Sapphic Tinga Majigas:3

It’s been two weeks, and four days since I told Sloane to fuck off. I keep count because it keeps my rage alive and burning. I need that rage. I need it wrapped around me tightly like a toxic blanket so that I don’t admit that it’s HER I want wrapped around me, all sinewy muscles and the scent of jasmines in her stupid gorgeous hair.

It’s funny isn’t it? When I wanted her to talk to me or acknowledge my existence, she seemed to look through me and prance around everywhere but at my face. And now that I don’t want to be within a foot of her, she shows up everywhere all pleading eyes and uncertain smiles. I want to shake her. Scream at her.

I haven’t read the stupid note. I want to, but I can’t. Because she might be asking the same questions I have been avoiding myself. Why does it matter that she doesn’t want me? I know myself better than I know anyone else, and I know that I am acting a little bit too crazy for a one-time thing, even though I did admit that I have had a teeny tiny crush on her for as long as I can remember. But crushes never matter in a place like this, you fuck whoever happens to catch your eye and pray to God they don’t think you are dating because you let her finger you in the rec hall during one too many Nollywood movies.

 It all came to head one night when I was smoking behind the shade pretending the silence wasn’t overbearing. I swear I didn’t choke when she rounded the corner and froze, cigarette on her lips, matchstick blowing out against the wind.

For a minute I forgot that I was nursing a bruised ego and so badly wanted to go back to our usual unusual camaraderie, where we smoked in silence and I didn’t remember how her smirk felt against my mouth.  But then the minute she stood in front of me and opened her mouth to speak, I wanted to throw up and cry all at the same time. But pride is a beautiful weapon to have in moments like this.

“If you came here to smoke then please, by all fucking means do so quietly! “ I snapped and watched with satisfaction as her mouth pursed into a thin line.

“…did you..”

“Read your note? No. “

My fingers were cold, my nose was cold, and the cigarette went straight to my head and I knew I had to get away from her if I were to keep my mouth from running off.

“You should have.” Stoic. Frigid. Unmoving and my already frayed nerves snapped and before I knew it, I had her backed up against the shade, looking so deep into her eyes I could see my reflection, with a forgotten cigarette burning out on the ground between us.

“Fuck off Sloane. What part of that do you not quite grasp?” I want to say that my teeth were gnashed in anger, but I suspect that last part was more of a plea, a groan, than anything else. She heard it too I guess, and her gaze softened, eyes filled with something close enough to pity that I wanted to punch her.

 “why are you mad at me?”

I stared at her. She was serious.

My incredulous bark of laughter seemed to scare her more than my tone. She took a step back, palms raised in front of her as if to ward me off.

“Why am I mad? Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I tried to keep calm. I really did but it seems I failed because she took another step back as I took a step forward.

“No, I’m not kidding. I don’t know why you are so mad. It’s not like it was anything more than a good shag, was it?” The question was tinged with sly hope and a small smirk and I wanted to punch her all over again. One day, I just might.

 “Fuck off Sloane.”

“But that’s not what you want me to do is it? I won’t fuck off.”

And her hands are balled into fists by her side, chest rising, eyes blazing .

“Then I will. Don’t come back here. You’ll regret it.”

Three nights in a row she came back. On the fourth, she showed up just as I was buttoning up my shirt, lips swollen and red as I smirked at a second year girl with a pixie cut and brown eyes.

She froze. Eyes wide, furious and hurt as she stared coldly at us, as the girl whose name I didn’t know picked up her bag and surreptitiously tried to dust off the grass from her skirt.

“Er…I’ll see you round Lola..?”

I pretend that she isn’t looking and I stroke her face, “ Sure thing…erm, ..”

“Tina…” she breathes, eyes fluttering. God this is too easy sometimes.

‘yeah, Tina.  I’ll see you around’

Sloane scoffs. Mutters under her breath.

“What do you want?”

“I came to talk,” she says, looking everywhere but at me, “but I see you were busy” she mutters darkly.

“Yeah I was. I’m tired. I’m going back in. “

“Lola…”

“You were right you know..” I look at her, and her gaze focuses on me. “ It was nothing more than a good time and I can have a good time with anyone.” I finish and I see her eyes shutter as I step aside and walk away.

She didn’t come back after that.

But we couldn’t avoid seeing each other everywhere else. We had atleast three classes together, and in all she would approach my desk and I would move away. Other times, she would walk in, glance at me and resolutely look down and sit as far away from me as she could.

I didn’t even know what I was doing anymore.

I was still so mad at her, but not because I didn’t get to get my rocks off, but because she was able to remind me of who I am, what a mess I was, and then look ever so disappointed in me when I did exactly what a mess like me did.  

I take out my history notebook and the note she passed me fell out. And damn it all I had forgotten about it. I tried to ignore the note which all but burned into my notebook as the teacher droned on and on about some fallen and forgotten hero of the war, but my stupid heart wouldn’t stop pounding hard enough to drown out the class. What harm could it do to read it, I asked myself and slipped it onto my desk.

Lola,

That day under the tree was amazing.

I think you are amazing, but I’ve heard so much about you and I don’t know what to believe, that’s why I’ve kept my distance. But maybe I was wrong? Meet me under the tree at 3.00p.m today.

S.

Well fuck.

Sapphic Tinga Majigas Part Two: Teenage Angst

She has been avoiding me.
Sloane.
And it irks.
One does not ignore you when one knows you are responsible for a bone melting orgasm under a tree.
One just doesn't.
Especially when one promised you reciprocation. Reciprocation that you have thought and rethought about since she promised you a 'next time'

To be honest, Sloane and I aren't friends,  we don't normally interact with each other, other than stolen glances across hallways, but we used to share rare midnight cigarettes behind the toolshed, where no conversations seemed necessary, where sidelong glances and bumping fingers would make me choke on my cigarette smoke.
But, I know you know that the minute someone ignores you, someone who you don't want to ignore you, you notice their every movement, and sadly, any lack of movement. In your general direction.

