WHEN THE SPARKS FLY 

Tammy Kolo had deliberately waited in his office even as his heart pounded and his body quivered. In the good old days he would never dream of keeping a lovely woman, especially one like Viola, waiting. But this was a new and far less happy dispensation.

 

He glanced at his wristwatch. 4.50P.M. Thank God (or was it Satan?) that their rendezvous was not far away. He got up, shrugged into his jacket, locked up and climbed downstairs. All the students, teachers, and most of the non-academic staff of Royal Stars Secondary Academy had gone. The security officer, Mr. Ayoola, was at his beat perusing an old copy of ‘National Life.’ Tammy signed off, bade him goodbye and stepped outside the gate.

 

A commercial motorcyclist quickly unpeeled himself from the line of okadas parked opposite the school. Tammy shook his head. He was known by most of the okada men and it would not do for any of them to take him to his destination. One could never be too cautious. Jessica’s tentacles were longer than Satan’s pitchfork.

 

He sighed. Jessica was the greatest mistake of his life. A mistake mistitled his wife.

 

As he strolled along the narrow road to the left end of the street, scanning up and down for a tricycle, his mobile phone rang. He smiled as he saw the number.

 

‘‘Hello.’’

 

‘‘Where are you, honey?’’ Viola’s whisky-sultry voice never failed to make his nerve-ends tingle.

 

‘‘On my way. About to board a ‘Keke Maruwa’.’’

 

‘‘Board a bike.’’

 

Tammy could not help chuckling. ‘‘This is serious. Have matters gotten to this extent?’’

 

‘‘Yes,’’ Viola replied immediately.

 

‘‘Okay. Give me five minutes.’’ Tammy cut the line and continued walking. At the end of the road, satisfied he was reasonably out of sight of anyone who might know him, he flagged down an okada.

 

‘‘The Blue Sea Guesthouse.’’

 

The Blue Sea was a three-star relaxation spot along Haven Road off the Government Reserved Area, Apapa. It was situated in its own compound; a cluster of well-kept sea-blue and green two-storey buildings in the midst of symmetrically trimmed gardens. It was the kind of place where a discreet couple could set up a trysting-ground.

 

The okada pulled up in the spot allocated to commercial motorcyclists on the other side of the serene street opposite the guesthouse’s gate. Tammy pulled out his phone and ‘flashed’ Viola. She replied promptly.

 

‘‘I am at the gate.’’

 

‘‘Come to Room 127. First building. Second floor.’’

 

Tammy cut the line. As he walked across the compound towards the foyer his mind raced back to how the journey started.

 

The car that brought him to this garage was parked before him a little over a month ago. It was after Jessica poured her unique brand of gall into his eyes on a Saturday evening by openly calling him a mistake among men because he, after months of scrimping and saving, bought a small size colour TV set instead of her much longed for 21 inch LG flat screen and a DVD-cum-CD player. Her anger had known no limits as she fulfilled her threat to smash the set. Only the intervention of neighbours stopped Tammy from beating the holy devil out of her. He did not sleep in their two-room apartment that night. In the morning he returned from his friend’s place to pick a fresh shirt. He bought a copy of ‘Sunday Vanguard’, scanned the ‘Love Zone’ column and was arrested by the words in the fourth slot:

 

 

                   A gorgeous and highly inflammable thirty-five year old lady

                   wants a highly discreet and intensely erotic relationship with

                   a man between twenty-five and fifty. E-mail hotangel@gmail.com

                   if you are interested.

 

Tammy had never taken such blatant invitations seriously, even as a bachelor. He knew about online dating and other new ways in which men and women sought love. But once he got hooked up with Jessica both the new and old methods of love-search were wiped off his radar. Why should he when the gods had dropped Jessica Ibinabo Kemo on his lap?

 

How wrong I was, he thought morosely.

