The ‘randy’ blogger, a short story by ‘Seun Salami (Part 1)

by Seun Salami

seun-salami

Uti laughed. She tried not to laugh with him because she had intended it to be a serious question, to carry with it and deliver to him a stern message that she wasn’t quite comfortable with any distractions and she wanted him all to herself…

Rosina clutched her small travel bag close to her legs as she stood outside the arrivals hall of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, shielding her face from the blazing sun scorching the city. She held on to the certainty that she would be able to recognise Uti if she spotted him among the waiting crowd. Dotting the crowd were a lot of women and a few men; eyes squinted against the sun, bearing placards marked with names like John Kroft and Mr. Bernard and Mr Whitehead. She wondered what the whitehead fellow would look like. She wondered if he had been on the same flight with her. She felt some of the eyes from the crowd piercing through her skin, nailing the heat of the sun into her already moist pores. She dropped her bag and ransacked one of its compartments for her sun glasses. She looked up again, now under the shades. There was an enjoyable calmness to her view now.

She spotted a tall guy in jeans and a T-shirt hurrying towards her in the distance. She knew he was not Uti, but still she looked, closely, as if to be sure. She knew the outfit Uti would be putting on because he had sent her photos of himself in the morning on her BlackBerry Messenger, just like he had done consistently since he began to show serious interest in her. He usually sent her pictures of himself in his car, a black Toyota Camry with grey fabric interior; he usually sent her pictures of his meals, mostly noodles, with eggs or plantain, or occasionally, meat he had shredded from barbeque or suya. She could almost tell where he was at every point in time from the pictures. Sometimes he posted some of those pictures on his BlackBerry Messenger status update or his Twitter account or on his Facebook page, but only after he had sent them to her, and she had told him he looked good, amazing, or more recently, like my man. She had surprised herself the first time she said that, but he laughed, an affirmative laugh and she had kept saying it occasionally since then.

The tall guy was now hugging a lady who had just also come out of arrivals with a trolley containing a small bag. She remembered the lady from the plane, with her pale gold hair and skin the colour of egg shell. She had been in the toilet when the plane was about to begin its descent, and an air hostess had gone over to hurry her out. She hugged the guy for a long while and then they pulled apart before pressing their lips together, briefly. Rosina couldn’t believe she was staring at them. She had always thought it a bad habit to stare at people this way. She imagined her eyes joining those of the small crowd to pierce the skins of the innocent lovers, assuming they were. She looked away from them and wondered if they were like her and Uti, if they had also met on Twitter or Facebook and were only seeing each other for the first time now, or if they had actually met before and were only being reconciled. She wondered if she would even consider kissing Uti. Certainly not at the airport, not in front of this crowd hungry for some drama of kissing lovers and long lost relatives reuniting. She knew she looked forward to what would happen at the hotel though. She could not wait for that. She had thought about it several times and simply could not wait to see if Uti was as good as he often mildly suggested he was in bed, asking questions like, “You want to come to Nigeria? Are you sure you will be able to handle me? I can be a real freak o,” and they would both laugh over the phone, mostly on her call credit. She knew Uti made enough money from his blog and Twitter following, and he always got invited to give talks here and there, but she had made their telephone communication her responsibility and he had stopped complaining about never letting him call her. She watched the guy and the lady walk away. He was pushing the trolley with one hand and holding the lady’s waist with the other while shaking his head to one of the men beckoning on them for a taxi ride. He probably had a car just like Uti. Rosina imagined where they were going, maybe to a hotel too. She compared their heights, the girl barely reaching his shoulders and imagined what they would both be like in bed.

Her eyes fell on Uti’s large frame as she looked across from the couple. She felt her heart begin to beat faster as a huge smile suddenly enveloped her face, embarrassing her. He was almost running, wiping his face with a face towel the whole time, sweating. He looked taller than she had expected. She picked up her bag and began to walk towards him, trying hard to keep the smile on her face from becoming a blush. Uti’s hug was firm, almost determined, rehearsed. She pulled away and put her left hand on the side of his neck, and wanted to say you look good, but she did not. That was what she had prepared to say, but it would clearly be a lie, so instead she said, “You look stressed.”

“Yeah, traffic,” he responded almost immediately. He liked her accent even more now.

“Sorry.”

“Hope you didn’t have to wait for too long.”

