by ‘Seun Salami

Uti couldn’t wait to get back home from the airport. He drove too fast for his own liking, turning too sharply at bends and overtaking fast moving cars. He was glad there was no traffic in the city. Sundays were like that. 

Uti fell asleep later that evening after they tossed each other off, first her and then him. Rosina decided to have a shower. She felt sticky. As she got out of bed and was walking towards the bathroom, she noticed Uti’s tablet buzzing with messages on the table. She ignored it and opened the bathroom door. Then she shut the door and went back to the tablet.

[READ: The ‘randy’ blogger, a short story by ‘Seun Salami (Part 1)]

 

His Twitter account was open, flooded with several tweets, mentions, interactions and direct messages. She was fascinated. My man. She had always wondered what it was like to have so many followers on Twitter. Even with her barely five hundred followers, she got overwhelmed sometimes, how much more when you had to deal with several thousands. She began to scroll through his direct messages, and suddenly she felt a sharp hot sensation in her chest when she saw a message column from Rita86 along with Uti’s responses:

“Why are you insisting that I shouldn’t make the trip this weekend? Are you travelling again?”

“No darling, I’m not, I just need to visit with my mum.”

“Oh, OK. I can respect that. We’ll make it next weekend then. I miss you.”

“I miss you too darling. I can’t wait to set my eyes on you, and lay my hands on you. Lol.”

Rosina crashed into the chair and dropped Uti’s tablet on her laps. He turned in bed so she quickly dropped the tablet on the table and walked slowly into the bathroom. She came back moments later and picked up the tablet.

She did not say a word to Uti throughout the ride to the airport. Even when he said, “Baby, are you alright? You’ve been too quiet all morning, what’s the matter? You don’t want to leave?” she simply smiled a strained smile and kept her eyes out of the window. She reasoned there was no use talking to him about any of the messages; the one from Rita86 or the even more suggestive ones from SexyCreamyChic. He probably did this every weekend; invite a random girl he had met and courted for weeks or months on social media to Lagos on her own bill, have energetic sex with her and make her believe she was the special one, the lucky babe dating Hooti, the famous blogger and founder of Hooti.com.

Thinking about it made her feel used. She suddenly regretted being in a hurry to get into bed with him. She had thought it was the typical thing to do since she wasn’t sure when next she would be able to afford a ticket to Nigeria. She would hold back her tears, at least till she was on the plane. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing her cry; after all, she wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing his reaction when he finally discovered what she had done.

Uti couldn’t wait to get back home from the airport. He drove too fast for his own liking, turning too sharply at bends and overtaking fast moving cars. He was glad there was no traffic in the city. Sundays were like that. He needed to do a post quickly, and there was so much more he needed to tweet about, the recent comment by the President of the Christian Pentecostal Association about his new private jet, for instance. This was usually the downside to his weekend escapades, almost missing out on the action online.

He hurried into his studio apartment in Surulere half pondering why Rosina had not questioned him like the other Nigerian girls about why he took her to a hotel instead of his apartment. He quickly set up his laptop. He was surprised that he had to re-log in. He thought he didn’t log out and only always hibernated his computer so he could continue from wherever he stopped with his work.

He entered his username, Hooti, and password, ********* The response startled him slightly – INVALID PASSWORD. He decided to try again without concealing the password. He entered his details again, this time mouthing it as he typed – Username: Hooti; Password: giveahoot. INVALID PASSWORD. He sighed. He reached for his tablet and decided to log into Twitter instead. He would sort out the blog later. He felt a bad taste on his tongue when he realised he also had to re-login into his Twitter account. Username: Hooti; Password: giveahoottwitter. WRONG USERNAME/EMAIL AND PASSWORD COMBINATION.

 

(This is a work of fiction. All characters, names and events in this story are fictional and a creation of the writer’s imagination. Any resemblance to any real persons or occurrences is simply a coincidence).
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‘Seun Salami is the author of ‘The Son of your Father’s Concubine’, a collection of short stories. He works as an Editor with Bookvine, a publishing firm in Lagos. You can follow him on twitter @SeunWrites

Other stories by Seun Salami on YNaija are:

‘Seun Salami: How ‘Police’ became my friend

‘Seun Salami: Flesh and blood on Aminu-suya’s knife

Short Story: The lump in your celibate throat

Short story: Our pastor is hooked on porn and me

Uncle Solo, a short story by ‘Seun Salami

Uncle Solo (Part 2), a short story by ‘Seun Salami