FOLASADE’S DIARY

Victims of RAPE do not say it all. They don’t tell you the whole story. Actually, they can’t tell you the whole story because if they did, if they could; then maybe, you could begin to understand just how much of a ‘Raw And Painful Experience’ it actually is. There is simply no way to translate the roughness and animalistic act that deprives you of your God given right of ownership of your own body. There is no way to put in spoken words or written letters the gruesome experience that leaves you helpless and Empty. It’s the kind of thing you have to experience to completely understand. BUT WHO WANTS TO?

 

I definitely did not want to. It wasn’t as if my consent was even considered by Dickson, my neighbour and a complete Dick by the way.

How befitting his name was to him!

 I had left work early that dark and gloomy Friday to beat the Port Harcourt evening traffic and catch up on Hotel Majestic; my favourite TV show.  I didn’t want to miss out on the part where Maja was frolicking around the hotel with Alero.  I rushed out of the office as I waved at Nick, the security man at my office. He always smiled. He always seemed happy.  It made it impossible to pass him by without acknowledging his presence.

He was almost sacked some weeks ago by the managing director and somehow he still smiled to his duty post. Chidi, my colleague and a complete gentleman pleaded on his behalf and he was forgiven. According to Chidi, ‘he had a funny face, so he wants him around for a while’. I trekked out from the quiet streets of Old GRA into the busy mile 1 area of Port Harcourt. I would have taken a drop to my flat at Trans Amadi if not for the cab driver who had said he was going to charge me 2000 naira with a sneaky look on his face and an attitude of someone who genuinely wanted to steal from you.

He muttered something about how far it was and how the price of fuel was now higher than the usual price because of the recession. 

‘Recession’ The real but convenient reason most Nigerians exploit for selfish purposes.

I wanted to bargain, but I couldn’t. He had left me dumbfounded with that amount. I turned away in search of another cab as I heard him saying some things to convince me to go with him but I wasn’t interested in going with him. If he had opted to take me home for free, I still wouldn’t have gone with him. He belonged to the group of people Samuel Mensah; my boring but smart colleague described as ‘The problem of Nigeria’. 

I walked into my compound, exhausted and weak but glad that I was finally home. I could feel the softness of my bed from my gate. I couldn’t wait to lay on it and loose myself to the easy hands of sleep. The aroma of various dishes crept out of the kitchen windows of different flats and made its way into my nostrils. I could smell the aroma of chicken, stew and soup. I could also smell the empty pot in my kitchen. My neighbours never made it easy for a hungry person to remain hungry in peace. They had to remind you just how famished you are with the smell of their yummy cuisines. Such torture! 

I unlocked the door of my flat and walked in, closing it slowly behind me. I had a little bit of OCD, so I was glad everything was exactly the way I had left them. I dropped my flat key on the sitting room table and I heard a weird noise from my bedroom. It sounded like something had fallen on the floor. I pulled off my shoes from my feet and kept them at a corner and walked into the bedroom.

Something felt off as I stood at the door and stared at my room. The bed sheet was ruffled and the pillows were not in order. My drawers were open and my underwear was on the table. My wardrobe had one of the doors wide open and I could see my clothes on the floor.

Someone was definitely here!

There it was again. The weird sound. Now it was clearer, it was the sound of someone’s footsteps.

Oh wait! The person is still around

I felt my body freeze and fear gripped my tired feet. I wasn’t sure what I should do. I ran as fast as I could towards the entrance door. The fear had made my feet numb and my palms cold. I couldn’t feel my feet when it hit the stool in the living room. I still ran anyway. 

 A hand roughly grip my arm from behind, pulling me to towards the dining room. I knew I was in trouble because I could feel that whoever the stranger was, he was bigger than me by a whole lot. His body was masculine. I struggled for freedom as I screamed for help; the screaming didn’t last for long as the unknown hand covered my mouth and threw me to the floor. I lay flat on my belly with my back against him and his weight on me. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t break free from underneath him. I tried to hit him with my hands but they weren’t doing much as I was lying on my stomach. He seemed to work out a lot because I felt I was hitting a stone. If only I had taken those workout sessions Tope had been urging me to go to.

I couldn’t reach for anything to hit him with. I was completely helpless in a dark corner of my own home.

I felt his hands roughly pulling my skirt above my waist seeking for entrance. My heart beat faster as I realized that whoever it was, was about to rape me. I wriggled and resisted as I muffled words like ‘please don’t do this, please wait’. I wasn’t sure he heard me because his hands still strongly held my mouth hostage.

A part of me hoped he would be compassionate enough to let me go,if I pleaded some more.

 It all became worse when he laid his chest on my back and his head in my neck. I could feel him kissing my neck. 

Why? Was this supposed to be his own form of foreplay?

 I could smell him. His breathe. He smelled of waste bin. The smell of so many bad things put together. I was disgusted. I wanted to throw up but the vomit was stuck in my throat, compressed by his weight on me. My neck and back were already paining me and I found it hard to breathe as parts of his palms blocked my nose. I felt his fingers between my laps and I fought to keep my legs together, his hands kept pulling them apart. He stretched his full length on top of me, so that he was now lying completely on me, from head to toe with his right legs as a wedge for my right leg. I couldn’t keep them together anymore. 

He drew my panties to one end and quickly put his fingers inside me, his nails hurting my insides on his way in. Hot tears crept down my face. I was already beginning to loose energy. He pushed his fingers in and out of me with all the force he had in him. As if the faster he inserted them, the closer he was to finally getting a medal of honour.

As my fighting energy grew fainter, so did my movement under him. He had not said a word since he got a hold of me, I couldn’t tell who he was as I had not seen his face either. As hard as I tried, He made it impossible for me to turn my neck to see his dirty face. His hands came out of me and I felt something hard around my legs. He adjusted himself as he went into me, making a disgusting sound. He sounded like a bull in pain.

The silent tears and muffled sounds I had been making turned into a real cry for help. I felt a little bit of pain inside me as he thrust harder and further into me. I felt sweat trickle down his face unto my own face as he continued rubbing his lips on my face as a kissing method. I could see the evening sky from my dinning window. I couldn’t see the gmelina tree very close to my window but the wind blew and the scent of the tree covered my nose. I never liked the smell. I wondered how my window was open. Who left it open?

I was numb, from his weight, from the pain. From the violation. Everywhere smelled of rubbish. My house which I always kept very neat began to smell like a heap of waste materials.

He seemed to be enjoying himself as he picked up his pace, faster and deeper he went into me as rough as possible. He slowly pulled himself out of me and turned me, so that I was now lying on my back and facing him. His two hands pinned mine to the floor.

What could I possibly do to him now?  

It was a bit dark and between all the tears I had shed, I couldn’t see clearly. I closed my eyes and opened it again, to allow accumulated tears out. To help me see the monster that had attacked me in my own home. I looked again and there he was,

Dickson, my neighbor! 

Words left me as more tears rolled down my cheeks and I wept. I couldn’t have guessed that he would ever do anything like that. He adjusted himself and began all over again. I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. 

I looked at the expression on his face as he was about to cum. 

 The expression of an old he-goat struggling to defecate. 

He leaned on me as he came. His smelly and bushy armpit on my face.  

He stood up, arranged himself and walked out of my house shutting the door behind him.

Like I said, they don’t tell you everything.