by Ferdinand Mozie

 

Eighteen years back, when I was twelve, then I was in JSS2 in my school. I used to be a mummy’s boy and people around who noticed it used to call me the name “mummy’s boy”. I hated that name so much and would usually get angry with anyone who called me that. Then I used to be around my mummy and mum always wanted me around her, for reasons I don’t
know. Not because I was the last born or the only child but I still can’t tell the reason for that back then.

Back then, we used to live in a four bedroom flat in a compound of three storey building with two different flat on each floor. We lived on the second floor of the building, in an area not too quiet to be called a GRA or too rough to be called a ghetto.

Mummy always wanted to raise us up specially in a way different from other kids. I had four siblings, my eldest brother who is the first child and two immediate elder sisters, and the last one whom I got birth authority over.

There weren’t many children in the compound, as most of the tenants were newly married couples. Just the flat directly below my flat, on the first floor had two kids, two sisters: Geraldine and Prisca. Geraldine was ten and Prisca was four years above Geraldine’s age.
Prisca was in SSS1 and Geraldine was in JSS1, though we did not attend the same school.

Both families became considerably friendly. Geraldine’s mum was my mum’s close friend, gist and gossip partner.  Geraldine and her sister Prisca used to come to my flat to hangout for a while and return to theirs when the time was up. I must say I used to love their visit to
my flat as they were the only kids in the compound with us. We became so close to Geraldine and her sister that we played together and sometimes did homework together.

Because I used to be mummy’s boy, I always looked smart and cute. I remember having people tell me I was too handsome, always sporting a new hair cut almost every two weeks. My new wears constantly drew the attention of most of my male friends in school to me, Mummy always wanted the best for me and would never be happy to get a bad report of me from anywhere so, I did my best to stay off anything that could make mummy get mad at me.

Like my mummy, Geraldine’s mum was a typical woman. Like my mum, she was always full of life and cheer. I must say, members of Geraldine’s family are all intelligent and beautiful, like they have the blood of beauty running through their veins. Geraldine’s mum was a tall woman measuring about 5.3 feet tall, with a glorified beauty adorned by her creator.

Geraldine also got her beauty form her mum, maybe even more. She was a beautiful girl with charming blue eye balls and a well arranged eye brow, her pointed nose always makes her look like a child from a different race, she got a perfect curves for a woman. Like her mum, she’s got soft coiled dark hair that streams down her butt; her straight legs made her a model icon, and her sonorous voice could send a stubborn child to bed.

One thing that never got away from me then was shyness. I was so shy that even someone new to the compound could notice it easily. Sometimes I found it difficult to flow with Geraldine and Prisca when they came to my flat to hangout, and most times Geraldine will notice it and ask if I was shy.

One Saturday evening, when I was doing the dishes in the kitchen, my siblings and Geraldine’s sister were all in the parlour seeing a movie, Geraldine walked up in the kitchen and asked if she could assist me in doing the dishes. I nodded in acceptance. I washed, while she rinsed and arranged them on the plate rack in the cupboard. When I was done, Geraldine seeing that I was through with the dishes, took the dish sponge with soap in it, held my hands and dipped them into clean water to wash them. I was quite surprised. I could only feel her soft palm rubbing mine. If I must say, she has got very soft palms like that of newly born baby or even softer. She got done, rinsed my hands and toweled them to dry, then
we both returned to the parlour to join the others in seeing the movie.

In the parlour I was so cold, I couldn’t imagine what prompted Geraldine to doing what she did in the kitchen. My whole body was full of goose pimples and shyness would not allow me look in the direction where she was sitting.

I noticed that my shyness was becoming an ugly part of me and days later I began working on it. Forcing myself to do things I was not used to doing was a tough experience for me. It
became much better so that few weeks later I could talk fluently in Geraldine’s presence and raise many topics for discussion. I could look in her eyes as we talked, which I found very awful few weeks before.

One day, during our midterm break, during one of Geraldine and her sister’s visit to my flat,  Geraldine and I got on with our friendly discussions as usual. Her sister Prisca and my sisters were all n the balcony together. Geraldine and I alone were sitting on the long cushion in the parlour as we gisted, her sonorous voice re-echoing in my ears. She held my left hand for a while as she continued to contribute to our gist. I felt so cold and my voice dropped. I tried to maintain my stability as I looked her in the eye and after a while placed my right hand on her hand that was still holding my left hand. Silence consumed our midst as we both looked at each other straight in the eyes.

Her face moved towards my face and suddenly I felt a very tender, soft and succulent thing on my lips. I never knew what it was until after some moment we pulled off, then I noticed we’d both kissed each other. I was surprised and the only thing I could hear was
silence. She grabbed my lips again and we were both lost in the act, so tenderly did she kiss. After a moment that seemed like eternity she held my hands and whispered to me “I love you.” I replied “I love you too.”

That was my first kiss. Since then Geraldine and I became inseparable friends. The next day my elder brother saw me and called me “love doves.” When I inquired why he chose to call
Geraldine and I that, he explained to me that he saw us the previous day when both of us were kissing and strictly warned that we should not be carried away by our emotions so that we don’t get it all wrong. I promised him that we will never go immoral for anything, Geraldine and I became the best friends and we grew up together.

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This entry was submitted as part of the Nigerian Voices competition organized by YNaija.com.

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