BLACKMAIL.
BLACKMAIL.
Stella was a school prefect. The meanest one alive. She was a terror
and all the junior girls did everything humanly possible to avoid her.
She had this thing she used to call her knocker. The seed of some
fruit. It was the shape and size of a tennis ball and ten times as
concrete. She used to bounce it on people’s heads and from what I’d
been told it hurt like hell. And Stella didn’t tolerate b/s at all so
she used her knocker pretty often.
So, why was I confident enough to jump on her bed? Especially when she’d dropped
a note saying that no one should? Well, because she was my ‘school
cousin.’ If someone lived close to you or was from the same place as
you- Basically, if your parents knew each other, you were school
cousins. Stella and I were from the same place- we’d been to the same
primary school, had the same friends outside of school and often got
rides to and from school with each other so we qualified as ‘school
cousins.’ This awarded me a lot of privileges. For one, I could say
stuff to her that my mates would never dream of (or rather, stuff that they could only dream of) For two, I was able to
get away with criminal acts every once in a while and for three I could
jump on her bed and avoid mosquitoes even when she’d specifically said
that no one should...
Although Stella was in form 6, her closest friend Adaugo was in form 4.
I know you’re wondering what that has to do with anything but we’ll
get back to that in a sec. See, every day, Stella made us run down to
dining immediately the bell for food went. Whether we were ready or
not, we were chased out of our dorms. Stella always stood in front of
the dorms where she could see everyone and made sure we kept running
till we got to D-hall. If your speed didn’t satisfy her, she’d stop you
and give you a resounding knock with her knocker. Most people had no
wish to be acquainted with her knocker so they ran as fast as they
possibly could. Several people fell and injured themselves but they got
right back up and continued running faster than I could cough. Stella
was bad like that. The really annoying part though, was that every
single time, while we stampeded to the dining hall, Adaugo, a form 4
girl stood laughing and talking with Stella. It hurt. Especially since
we were in form five at the time.
One evening, I decided to take full advantage of my
‘prefect’s-school-cousin’ status. I was a bit high. I swear someone must have mixed my provisions with dope or something- probably
my powdered milk... I decided to walk to dining.
That evening Stella was making sure everyone was running to dining as usual. She was with
Adaugo- as usual. I kept walking.
Stella asked me “Why are you walking?”
“Na wa for you oh! This kind sense sef- every time Adaugo would be
standing here while the rest of us would be running. Abeg, I don
tire.” I gave her a friendly punch and laughed.
I was laughing alone.
The look on Stella’s face made me instantly regret the words. Everyone
within earshot was shocked.
That day Stella and I’s ‘cousinship’ was put on hold and I finally
understood what people meant when they said her knocker hurt like hell.
It was inhumane... Not only did I find that out but I pounded,
unblocked and scrubbed toilets till I was ready to drop.
I vowed never to speak to Stella again but there was not much she stood
to lose and not much for me to gain. On the contrary, I would lose
quite a lot- those little privileges that being Stella’s school cousin
gave me. Besides, scrubbing a toilet wasn’t that big a deal. After I’d
spent close to 5 years in that school, I could easily transform a
toilet from blocked and overflowing to clean and sparkling with my eyes
closed and both hands tied behind my back. So, I just put the incident
behind me and we became friends again.
Now this particular day, I was on Stella’s bed cracking up as I watched
some junior girls getting ready for bed. They poured water on a bar of
medicated soap then worked it into a thick film and spread it on their skin. This
was supposed to act as some sort of mosquito repellant. Some people
believe it actually keeps the mosquitoes away but I don’t know about
that.
“What are you doing on Stella’s bed? Let her come back, she would just
kill you.”
It was Chioma. The form five girl that slept beside Stella.
“For what? Won’t I make it back for her?”
Chioma told me that recently, Stella had been coming back to dorm
really late and that whenever she got back, she liked to go straight to
bed and she got mad if someone was on her bed.
I got up, made Stella’s bed and climbed the next bunk. Top bed- so I
would be closer to the fan. There was no pillow on the bed so I took
Stella’s pillow with me. It wasn’t comfy. There was something hard
in the pillow. Like paper or something. I put my hand in the pillowcase
and dragged out several sheets of paper. Just out of curiosity I opened
one of them
“Stella, my sweetheart- To be honest I don’t know why I like that thing
that you do to me... maybe it’s because it’s you that does it to me...”
Ah ah?! It was signed Adaugo. She’d drawn hearts all over.
I’m not particularly proud of what I did next- I sent a junior girl to
my corner to get my own pillow then I transferred all of Stella’s
letters into my own pillow case. I returned her now empty pillow to
her bed and took my own pillow along with her letters back to my
corner. I woke Bisola, the girl who slept beside me. We were pretty
close and I could trust her. Besides, I needed a witness. We started
reading all the letters. Some of them were in code but I was determined
so I went Sherlock Holmes on them. I cracked the code. It didn’t take a
genius to figure out that Stella and Adaugo were lesbians. Actually,
there were a lot of pretty detailed and explicit letters there. By the
time we were done reading, we knew their private jokes, their private
rendezvous and their very private activities... I knew what I was doing
was wrong but right there was a whole new source of power for me.
