CHRISTMAS DATING
Episode two
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Jojo liked playing with my hair. I was very certain there was something about my hair that he found interesting. Or, he was just that kind of man — the one who seized every opportunity he got to play with his woman’s hair — and it was romantic.
It made him stand out amongst all my previous lovers. Jojo was a great guy. Sweet. Very sweet I can’t explain it. I wish there was a word better than sweet.
One moment I’m sitting next to him, our shoulders brushing each other’s. The next moment my back is on his laps, his fingers get to work dutifully, caressing my hair deep into my scalp.
He would cuddle me. And as if to draw a line, he would run his fingers from my chest down to my bellybutton and back. And my body would j**k in several rounds of shivers covered in goosebumps. He enjoyed doing it.
But my hair. . .I guess he had chemistry with it. Maybe it was the softness, he spent more time feeling it when I had my hair undone. The chemistry was deep. Very deep. Like elements forming chemical compounds. Like salt blending completely into water.
I had not realized how much I had fallen in love with him until many weeks later. I hardly stayed in my house. His place became my next stop.
I missed him all the time, especially when I had my hair undone, when he cuddled me and twisted my long hair, when he told me stories about love legends and histories about first world nations and their heroes.
He was my hero. My Aristotle. My own Isaac Newton. My own Shakespeare with a touch of Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie woven in one.
This Saturday was different. I loved that he wasn’t at work. I loved that I would be in his arms all day. I loved that he would tell me many sweet stories about heroes. I loved that I was making him his favorite meal — Jellof rice — which he liked soft and spicy.
I was deep frying some chicken when I heard something thud heavily in the sitting room. At first I wanted to ignore and continue with the frying since Jojo was there watching football — he and football, very inseparable.
But on a second thought I decided to go see what he was up to. I left the kitchen and strolled lazily to the sitting room, calling Jojo by his Igbo name; Chidubem — good guide me.
“Jojo!” I screamed as I walked into the sitting room. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with you?”
Jojo was gasping for air, struggling on the floor, he was literally begging for breath. I was confused and completely helpless. He only pointed towards something. He couldn’t utter a word.
I watched him struggle and struggle. I felt life leaving him immediately, I felt him slipping off my hands like a bathing soap.
All of a sudden, as if my brain had just regained consciousness from an eight-month long coma, I reckoned it could be asthma and that he was pointing towards his inhaler.
I hurried amidst tears in my eyes, sob in my throat, a craving to see my Jojo stay alive, staggering towards the direction of his gesture. I searched the drawers with fury not minding what I threw out or where.
And there was the thing. Ventolin inhaler. The little container that held the tiny thread of my Jojo’s life together. I dashed back to him, raised him in my arms, let his head sink into my chest, in my embrace, and gave him enough of the substance to ease his pain.
Like a balloon completely emptied of its content, my Jojo sighed greatly of relief. Life was in him again. Death was far from him once again.
His face seemed swollen from his gasping, his broad chest looked narrowed. But what mattered most was that my Jojo was alive. With me. In my arms. His head cupped in my palms.
I had a thousand and one questions to ask him. But I didn’t want him to gasp again while talking. I didn’t want him to struggle for his own breath. I didn’t want my Jojo gripping the centre table tightly. I let him rest on the sofa.
In my fleet of thoughts I forgot that I was frying and only remembered when I smelt something burning from the kitchen.
I ran back to the kitchen to meet the frying pan completely barbequed. Charred. The kind of blackness of the night without the sparkling presence of the moon. I put the gas cooker off and held my chest out of panting.
Two things ran through my mind as I hurried back to Jojo in the sitting room. I could have razed his house down. Or, I would have had a gone Jojo if I had not been around.
And so that Saturday was different. I was the one cuddling. I was the one telling the stories. I was the one caressing his afro-punk hairstyle. His very dark afro-punk hairstyle.
I felt the chemistry then. I felt what Jojo felt when he let his fingers draw invisible lines on my milky skin. I felt the chemistry in his heart when he talked about Aristotle and twisted my hair. He loved kisses. He was a great kisser and I gave him plenty of it.
To not have lost Jojo that day was a memory that stays fresh in my mind. To know that my manly Jojo was asthmatic, vulnerable like every other human being, was peaceful.
To be continued. . .
📷: Michael Sampson
— Michael Ituma
