Love you, maybe.

Pandora offered the best night life this part of the coast and she was not discriminatory. Her patrons boasted of the wealthy, the mighty, high-in-the-echelons-of society, the middle and low classed-as long as they had money and a strong desire to languish it away.    She had an aura when you stepped through her doors. It wasn’t a home away from home but it was a different world altogether, completely different, far apart from the onewhere you were coming from; worlds apart.    The muted red lights created a sensual mirage on your senses, it lured you into its dark corners. The dark upholstery added to the theme- it created a cover of shadows, but not a problem once your eyes grew accustomed to the darkness which provided privacy to her customers and catered to the needs of each patron specifically in a way that kept them coming for more.   Pandora was separated into three sections: the first and outer parts was where you met the middle and low class patrons. They consisted of men in the government house, civil servants, business men of means and entrepreneurs. The second and middle parts was where you found the exporters and importers, estate moguls and highly placed company executives. Then there was the third and final part, the Sanctum. Here the patrons were scant but they were the real deal; millionaires, billionaires and heirs to mega conglomerates, empires and dynasties. This set did not come through the regular entrance like the rest. They came in private jets and helicopters that dropped them off at the helipad, then they were accompanied by muscled up security details already waiting patiently for their descent and arrival. Then they were led straight to into a hidden door and down one flight of stairs to stop at another discreet door where a doorman who could as well pass as a security guard will scan a key card and a green light will beep and the slick sound of the lock mechanism disengaging will be heard just barely and the door as if pulled from inside will open and the individual will step into the Sanctum, heading straight to their niche-their personal space which was an ensuite consisting of an entertainment area and the nest where they would not bedisturbed until their departure from there, in the same manner that they came only in reverse this time. If they wanted any form company for the night, it was pre-arranged before hand already waiting for them in the nest or their entertainment area.    At least that was how it was supposed to be. But Gerard wanted something different. He wanted to be able to see, observe and pick his women by himself from a wide range of options available to him. He liked the thrill of the chase. The adrenaline jump when his eyes travel and meets andrests on a mysterious feminine prey. He likes to watch as their eyes always seemed to quickly dart away and just as quickly return back to check him out too. He enjoys the bold ones-those who can hold his gaze longer than a minute and reel him in as much as he is baiting them, too. He always almost knew what they were thinking behind eyes that seem to sweep over him, taking in his expensive suitand Rolex. Sometimes he lets them come to him, other times he walks over to them and buys them a drink and the rest they say is history.   But this night was different. Gerard came down from the Sanctum and entered the first part of Pandora, here the scent of women, beer and liquor hung thickly in the air cloying the senses, cigarette smoke from drunken breaths added to the foggy stifling atmosphere.  The music reverberating from the speakers drowned out the drunk chatter, he could barely hear himself think above the din. All around him and everywhere he looked men and women were in different positions and stages of drunkenness and high.    This was not a place to be seen or heard, it was a place to feel. The music and the lightning created the atmosphere and gave one the encouragement and ginger they needed. Tonight he didn't want company he wanted to be a voyeur to the activities of others. He wanted to drink and get high and forget that his father wanted him to be the perfect son, the heir apparent.    An hour later as he struggled to sit upright from his slumped position on the soft sofa, his bleary eyes moved across the bar where he last saw his padi standing, one leg crossed casually over the other laying it thick on a womanclad in a little red dress barely held together by ropes that crisscrossed at the back leaving everywhere else bare with only enough strips to cover the important places. As his liquor addled brain came to slow a realization that his padiwas probably gone, taking the girl home and convenientlyforgetting about him, he shifted and felt a weight on his body, looked down to realized a lady strewn across his torso. He tried to remember her name but failed, Sus..Sandra...? He shook his head and immediately regretted it the shards of pain that knifed through his brain loaned him common sense.   He shoved her roughly off him and she fell to the floor with a thud, not even bothering to stir, he found his opened zip,zipped it up and reached for the half glass of whiskey and threw it back in one gulp, only then remembering that his head.  He scrubbed a palm over his face and attempted to stand on his own, the effort causing his head to swim and stomach to roil. He slumped back down and squeezed his eyes shutwilling the dizziness and nausea to pass. A headache that felt like Thor's hammer pounding into his skull took over. "You look like death warmed over" the voice of his padifiltered through the thudding pain in his brain, he squeezed one eye shut and squinted at him through the other as hecame to sit opposite him.  "And you smell like cheap trash" "At least I got laid unlike you who prefers to drown your sorrows and problems at the bottom of a bottle. How is that going for you huh?" He heard him snicker and for a minute his conscience threatened to drown him in misery.  "Better a bottle than random women every night. Besides who said I didn't get some? With whoever the hell she was" he answered his eyes going to rest briefly on the figure of the woman still out on the floor. He got an answering laugh. "Ben...Ben you think you are better than me? Keep looking into those beer bottles long enough and I assure you, you will become worse than me."  His real name was Gerard, but he lied to his padi when they met and he introduced himself. He wouldn't risk the exposure to himself and to his family by saying his real name. Of he did that he might ad well put a price tag and a target on his back and a written statement on a placard announcing to kidnappers that he was game and meat.    He looked at the time and it was 3am. He sighed and scrubbed his face again and attempted another rise. “Where are you going ?” his padi asked, he was sounding sober ”House. I dey go house. I get one yeye headache like this wey no dey gree leave my head” “Nawa o, this na still too early na" “Yes it is. But I have to get going, here this should cover our tabs and more if you’re still drinking. Thanks man, goodnight” he side stepped the woman on the floor and headed straight for the doors outside. As soon as he stepped outside, he began to feel better already. He sent a quick text his driver and two minutes later, a black Lexus car drove inconspicuous to where he was waiting and he got in the back. “Home" he muttered to his driver and sank down into the soft cushion. He woke up forty minutes later and the car was nosing into his drive way. He lived alone in a three bedroom duplex in Apo Games Village, well not exactly alone-he lived with Minx his dog. He had cleaners who came by three times in a week, a chef who came on demand and a groundskeeper and his personal driver who lived behind him in the boys quarters, then the security guard at the gate. He never brought women home, it was a personal rule and one he made himself and has come to appreciate it over time. The car stopped at the entrance to the house and he got out before the driver could get out and open the door for him. Wasn't it a contradiction? That for a guy who thrived in technological inventions, he was still using lock and keys for house doors and cars. Yes technology made life easier true, but then technology can be hacked even the very best of them. He knew that for a fact.    His family was filthy rich, and by age twenty he had made his first hundred million. Gerard loved to make money. And he loved to party. As much as he loved women. They were like money to him-use them to get what you want. And it helped that he was also devilishly handsome with enough charm and a disarming smile to make women weak at the knees. He was never short of them either. Especially when they knew that he was so young and so rich. He smiled despite the throbbing pain in his head . Gerard prided himself in the fact that he had never been so gullible as to fall in love with any woman who had crossed paths with him, but he couldn't say the same for the ladies, and he made sure always made sure to use protection and always provided morning after pills for them just to be sure. After a poor liar tried to pin her pregnancy on him and it escalated to the point that his father heard of it. The pretty liar had been granting interviews to gossip blogs saying how he had impregnated and abandoned her without support. He had requested a DNA test which would only be issued at the birth of the baby. In the end he was not the father, but he had spent chicken change to cater for the pregnant mother, it was a loss he was happy to get as payment for being so reckless in the first place. His mom had only reacted by sending him a gift of the most expensive box of condoms with a written note in her flowery handwriting “We don't really need little Bassey'sall over the place now, do we? Here is a little something to help" typical mom. Then his older sister had called from the UK to ask when she was getting to meet her nephew or niece. And his baby sister had trolled him for weeks on end, “At least if you want to get down with someone, find a woman who can at least speak proper English”  but he loved her like nothing else. She was the best AI engineer,the best programmer and cracker in Nigeria. At age 16, she hacked into their family's company server and held the data ransom until their dad yielded and met her conditions: which were to be allowed to study programming in the university outside Nigeria. She was just 16, she was the baby of the family and their parents had made it clear that they were not going to allow her to go to any where less than a private university in Nigeria close to home and to become a cyberpunk of all things! So she proved herself to them, her terms were met and he couldn't wipe the big grin on his face even now as he remembered her little stunt. Hence why he was still using doors with keys and locks. He knew the pranks she could come up with and the least of all would be locking him out of his own home.   He got into his bedroom and stripped of his clothes, got into the shower and set it to hot. He spent ten minutes from start to finish, dabbed his skin dry with the white towel and stepped out into the cool air refreshed room naked. The perks of living alone. He put on clean boxers and headed straight for the kitchen to make his tried and trusted anti-hangover recipe, a combo of raw eggs and orange juice. Padi swore by it in the club and he confirmed it’s magic. He drained the tall glass and dropped it in the sink, rinsed his hands and went up to his bedroom. Shucked off the boxers and got under the covers naked and fell asleep immediately his head touched the pillows.