Something I wasn’t willing to let go.
Nowadays, I like to consider myself a pretty ... um... 'non-homophobic' person... but
at the time I thought that what I’d discovered was just out of this
world. My attitude to Stella totally changed... I had the power. If I exposed her, her life and her reputation
were down the drain. No one would have the slightest bit of respect for
her any more. And she’d probably also be ‘de-badged.’ Well not solely
because she was lesbian. I’m sure that even if our school had been
mixed and she’d been caught doing the freaky with a boy on the compound
her badge would have been threatened too. It just wasn’t allowed.
The discovery opened new doors for me. I took advantage of it to the
fullest. First of, I kept her in suspense. I didn’t just come right out
and tell her that I knew what she was up to. Of course, she’d noticed
that her letters were missing but she hadn’t the foggiest notion who
had them. I taunted her. I was simultaneously dropping hints and then
acting all innocent. One day, she was chasing girls to dining but this time
she was alone. I was feeling pretty high again so I decided to walk.
Before she had a chance to ask me anything I asked her where her wife
was. She was thrown off guard. She didn’t know if I was on to something
or if I was just talking. So she begged me to tell her what I meant. I
did. Needless to say, I walked all the way to dining that evening. No
scrubbing, No pounding, No unblocking.
I never actually asked her to do me any favors but she knew the deal.
She was breaking her back to keep me pleased. If I was late to class,
she would not punish everyone who was late to class. If my name was on
the list of noisemakers, (which it often was) everybody was pardoned.
If I was late to dining she’d tell the dining hall prefect that she’d
held me back in dorm and she’d take me into the D-hall. I was able to
wring several favors from her. I was Aladdin and she was the genie. Of
course the letters were the magic lamp... And I was getting power
drunk. Sometimes I’d go out of my way to be rude to her but she just
pretended to laugh and tolerated it. She couldn’t do anything to me as
far as I had those letters.
I was living the good life till one day I confided in one of my
friends, Ezinne. Ezinne was in form six, too. She swore up and down
that she wouldn’t tell anybody. That same evening when I got back to my
corner, it was crowded. Form six girls were in my corner searching for
the letters. They interrogated me and I told them that I didn’t know
what they were talking about. I insisted that Ezinne had probably
misunderstood me. Ezinne was shocked but hey- I was just protecting my
interests- If the truth came out then I would lose my power over
Stella and I didn’t want that to happen. They searched me, my school
bag, my suitcase, my locker... but they didn’t find the letters. They
were safe in Bisola's box of corn flakes.
A couple of days later, Bisola came and told me that she’d seen
Stella and Adaugo head to class together hand in hand. For what? It was
around midnight and there was no light. Curiosity got the better of us.
Equipped with a torchlight we headed to class. We got to classroom area
but we didn’t see anyone. The entire area was deserted and I thought I
could see something ‘willy-willy-ish’ in the distance so we decided to
make a U-turn. On our way back, we thought we could hear people in a
class so we went to investigate.
We saw Stella and Adaugo and they were pretty busy. I cannot begin to
describe what I saw. It’s probably safer not to even try. Besides, this
web site is not supposed to contain any graphic stuff... Bisola shun
the torchlight in their faces and started shouting
“Stella? Stella? Stella? What are you doing to this girl?”
Meanwhile, I ran round that classroom block six times screaming at the top
my lungs.
“Chukwu nna!! Hey!!! Stella? Adaugo? What were you guys doing??” Yup, I
used to be hyper like that back in the day.
What we didn’t know was that there was someone else a couple of classes
away. Ezinne. She had come to class to get some books and she’d heard
us. She came out and asked us to run down. We ran. In
the opposite direction. She chased us but we were all pretty fast. By
the time she got back to dorm. I’d changed from my daywear and was
oiling Bisola’s hair. Adaugo was fast asleep on her bed and Stella was
in the toilet complex. Ezinne said she'd heard us screaming Stella and
Adaugo’s names and she wanted to know why. I told her I hadn’t even
been to class that evening so it was probably someone else she’d heard.
She called other form six girls and they all threatened us but we
maintained that we didn’t know what they were talking about.
All the form six girls wanted the story that Stella was a lesbian to be
true. Since she was a prefect, Stella had written and submitted most of
their names for one crime or the other and they just wanted to be able
to get back at her. Some of them tried to reason with me and even
begged me to say the truth because they knew that if I didn’t admit it,
they didn’t have a case they could take to the authorities. All they had was just Ezinne’s word against
Stella’s, Adaugo’s, Bisola’s and mine. I still said that I didn’t know
anything about Stella being a lesbian.
I still remember the look of gratitude on Stella’s face when she heard
what I'd said. I checked myself. This was someone whose friend I
was supposed to be and I was blackmailing her. Using her. Pushing her
to limits I was surprised anyone would even go to. We had a long talk
and I apologized to her for reading her letters. If that wasn’t total
invasion of privacy then I don’t know what is.
After that day, I tried to stop taking advantage of her. Hmm... I said
‘I tried.’