 

This was to be his first meeting with Viola Hendricks since he replied her placement. Viola had been eager for a one-on-one but Tammy was cautious. Who was this woman who screamed her hunger for a romp on the Third Mainland Bridge? Her un-Nigerian name, if it was really her name, meant nothing to him; placing her by her accent did not work, either. All the thirty-year old Economics teacher from Rivers State could deduce was that she had received Ivy League education most likely outside Nigeria. Even the swapping of photographs via e-mail did not convince Tammy. But he had been pleased by what he saw. A full-bodied, chocolate-complexioned woman with an eerie resemblance to Toni Braxton clad in an LBD which, though sexy, was not blatantly provocative. Her long basketball-player legs had stirred in Tammy a longing for what was between them. This was not unusual since Jessica had taken to the spare room to avoid a man who, to use her words, ‘reasoned with his dick.’

 

Room 127 was at the end of the first passage of the second floor of the first building. It was quiet. Tammy paused, adjusted his jacket and knocked. A tremor vibrated through his back as she answered:

 

‘‘Who is it?’’

 

‘‘Tammy.’’

 

‘‘Come in, please.’’ Just like on the phone, Tammy thought. Cool, sensual, refined and whisky-sultry.

 

The room was expansive and expensively furnished. It was dominated by a king-size bed. Viola was seated opposite the door, clad in a T-shirt and extremely short denim shorts.  Tammy could not tell which was more arousing: the braless breasts jiggling under her shirt or the message emblazoned across it: I WANT TO EAT YOU RAW.

 

Tammy stood at the door as if he had seen the Witch of Endor. Viola smiled reassuringly.

 

‘‘What is it?’’

 

‘‘Your hair.’’

 

Viola smiled as her elegant right hand ran across her hairless dome. ‘‘Just got rid of it this morning. Saves me time and stress with salon idiots.’’ Her off-hand remark strangely pleased Tammy who really never had much patience for the time-consuming ritual women and even some men underwent in the name of hair-care. Her hairlessness gave her a dangerous and sweetly lecherous mien.

 

‘‘Think I don’t have other body parts you saw in the photo?’’ she cooed, standing up like a horse about to charge into battle.

 

Tammy could only stare. She was just an inch shorter than the six-foot-two teacher. A slow but steady fire began to take over his belly as her laser-beams focused on his.

 

‘‘Let us get acquainted first,’’ he said, pitifully aware of the false edge to his words.

 

‘‘That is what I am about to do.’’ In one fluid movement she removed the T-shirt to reveal a well-maintained body worth killing for. Her nipples were steel-hard triggers.

 

Tammy wondered if his manhood would get any stiffer. Its throbbing was almost an audible drum. As he watched, fully aware of the blaze in his head, Viola reached for the buttons of her shorts. At that moment an invisible hand slapped Tammy into action.  The combination of the fire in Viola’s eyes; the arrogant challenge of her breasts; her deliberate and dangerously erotic movements sent him over the cliff. He cast a backward glance to ensure that the door was firmly shut.

 

‘‘Stop, lady,’’ he said. ‘‘Your body parts are real.’’

 

She smiled sleekly. ‘‘So what are you going to do to them?’’

 

Tammy did not answer. He walked over to her, picked her up, smiling at her solid weight. This was a woman who worked out regularly. He gently laid her on the bed and lowered himself on her.

 

‘‘Take off your clothes,’’ she barely whispered.

 

But that was not Tammy’s game plan yet. He began to lick her body, starting at the shoulders. When he began his magic on her breasts, taking the nipples in greedy gulps, then sneaking bites, and then quivering swallows, Viola nearly went mad. She writhed and moaned but Tammy was an uncorked tap. His pent-up emotions would break their banks today. As he licked her stomach and navel he reached for her shorts but got stuck. Vila quickly came to his help and the shorts slid down to her ankles. Tammy adjusted his position, sniffed her clitoris and plunged his lips.

 

It was five to eight minutes of sweet agony for Viola. Tammy was immensely charged by the raw sounds above him. By the time he raised his head Viola was so still he thought she was dead.

 

‘‘Vio…’’

 

She opened her eyes and smiled. ‘‘Remove those clothes or I will rip them off.’’

