Last Night I Cut Myself

Strobe Lights.

Last night I cut myself.

It was the morning before and I was feeling excited thinking of my plans for later that night. I texted my girls, Celine and Toby plans to meet up at our favorite bistro in Lekki, “Churchills”. It was quite early in the day so I opted for light weather attire, dungarees and a cropped shirt underneath.

I arrived at the bistro earlier than my friends. It wasn’t busy at 11.00am in the morning. There was the odd girl on her computer, intently sipping her drink and the young couple out on a brunch date. Churchills was small and homey, with wood accents and low lighting. It reminded me of a pub. Surveying the environment, I was able to pick out a prime table  location for us near a window that seemed to be the only natural light source in the joint. I casually scrolled through my phone as I waited patiently for the rest of my party to arrive. A waitress approached me, and at the same moment my friends walked in. They made their way over to the table and apologized for being 30 minutes late and then proceeded to go into a mini rant as to why they were late. The waitress was still waiting so I signalled that we should probably place our orders now. Orders were placed and we got into chatting away and finalizing our plans for later that night. I told them about Ola, a guy I had been checking out at the club recently and Toby mentioned that she had a friend who heard from a friend about him and that he was such a ladies man. Perfect, I thought to myself.

We wrapped up brunch and I headed home to rest up before the night began.

...

Here we go again, I thought to myself as I looked hazily into the mirror and applied my favourite hue of orange lipstick, burnt orange like the deep orange of the evening sun. I tripped as I tried to lean in closer to the mirror to apply it and now I looked like a clown with half my face smeared with lipstick. I’ll fix that, I thought to myself as I grabbed a wet wipe from my make up stained glass table. I was determined to have a great night. I called my friends Celine and Toby and informed them I was running late and I would meet up with them at Cajun. When I was done with my makeup, I slipped into a silver slinky satin dress. I looked in the mirror and smiled to myself, It is going to be a great night, I said to myself as I called my cab.

As I pulled up in my cab, I  looked across the street and could see the ‘hustlers’ trying to assist in the parking of the biggest cars, I could see scantily dressed girls chatting away with their friends without a care in the world. There were lights everywhere you would think the sun was coming out and giving me energy. I felt awake and full of life. As I walked toward my favourite club I began to smile, its exterior blue lights luminated the night even more and from a distance you are only able to read 'ajun' because the 'C', hung slightly away from the backing light. "Someone should fix that" I muttered with a sigh as my cab pulled away. As the taxi drove off I looked around to take it all in. The air smelled crisp with a slight hint of freshly lit cigarettes, there are empty packs of cigarettes on the paved road and what seemed to be little bits of broken glass around. I looked around and could see familiar faces of acquaintances I occasionally run into at social gatherings. This is my home, a place where oddly I felt safe. As I made my way up a flight of brightly lit stairs I did a little shimmy dance. I gave big hugs to my favorite bouncers, Ikenna and Tunde when I reached the landing. Like I said, this is home.

The first thing you always notice as soon as you walked in were the strobe lights as they flashed a variety of intense colors, blue, green, red but mostly white. As I walked in, I am immediately hit with the smell of alcohol and strong smoke. The floors are slightly sticky, with random puddles of liquid highlighted everytime the strobe lights turned white. Taking in the loud head throbbing music vibrating through my body, the strobe lights bouncing off of the mirrored walls in the club, the random girl that had clearly gone off the coke,  I immediately feel myself begin to let go, let go of everything as I throw my head back to take it all in. The world outside began to fade away as I walked in deeper and was engulfed by the music. “Hey babyyyy!”, I yelled to my friends as I joined their table. I could tell Toby was already drunk and clearly Celine was high off something. “Kam!”, they both yelled as I blew them both air kisses. “Ah, it’s going to be an amazing night” I sighed to myself. I started out with a round of tequila shots, as was the usual and began to sway slightly to the music. Not long after, I felt someone touch my shoulder, “Kamsidy”, the deep voice said as I turned around. I gave Ola a big hug and we began dancing. He was so sensual in his movements, teasing me, touching me. It was electricity. I had been checking him out for a while now and we only ever saw at the club. He was tall with perfect facial structure that almost rivalled mine. Ola leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Come with me baby”, I followed.

As we walked to his car, I could feel the tension rising. His careless fumbling of his car keys broke the tension for only a second. I got in the car and was immediately surrounded by his scent. It was clean with woody undertones, almost as if I was in some exotic forest. He sat in the drivers’ seat and looked at me, I stared right back and gave him a confident smile. He put his car in drive and soon we were cruising calmly away from the noise and lights of the night. We drove in silence, the silence bothered me, it began to act like a “sober up” potion. I had to do something so I put my hand on his right thigh and began slowly trailing my fingertips along his erection. Soon the silence was broken by his soft moans as my left hand made its way up to the button of his pants, and down his pants. I could feel him begin to form fully in my hands, it was intoxicating. I stroked him gently, careful not to take him too far. He stole glances at me, especially when he moaned, as if daring me to push him farther. I leaned in and lightly bit his ear as I slowly teased my hand away from his throbbing hard- on which only excited him more. With his left hand on the wheel he began to trace his right hand up my thighs, giving it a gentle squeeze when he got near my lace underwear. I held my breath. He glanced over at me and gave me a mischievous smirk as he maneuvered his fingers into my underwear. I gasped as he went in, I could feel my wetness on his fingers. He began to finger me slowly as the drive began to slow down. Now the silence was being broken by my soft moans and not before long, we got to his apartment building and went up the elevator.

