She Was Our Priestess by …Jude Idada

She Was Our Priestess by …Jude Idada

… There is something about the age thirteen that connotes a rite of passage.

The beginning of the explorative teenage years.

That urge to discover yourself and the world around you.

A dormant genetic programming that becomes active without any prodding from you.

As though God presses a button on his remote control as He sits in heavenly places and, in you, as you trudge mother earth, all systems are a go.

Your body comes alive.

… And so it was, in my high school in Kaduna, at the age of thirteen, if you were among the boys that – “soji” – meaning – being in the know – or you wanted to be amongst the – “correct guys” – the ones called – “bubblers” – you had to do a ritual rite of passage.

A ritual that involved you and the cement wall that ran along the length and breath of the school that was meant to keep us safe.

You had to scale it.

Remove the shirt of your uniform and hide it in the scatterings of bushes and walk away in your ‘casual” inner shirt over your uniform trousers.

And visit a brothel across the highway that ran in front of the school.

It was called Philson.

You had to walk into its dimly lit interiors that consisted of a beer parlour with metal tables and chairs. There were always men sitting there of all shades and ages drowning their sorrows and celebrating their joys with bottles of beer while singing along to a continuous loop of reggae songs, that played from a deejay booth. Which never had a deejay in it.

You walked past a doorway which was covered by shimmering ultra thin tassels of fake crystals, each connected to the other by white strings, all of which ran down from the top of the doorway to the terrazzo floor.

Into a corridor that was actually outside the building, but had a translucent plastic roof over it.

That corridor housed the ladies.

All sizes and shapes.

Wearing the dazzling and the grotesque.

Painted in make-up that was alluring, flattering and sometimes outrageously off-putting.

A smattering of various languages and the almighty pidgin.

They religiously beckoned to you while striking various poses, as the red bulbs that dangling from the roof cast varying shadows on them.

“Small boy wetin you dey find here?”

“Oh boy your prick don big reach enter ashawo yansh?”

“See this boy o, Wetin you con find here? Na your mama bless you dey find here?”

“Dis one wen you enter hia, you get money?”

For the new initiates, you ignored them, bowed your head, walked past them to the last room on the left and knocked.

The door opened, and a lithe and beautiful lady stood in the doorway.

Nothing more than twenty – two years old, she could have been.

She was mostly dressed in a flowing gown and had a shawl over her head.

She greeted you with a smile and stepped aside to allow you walk in and escape the taunts of the other garish and uncouth tongues that lashed you mercilessly for their merriment.

Once in, you never failed to notice the table was against the far wall, upon which were various textbooks and exercise books, all neatly arranged and a wooden chair perfectly placed in front of it.

There was the large mirror that was nailed to the wall, the wooden rack that protruded from the wall a short distance away from which clothes were neatly hung.

There was a medium plastic drum a short distance away, leaning against the wall.

Then there was the bed.

It was at the other side of the room.

Neatly made.

There was a bedside table next to it.

Upon the table was a cassette player.

It always played three songs from the musical group UB40.

“Red Red Wine.”

“I Got You, Babe.”

and

“Cherry Oh Baby.”

The room smelt fresh and flowery.

And always made you happy.

The lithe lady who moved as though she floated, would walk to the bed, bend down and bring out a bowl from underneath it. It usually had a hand towel in it.

She would go to the drum, open it, remove the hand towel from the bowl, and fetch some water, cover the drum and dipped the hand towel into the bowl.

Then she would turn to you and still smiling, speak to you, in her tiny yet soothing voice that rose just slightly above a whisper.

“Please, can you take off your clothes.”

It was awkward.

You were embarrassed.

And you fumbled and fumbled, stumbled and finally, you stood in front of her naked.

And then she would say her trademark statement.

“You are a very handsome boy. Is this your first time?”

We always said yes.

Even those who had visited her repeatedly.

It was a ritual.

Then she would come to you, place the bowl on the floor by her feet and pick up the hand towel from it. She would drain the water from the towel and gently lift your flaccid penis in one hand while holding the wet towel in the other.

She would lift it up and peer at it.

Like a scientist with a specimen for an experiment.

Then she would squeeze it.

And in an upward movement pull on it from base to the cap.

Then she would peer at it again.

And repeat.

Usually, she did it four times, before she began to wipe the penis with the wet towel.

She was meticulous.

But still smiled as she worked, swaying sideways to the music of UB40.

Along the length, the scrotum, the upper thigh and then back in the water, drain and repeat.

Then once satisfied, she put the bowl and the wet towel beneath the bed, turned around and stood facing you.

Slowly she began to undulate to the music of UB40 as she teasingly took off the shawl that covered her head, then the flowing gown, there was never a bra or panties underneath it, just her flawless skin.

Rapturously naked.

All perky, well mowed, all curvy, moving sublimely in titillating rhythm to the music.

It was like magic.

The effect.

You flew from shy flaccid to insanely erect in a flash.

You felt the blood pound in your temple and heard it in your ear drums.

Your breathing became a low growl and your pulse a roar.

Then she raised her arms to you, open wide and said the word.

“Come.”

Everything after that became a blur of primal grunts, heaving pants, convoluted movements, gasps and moans in tandem to furious thrusts, racing pleasure like you had never experienced before that rose and rose until it exploded in a shower of screaming stars.

Then came the blackness.

A warm, delicious, tingling blackness that enveloped you.

That blackness that gently escorted you down from the summit of pleasure to the valley of satiation.

And in that darkness, her words seeped through.

“Come, let me clean you.”

And the darkness cleared.

Her smiling face appeared peering down at you as you lay spent on the bed.

And you looked at her, and you felt your heart heave in one swell of love.

She gently helped you up, and she knelt in front of you, and slowly wiped you clean with the wet towel which she had removed from the bowl.

It was practised.

Always punctuated by looking at you with a shy smile.

And you loved her even more.

Then she helped you dress up.

And once done.

You stood in front of her and paid her.

And she squeezed your hand after taking the money and said in that same alluring voice.

“Thank you.”

She wouldn’t wear her clothes back in your presence.

Neither would she ever kiss you, from the first moment she saw you until she gently let you out of her room into the corridor where the baying hyenas were waiting to resume their jealous taunts.

And when you got back to the hostel and your friends gathered around you to hear your recounting of the meeting.

You would be so dazed by the experience and enamored by the coupling, that all you would say as you shook your head in amazement, was…

“Damn!”

Over and over again.

Even as you felt for the first time in your life, the true manliness of your masculinity.

She was our priestess.

And her room was the temple of our initiation.

One day.

She was gone.

None of us knew where she went or what became of her.

And we mourned her as though we had been told she was dead.

Yesternight.

A classmate of mine who is now a pastor and had been initiated by her in the days of yore ran into her in Abuja.

They exchanged pleasantries, and since she could not instantly recognise him, he never reminded her of his knowing her previously.

He just looked at her fondly as she spoke to him, in the same voice that rose alluring and soothingly barely above a whisper.

She is still lithe and sensuous in her mien and movement.

Grey.

Dressed demurely.

But her eyes are the same.

Still calm and loving.

Patient and nurturing.

And she is now a pastor…

… the general overseer…

… of a youth ministry that is primarily geared to spreading the gospel and giving counselling, training and financial aid to victims of sexual abuse.