 

Tammy got to work. By the time his boxers were down his waist Viola was already backing him, kneeling in the ‘doggy’ position, her elbows resting on the pillows.

 

‘‘Wait,’’ she said.

 

Tammy nearly cursed aloud but paused as she extracted a pack of Gold Circle from under the pillow. She did the honours in a manner that nearly made Tammy faint. Then she resumed her former position. Tammy took hold of her breasts as leverage and got down to business. Her squeals mingled with his moans.

 

‘‘Fu…ck it….dig it…yes…ah…yours…best…harder…hard…’’ Her pure ululation as he burrowed in with all he had nearly shook Mount Olympus. Tammy rammed in deep and hard. Hard and deep. Till the barriers were broken and the waves swept them away. They climaxed almost simultaneously and collapsed on the bed in a tangle of limbs. The peace they felt was unutterable.

 

Viola slid off the bed and padded to the bathroom. She returned with toilet paper and disposed of the condom. She stretched like a sleek female cat on the bed and rested half of her body on Tammy’s trunk. Tammy was spent but a spark flashed across his head as she began to finger his nipples and the tip of his penis. In barely two minutes he felt her snaking her head downwards.

 

‘‘The sixty-nine position,’’ she murmured, her mouth on his scrotum.

 

‘‘U…uh?’’

 

Viola was not inclined to further talk. She quickly positioned herself with her mouth right above his penis and her sex over his mouth.

 

Almost thirty minutes later they were hurled down the mountain by Venus, half dead from their exertions. They slept off and woke up in pitch-darkness. Tammy’s stomach screamed in rebellious hunger.

 

‘‘Lover boy.’’ Viola snuggled beside him, her lips on his chin.

 

‘‘Viola, please. I will die if we go another round.’’

 

She smiled and kissed him lightly. ‘‘Me, too. I need to eat. Guess you are hungry, too.’’ She reached for the bedside switch and bathed the room in white light. Tammy silently thanked the gods and watched her as she slid into her T-shirt and shorts. She padded over to the medium-size Thermecool refrigerator. ‘‘Thought you would not like us to be disturbed so I stocked up while coming here. Mostly tinned stuff, I am afraid.’’

 

An overwhelming sense of contentment Tammy had not felt in ages embalmed him as he wolfed down sausages and topped it off with a tin of Pepsi-Cola. Viola rested her head between his legs as she sipped her orange juice and tucked into a plastic plate of ‘Mr. Biggs’ rice and meat.

 

‘‘Are you going home tonight?’’ she asked abruptly.

 

Tammy hesitated. What or who was there to go home to? Jessica would be at one of her numerous vigils, binding and casting demons out of the mistake among men she had married.

 

‘‘Today is Friday.’’ The pleading note in her voice was obvious despite the apparently casual words.

 

Tammy sighed, put down his drink and sat on the floor beside her. ‘‘Vi, darling,’’ he used the term of endearment he had called her on the phone, ‘‘you know I am married?’’

 

‘‘And you know I am a divorcee?’’

 

Tammy took a deep breath, unwilling to hurt the woman who had given him much-needed fresh air. ‘‘Let us take things easy. Let us find out …’’

 

‘‘No, pal.’’ Her accent became pronouncedly American. ‘‘No man has loved me like this since I was in secondary school. I am not about to let a good thing go.’’

 

Tammy’s stomach knotted. Talk of running from a wife-lioness to a sex-starved female bear. He got to his feet, suddenly overcome by a bout of fear. Viola’s soulful eyes roamed over him as he paced the room. He paused by the TV stand, consumed by desire, guilt, and a numbing feeling that Viola had probably given him much more than mind-blowing sex.

 

Viola came and gently wrapped the front of her body across his back, her hands caressing his smooth chest. ‘‘Tam, please calm down. Guess it is rather overwhelming for you. It isn’t easy for me, either.’’ She released him and stood in front of him. Her eyes burrowed into his.

 

‘‘Honey, do you want to go? You are not a prisoner here.’’