His apartment was beautiful. The obvious key feature were the obsidian type floor tiles that opened up to a large living space that had cocaine white walls  contrasting beautifully with the flooring. Chrome accents were everywhere in the living room: from the centre table shell piece to the sconces on the walls. I complimented his obvious good taste and took a sit on one his L shaped couch. He walked toward what I could only assume was the kitchen and came back with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. As he poured me a glass of wine, I was conscious of the fluffy white centre rug beneath my feet and I made sure to be careful not to spill a drop.  

We made idle talk for about five minutes before I found myself kissing him. The left strap of my dress softly slid off my shoulder as he began slowly kissing my neck. My fingers gently played with his soft hair and my breath quickened. I got up,  slid my dress of my body and lay on the fluffy white rug. His excitement was visibly obvious and he hurriedly tugged off his t-shirt and pulled off his pants. I watched him as I slowly cupped my breasts, teasing him to hurry up. Five seconds later he was bent on top of me, trailing kisses from my neck to my belly button. His kisses were soft, almost like I was being touched with a feather. He cupped my boobs and sucked on them like they were life giving. Eventually I heard the crinkle of the condom wrapper opening and moments after, I feel his pulse inside me. His pace quickened and it became intense, just what I needed. We fucked and it was over within 15 minutes of desperate moans and trembling gasps of pleasure.

…

Afterward I took his number and told him I would call him. It was an obvious lie. Guys like Ola love to fall in love and create a fantasy that co-exists with dabbling in several other girlfriends while calling it love. He was a typical “Lagos big boy” and we both knew it. He was as superficial as I was bored of this present situation, clinging onto any little intangible and tangible feeling of joy he could grasp at. I wasn’t interested in that narrative. My interest in him had begun to fade; the intrigue had been left in his living room. He walked me to my taxi, trying desperately to crack jokes that he laughed at. But he could see my mind had wandered elsewhere, trying to shut him out. For a moment, I thought I saw a look of disappointment in his eyes as I looked up, but the moment passed quickly.

I got into my taxi and watched him long at me as I drove off. I deleted his number off my phone as soon as the cab pulled out of his estate gate. 

As we approached the club, I began to sober up and then I noticed there seemed to be more cars parked outside than there were before I left. I shrugged, dreading how full it was going to be inside. I stumbled back into the club and my girls where soaring. I popped a molly and I began to feel amazing. I was right up there with them dancing and shrieking along to the lyrics of our favorite songs. Celine whispered something funny in my ear about a guy dancing awkwardly in front of us and I threw my head back in laughter, like I had just heard the funniest joke in the world. I was laughing and didn’t notice there was no more leg room on the chair we were dancing on. I took a step forward, momentarily blinded by the bright white strobe lights, hoping to step on another part of the chair but instead, missed my step and fell right into the glass table. I heard the music go lower as I layed there for a couple minutes with my friends rushing down to my side to see if I was okay. Luckily, I had narrowly missed falling into a sharp shard of glass by a centimeter. It was the first time the club had ever been that quiet. “Mad!” I exclaimed as I got up and dusted broken glass off my body. I didn’t even feel any pain whatsoever. I gave a loud ‘whoo!’ to signal I was really okay and that we should get back to having fun. We all began laughing, the dj resumed blasting tunes and we returned to dancing like nothing had happened. The cleaners promptly cleared up my accident.

After 5am, the crowd in the club began to thin out and we decided it was time to call it a night. Toby ordered us a cab as we stood outside the club. Celine and Toby were crashing at my place for the night. As we waited for our cab, I looked around us and noticed the compound littered with brandy and champagne glasses, drunk girls and guys laughing into the night. There was the single guy who was desperately attempting to find a girl to take home for the night. It was a scene I welcomed. We signalled to our cab driver as we watched him pull up. We got in and we were on our way home. As soon as we got back to my place it was lights out. Celine dove into bed with her shoes on while Toby and I carefully took off our makeup. After 20 minutes we were ready to join the already snoring Celine. As I lay beside Toby in bed, I muttered to myself, “these streets love me” and passed out.

...

“Ow”, I said out loud as I woke up sore. I sat up and noticed there was dried up blood on my white sheets. I looked at my body and noticed cuts on my arms and on my legs. Last night I cut myself.