Chronicles of Singledom

Leech

I want just to
Curl up
In the crook of your arm
and
Fall asleep there…

I want just to
Pack up my things
and move
Into the groove at the base if your neck

I want just to
Snuggle up behind your ear
Unnoticed
Inconspicuous…

Resolved to make your body my home.

Akuba

Akuba startled awake, her body racking from the aftershock of the nightmare she’d had. “Oh God! Not again.” she said, this was the seventh time in a row she’d had this dream since Uncle Dyke started paying her nightly visits, kissing her sloppily, loudly slapping her perfectly rounded buttocks, pulling quite roughly at her braids, swiftly closing the gap between them with the stumpy tree trunks he had for arms. All the time, lingering at her doorway before finally walking out, with the unspoken promise of more…

That night she knew he’ll come, no one was going to be around and earlier, she’d caught him ogling at her as she bent down to sweep the dust off the floor and go about her daily chores, almost drooling. Just after she entered her room, she locked her door and hid under the bed. But he came prepared, armed with the master key. Akuba’s heart skipped along with each click unlocking the door.

                     She was afraid. She knew what was coming, what he wanted to do to her. She had hoped Yao who lived next door, would be the first, her first. Not this out of shape, over aged fool who scratched his crotch then smelled it in public, and chewed with his mouth open. The thought repulsed her. It was too late now. He was in her room, advancing, with that smug smile plastered across his face. He saw her as soon as he walked in; barely hidden under the narrow bed she laid that lithe body on. Many times he’d cursed that bed and wished to be in its place. This time, he will lay her on it and act out his deepest darkest fantasies. That slut, flaunting her deliciously rounded buttocks in his face every time she passed and then pretending not to like it when he touched her. Tonight, she could scream her loudest, they were completely alone. He grabbed her, pinned her down, tore off her night dress and forcibly invaded her. It was blindingly painful. She fought back, but she was not a match for an ex-army officer. He paid no mind to her incessant cries for mercy, it egged him on. “Shut up you whore”, he said, “You like it, admit it!” when he was done, he left her, satisfied, her bed sheets soaked in her blood and his sweat.

             Hugging her knees until the wave of pain that washed over her passed, she gathered up the soiled things to wash in the back yard before anyone came back and saw them, the metallic taste of her own blood from when she bit down on her lower lip as he ploughed her was still in her mouth. No matter how hard she tried, she could not wash away the lurid smell of blood in the things. She cried herself to sleep that night, and all the other nights he came to her room after that night he took away her pride.

                She could not take it anymore; the nightly visits, the dreadful nightmares that followed, the emptiness. She walked around with a body that was no more hers. This could not continue. She had to end this, somehow, anyhow. She had to numb this pain. She planned it so that he’ll be the first to find her. And he was. His last vision of her was of her mouth slack, the healthy pink from her toenails, fingernails and palms gone, and in its place the ghastly blackness of death. It haunted him. Just as it was meant to…