 

There was no point lying to oneself. ‘‘No,’’ Tammy answered. ‘‘But I need to know who I am dealing with if I am going to die in her arms.’’

 

Viola smiled broadly. She stepped forward and kissed him fully on the lips. ‘‘It is a deal.’’

 

They did not sleep much for the rest of the night. Their joint bathing ended on the bed and lasted into the early hours of Saturday. When they woke up the second time they wisely had separate baths and dressed. As they finished the rest of the tins and plastic plates in the refrigerator Viola told Tammy about herself. She knew she had revealed only bare facts, with deliberate omissions and distortions, to her lover during their electronic correspondence and phone calls. On the other hand Tammy, deeply plagued by his mismarriage, had come clean.

 

Viola’s real name was Viola Fironi Sylvia. She was the daughter of the long-dead but still notable Ijaw lawyer and businessman, Kalahan Dippre Sylvia. Viola’s mother was the tycoon’s fourth wife and Viola was her only child.

 

Her upbringing had toughened her. In a polygamous home where girls count for nothing, she had to fight, every painful inch of the way, for anything she got. Her mother did not get on well with her skirt-loving husband. It was a miracle that their marriage lasted till Viola was a fourteen-year old student at a girl’s boarding school in Port Harcourt.

 

Viola had grown into a head-turner with brains. She won scholarships to elite colleges in Port Harcourt and Lagos. Her performance at the School Certificate examination was outstanding. Determined to get a degree outside Nigeria she spurned advances from lecherous wealthy and middle-class men and got a job in a supermarket. Her mother’s boyfriend, an oil contractor, came after her with heaven-on- earth promises. Shocked, Viola reported him to her mother. The fiery-tempered Ogijivi Rosemary kneed the sonofabitch in the nuts in public. Maddened, he sent bribed policemen to arrest her on trumped-up charges. Rosemary was fatally shot while resisting arrest.

 

Sylvia had not wanted to get involved. But since blood is said to be thicker than most substances he made arrangements for Viola’s sustenance. There was a collective sigh of relief when she won another scholarship, this time to study Business Administration and Communication in USA. She spent four years in USA and three in Britain. With three good degrees and a diploma in her kitty it was not difficult for her to get plum jobs in major multinational corporations in Europe and the States. She imbibed the ideals of feminism to the hilt and became a staunch women’s lib. She married twice in USA and got divorced. The first guy was an Igbo doctor; the second a white American professor. The doctor probably thought he was back in Nigeria where women quaked under men’s huge legs. Viola quickly educated him. When she nearly sued off his pants for assault he knew water don pass garri and wholeheartedly accepted a divorce. The professor was a closet gay and Viola could not stand it.

 

She came home nearly two years ago, set up a consultancy and prospered. But she was empty and childless and all the bucks in the world could not fill the void.  She dated a few men only to discover that Lucifer dwelt among them. The first thought he could sway her with cash. The second was a young unemployed graduate bent on being her lap-dog. But she tossed him out because he could not get it up when it mattered. Cocaine had consumed his potency. While the third guy still lived in the seventh century mentally the last man before Tammy was downright weird. On the night they were about to get down to business the fellow revealed a stump where his penis should have been. The normally fearless Viola had fled their love-nest half-naked when he confessed that he had exchanged his pride and joy for wealth in a ritual organized by a powerful secret society in his village.

 

Tammy listened, transfixed. She finished with a sigh, her eyes reflecting deep sorrow.

 

‘‘That is the entire package, Tam.’’

 

Tammy got to his feet, pulled her to him and, holding her face in both hands, looked deeply into her eyes. ‘‘I hope I do not break your heart, Vi. I am frustrated in my marriage and sexually dehydrated. But it is no reason to play with your feelings.’’

 

Viola nodded. She sniffed suddenly, blinking back unbidden tears ‘‘Yes, I know. But can’t it be real for us?’’ Her voice was quiet, hopeful.

 

 

Tammy took a deep breath. He could not answer the question immediately so he took his jacket, kissed her and walked out.