ANGEL

The room was dimly lit. Colourful disco lights flashed and winked intermittently, emphasizing the thick cloud of grayish cigarette smoke hovering above the heads of the patrons of the club. From the huge speaker, Fela Kuti’s 1970 hit belted out “Yellow Fever…Your face go yellow… your yansh go black…You dey bleach…you ugly thing…”

At the lounge perched on high stools at the bar, four girls sat sipping from different lipstick stained glasses, chatting amiably. Two stood nearby shaking and moving their bottoms and thighs garishly exposed in tight leather skirts in a manner that would have made the late Afro beat maestro’s dancers green with envy.

Breasts inadequately clad in scanty tops, a clutter of necklace and bangles jingled musically in accompaniment with every expert movement. Restless eyes darted around the room while her other parts were otherwise actively engaged, searching out prospective customers.

“Angel, Angel…baby oku, na wa o!” One of the seated girls called out to the more petite and buxom of the two who now had her hands cupping her breasts suggestively.

“You dey enjoy yourself o!” Fingers with long purple painted nails lifted a smoldering cigarette to lips painted in an equally bizarre shade of purple. A thin eyebrow was drawn dramatically, almost touching the short fringe of the blonde wig.

“Angel Angel” twirled around and came to an abrupt stop as she bent her knees and engaged her best effort in shaking her bottom in a manner that would have made a seasoned stripper ask for lessons. At this move, the girls hooted and clapped noisily.

“Abeg, baby e don do!” A dark skinned girl dressed in a top that would have been best described as a handkerchief urged. “Please take a beer on my bill. Mr Barman!”

Angela joined them at the bar at that, fanning her profusely sweating body ineffectively with her hands.

“I no know what kind of fever be dey hold me all week. So glad I’m back!” She winked mischievously at her friends, raising a cigarette to her lips which was promptly lit by another girl.

“Fever ke?” The girl with the blonde wig spat derisively. “Like Oga Blakky wants to know if you are about to die!"

“No work, no food!” Another girl called Tina retorted. “Me, I no get Oga Blakky power. E don dey look this side since!”

Angel shot a surreptitious look and indeed the Proprietor of the establishment of the establishment was glowering in their general direction. Angel ducked her head into the glass of lager she held.

Oga Blakky as he was known to his “employees” was 6ft 8” and built like an ox. With his charcoal black complexion and shaven head; he was an awe – inspiring sight. And if that was not enough, then the fact that he had arms built like an oak tree which looked like they could snap a lesser formed human being into two and the ugly scowl he usually wore when he was in a foul mood was definitely a deterrent to customers who allowed their drink to get the better of their senses and staff who mistook his otherwise benign nature for weakness.

He was manager/ pimp/ head-bodyguard and chief cook. A hard worker who didn’t give himself a quarter, he certainly didn’t give anyone else under his establishment an inch.

“Omo, no work o!” Tina interjected breaking into Angel’s thoughts. “Omo” was her favourite word and it didn’t matter to her that at 18, she was the youngest in the group and could qualify as a child amongst the jaded resident prostitutes in the establishment.

She had come to Oga Blakky out of the blue one morning after his establishment “Red Fox” had been recommended to her as a place brimming full of “jobs”. Unfortunately, the only vocation open to her at the time had been that of a prostitute. In return for boarding, food and a place to turn her tricks, she would pay a token sum from her earnings each week. Tina hadn’t batted an eye – brow. She’s been sexually molested by her step-father since she’d been eleven. By the time she’d finished her Secondary School education, she’d had more lovers than a girl that age should. She had barely managed to complete her exams as it were. She’d found herself on the streets when her mother had forgotten her shopping money one fateful afternoon and had returned from her trip to the market and found her husband in mid-pump, locked in ecstasy within the arms of her daughter. All of Hell and Hades had broken loose and Tina had found herself out on the streets with her mother once again refusing to listen. Last time they had heard, the scum of the earth was still living with Tina’s mother and chasing after pre-pubescent girls in the neighbourhood.

“I need some action now. I’m on fire.” Tina spouted now. Life had turned her into an addict, her drug being sex, only now she got paid for it.

Just then, a group of men walked into the club-house. The girls immediately abandoned their poise of lassitude and moved onto the new comers with the speed of carrion birds descending on carcass. They jostled and cursed each other, friendship momentarily forgotten in their struggle for business – for survival.

Angel approached an averagely built man in the group with the shoulders of a boxer. He was well dressed and rugged in a handsome kind of way.

“Hello Lovey.” She drawled in her husky dark voice. Her tiger eyes…captivating, sensuous, inviting…her best feature captured the stranger as his locked hers. A long painted nail trailed down his chest to his stomach.

“I’m Angel. You want me to show you a good time?” She asked in perfect English. “I’m not expensive. Just treat me right and I’m all yours, handsome.”

The man checked her out unashamedly, sliding his arms casually around her shoulders.

“What’s your charge?”

She licked her lips and beckoned him closer so she could whisper a sum into his ears.

“I promise you a wild night.” She finished wantonly. The man threw his head back and laughed while the hand he had thrown casually over her shoulders moved to her full bottom and squeezed…once…twice. Angel threw her head back and laughed with him, her tiger eyes sparkling.

  xx

Isi-Aki.