 

 

The thing is, we weren't friends that was true, but we were on 'friendly' terms, because I just don't share my cigarettes with just anyone, not in this hell hole at the very least, but now, I can't say the same. There was no way I could say the same when she walked right by me like I didn't exist, whereas my body would go into spasms of anticipation and gut wrenching want every time she was in my general atmosphere.
And more than anything, it sucks to be smoking alone. But it was not like we smoked together on a daily or regular basis, so I spent that time, wrapped up in smoke and daydreams of soft hands, soft curves and whimpers against my skin
 

The first Sunday after our encounter I was high strung from the minute I woke up, because this had to be the day, when you spend a whole week relieving the most surreal encounter, and an even more surreal promise, you are in danger of spontaneous combustion from the anticipation. I was burning up, I had goose bumps everywhere and   I  was probably the liveliest I could be during mass, and by that I meant I actually sang a hymn " Oh happy day, when Jesus came..." oh someone is gonna cum alright *sniggers*

I was also the first person to leave church. I couldn't contain my excitement, and I rushed to 'our' tree and lit up a cigarette to calm my nerves whilst giving myself a very stern talking to about proper before-shag etiquette. Well that etiquette lesson lasted a whole day.

By the time the sun was going down I was hungry and nauseas because I was, for all intents and purposes, stood up. I know, I know, this was not technically a date, but I was nonetheless so crushed, and I smoked through my whole pack of cigarettes in self pity and I was definitely not wiping damp eyes. Because who fucking cries over a fucking shag? Sure I had been looking forward to this the whole week, make that term, make that year, make that since the first time I let her bum a fag off of me. Don't misunderstand me, I am not in love with her, I had already accepted the fact that I am too self absorbed to feel anything of that magnitude. Maybe, just maybe, I had a bit of a crush on her. Just a tiny one, nothing too alarming, definitely nothing that should make me feel as if I had been bulldozed by a truck. It's probably just disappointment over a shag right? Of course it was.

 

The next Sunday, mass was not as joyous, because I had convinced myself that the timid inherited the world...right? And I carried on the whole week as if I was in penance

I dragged my feet to the tree, and I lit a blunt I had stolen from the cook, and tried not to let my heart skip a bit every time I heard the rustling of the leaves. I didn't smoke the whole pack. It was close.

 

Sloane, that bitch is doing my head in, its Thursday afternoon and we are in one of those rare classes we share and I can hardly breathe because she is sat in front of me, purposefully mind, because when she walked in, the seat next to mine was vacant and her eyes just glanced in my directions for less than a second.

Studiously pretending to take notes, and pretending not to see that she is passing notes to the bitch with the rabbit teeth sitting next to her, pretending that my stomach doesn't clench or that air isn't important enough.

 

I wanted this girl so bad, this girl who has always been unattainable and was only available for one afternoon, but on this hot Thursday afternoon, counting the strands of her hair and definitely not breathing in that scent that reminds me of something as sappy as my mother's jasmines, I have never hated her more.

 

My heart was beating wildly in my chest, at the unfairness of it all, at her cruelty, at my not understanding why this hurt so much. This happened all the time! People fool around and don't get hung up, yet here I am, face hot with anger and humiliation because all I can think about is bashing her head in because I didn't get my rock offs when I had the chance.

 

The more I tried not to think about it, the more I thought about it, the more wildly my heart beat, the more I trembled, the more my throat hurt. And just when I am about to lose it, just when I am about crumble and storm out....or pass out...or jump on her....

She turns slightly in her seat, so I have a good view of where her pulse beats above her clavicles, and I glance up and she's looking at me, and of course, my only instinct is to glance down, right where her pulse is beating wildly and right when she swallows and her throat, as long as it is constricts in that way that makes me want to trail that movement with my mouth. she shifts again and slips a note underneath my book...and lightly brushes her fingers over my why-the-hell-are-you-sweaty-today palms

It happens so fast and my heart, literally stops before my pencil slips off my hands and falls down.

She picks it up, and I honestly don't know why the whole class is still taking notes! I want to yell at everyone to stop and watch this! I am emotionally distraught, my whole body is shaking now because she fucking touched me, and apparently stole my pencil.

I give up, honestly, I give up trying to make sense of the class, of her, and my stolen pencil.

Luckily the bell rings, and everyone scrambles up to leave but I need a minute alone, I need to catch my breath and make sense of it all. I need a cigarette. Bad. But I need to read the note just as bad

I need to know why I was stood up, and ignored for two weeks

 

My brain catches up with the surroundings and I make a dash for the door, screw it. I need a cigarette before I make a scene. I am livid now, how dare she, how DARE she? two weeks! Two whole weeks!

 

"wait!"

 

I stop and look at her, hoping to all that is nature that I am as blasé as I want to be, as 'unaffected' as I can pretend to be.

I stare at her, really, stare at her because she is standing in front of me, with her head tilted to the side, with my stolen pencil hanging loosely from her slender fingers. There is no smirk today. Thank God cause I would have decked her.

I can't seem to open my mouth, so I raise my eyebrow at her. waiting. heart in mouth. hopefully not my sleeve.

 

"I'm sorry"

 

Silence.

 

"Lola..."

 

Silence..

 

"Please, I can explain...I..."

 

I laugh.

 

"Fuck off "

 

And I turn and try not to run. Away from her. To her.

 

 

There will be more

 

 

Namaste,

Bitches