“Not really.”

“Is this all you have?” he asked after collecting her bag.

“Yeah, isn’t it just a weekend?”

They both laughed, even though they knew there was nothing really funny and then leaned against each other and began to walk back towards the car park where Uti had emerged from.

“How was your flight?”

“Boring. Boring food, boring people.”

Somebody greeted Uti, shook his hands and muttered something Rosina didn’t hear.

“What’s that she said?” she asked when the young lady walked away.

“She must be a reader of my blog. She said I don’t give a hoot, that’s my blog mantra.”

“Oh, I remember that.”

They were silent for a while as they walked past some mallams who changed currency.

“Do you have any money to change?” Uti asked.

“I already did.”

“Where?”

“At the airport, in Joburg.”

“Really?” Uti didn’t look convinced.

“Yeah, there are naira changers everywhere. Do you know how many Nigerians were on that flight? Do you know how many Nigerians come into S.A every day?”

“Interesting.”

“So is this how ladies stop you to greet you on the streets?”

Uti laughed. She tried not to laugh with him because she had intended it to be a serious question, to carry with it and deliver to him a stern message that she wasn’t quite comfortable with any distractions and she wanted him all to herself.

“When you have fifty thousand twitter followers and a hundred thousand people reading your blog every month, you can’t avoid a few people recognising you.”

“True.” She thought of my man.

“Can you spot the car?” he asked when they got to the car park.

She removed her shades to humour him, and then smiled, a little too broadly before running her eyes through the car park. “There,” she said, pointing.

“Where?”

“Over there, close to the fence.”

***

Sex on the first night at the Moonlight Hotel in Maryland was rushed, although she had still enjoyed it. But when he woke her up the next morning, poking at her from behind, she knew it would be a whole lot better. Soon, he was up, in and out of the bathroom in a jiffy and unto his laptop. When she woke up hours later, looked at the wall clock and said, “You’ve been on that table for over two hours,” he looked back at her and said, “It’s a Saturday morning. Peak period online.”

“What’s for breakfast?”

“I’ve called for boiled yam and eggs, would that be okay?”

“Cool. Thanks.” She reached for her BlackBerry on the side of the bed and decided to go through her Twitter timeline and BlackBerry status updates. She had not checked her phone since she got into the hotel last night and jumped on Uti and began to undress him. She had barely made out the details of the room as they entered; the small table and chair facing the big bed, the little fridge at the corner of the room on which stood an even smaller TV which they would not switch on throughout their stay. The stale smell of the room had invaded her nose, like it had been several days since someone occupied it and she had noticed that the white of the bed sheet was not as sparkling as that of the wall.

Uti looked at her briefly again and began to think as he tweeted. This was the first one from outside Nigeria to come just to see him. And she paid her own fare. Not like those ones from Port-Harcourt or Benin or Abuja who would ask him to send them money to buy tickets, and he always did. Maybe she really did like him. Maybe he should consider taking her seriously and making her the official girlfriend. He thought about the last time he had posted a subliminal tweet – I wish you weren’t so far away – with at least three of them in mind, she was the first to respond and he had sent her direct messages with all sorts of sweet nothings. He really should stop this soon. It wouldn’t help his online reputation if it became public knowledge that he was busy ‘Setting P’ and dating random pretty girls he scouts online. He dismissed the thought. After all, it was they who always came on to him. He began to hum D’banj’s ‘Bachelor’.

“Who are you tweet-fighting again this morning?” Rosina asked, eyes fixed on her phone.

“Oh, you saw my tweets? It’s one of those losers who can’t stop hating.”

She sighed and turned.

 

To be continued…

———————–

‘Seun Salami is the author of ‘The Son of your Father’s Concubine’, a collection of short stories. He works as an Editor with Bookvine, a publishing firm in Lagos. You can follow him on twitter @SeunWrites

Other stories by Seun Salami on YNaija are:

‘Seun Salami: How ‘Police’ became my friend

‘Seun Salami: Flesh and blood on Aminu-suya’s knife

Short Story: The lump in your celibate throat

Short story: Our pastor is hooked on porn and me

Uncle Solo, a short story by ‘Seun Salami

Uncle Solo (Part 2), a short story by ‘Seun Salami

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

One comment

  1. I can’t wait for the second part of this story. It really has something to say about these online datings.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail