility of the home much later when they began to run low on energy.

“We will come back to the quietness of the farm in the future, for the now, it’s too bland here.” They promised.

Honestly, I applauded the antics they had to resort to when they protested that the tastes, preferences, and specifications of our father for the best possible place of abode over twenty years ago could no longer satisfy their tastes for an ideal home.

"This house has too many dull and musty spaces - rooms too many to receive more than one visit in five years in a lifeless neighborhood as this. We are tired of it all!"

The red herring did the magic, ridiculing our father who prioritized our comfort into a change of mind.

“I used to believe that I have given you the best of everything that you needed, but it’s clear that I have lived in illusion.” he conceded defeat and let them go; but not without a strong protective security detachment who glued to them like the hunchback.

When this marked their breakthrough, I was particularly happy. It was a collective win. Meanwhile, since their departure, our father had been abandoned in the care of housekeepers since I would soon be gone far away to Switzerland.

On the contrary, our father who tried to fight back insisted that Vavula became lifeless only after we all dispersed.

“Vavula lost its sparkle after you deserted it” He countered some time in the future, defeatedly.

From that point going forward, his happiness was usually profound for the faint fresh breath of life as he called it, that returned to the house whenever I decided to juggle between Caritas Ville and Vavula during my vacations.

Note that when compared to other peripheries of Caritas city, like Bourdillon, Cansasville, The New Heaven, De-Valmore, and the seven other provinces, Vavula was a relatively new, as such, an uneventful layout dominated by the rich, entrepreneurs that numbered much lesser than seven hundred thousand families and two million individuals.

Of a truth, like our parents, I would have however, preferred Vavula to the bustling city life of Caritas but my elder siblings in their bid to introduce me to the beautiful life that freedom held which they had come to know; the same that they promised I would be part of, insisted that they also had the right to share in my bugs, as they called it.

As always, Martha and I were more than happy to have our usual all-girls time alone, I had been dying to discuss the boys with her. I had also had the conversation a thousand times with myself where I queried myself whether she had had her breakthrough.

This afternoon as we drove to the store we immersed ourselves uncensored, deep into the backlogs of gossip. More importantly, it was my chance to quit imagining things and status- if Martha had had a man burrow into her.

Liked how we talked and cackled heartily. As a prelude, it was wetting the ground for what I had in mind. I invested more, waiting for the moment to launch the all-important question.

Suddenly, it was as if she read into my thoughts when she fired: “Are you sexually active…yet?” letting out the word ‘sexually’ in a stutter. I was caught completely off guard and would need to buy some time to recover and maybe, resurge.

“What do you mean by that?” I ricocheted, feigning ignorance.

”Do you currently, or some times in the past, ever engaged in any behavior that included any body part of yours coming in contact with another person’s body part?” She rephrased pedagogically.

“Male or female…which one?” I asked in sheer mischief, pasting on a corresponding facial expression.

“Male, of course, common…girl, we are Christians, don’t disgust me.” She protested shrugging her shoulders.

She scowled and rolled her eyes in obvious disgust that had brimmed up in her, which despite a composed effort to conceal, still spilled out. I chuckled softly and continued being what I enjoyed being to her- a headache.

“Like, tongues…or?”

“Yes”

“…fingers and…?” I chipped in before she could speak further.

“Yes…everything private!” She harped closing the door on further admission of weird items into the unending list I was going to keep unrolling. She knew me well.

“What if I am?” I asked, baring my palms amidst a suppressed grin.

“Well, it is not exactly bad. I mean, you are a big girl now, but I truly hope you aren’t”

She submitted amidst a short snort. Immediately, I could spot the answer I sought from her final submission.

It was not crystal clear though. I concluded that either she hadn’t dared, or she had a cameo that didn’t quite turn out well. Either way, she hadn’t gone rotten like the kids in our circle- fair enough.

But I sensed there was something else she wasn’t letting out. She snorted more often in the recent past and that was the moment she was veering off potential conversation connectors to my past ordeal. She still shuddered at it all.

Meanwhile, I was sure that, given our level of exposure to the profanity swayed in the gatherings with the kids of social class, she wouldn’t have welcomed a straight yes with so much disappointment.

I mean, it was pretty difficult to remain chaste in a circle where kids far too younger than we were had seen more tails than the oldest of the midwives at the Caritas Metro hospital.

“Spill it sist.!” I howled. “I mean, you and I have always wanted to be here; to be able to talk about boys and keep a few of them for friends - try out things like…” I said lightheartedly, abandoning the next owing to what she did next.

She stoned me a glance which was interpreted as “you are impossible”, and shook her head, pasting a small smirk.

Soon, she wheeled to the car lot and matched the high-tech bitumen black V8 engine Cadillac to a halt, unclad the seat belt, and rolled off, abandoning the topic for later.

“Well, in as much as I wish I was, I am not, yet” I shot after her, signing out too.

I turned round the vehicle, walked up, and clutched her by the shoulder as we sauntered into the cosmetics store cackling throatily, with our security details lurking some meters away.