One Night In Ibeshe – Final Episode

One Night In Ibeshe – Episode 3

By Kayode Odusanya

They had settled the fight situation quickly as the man’s ego wouldn’t let him stick around longer than necessarily. He just cleaned his nose, got his car and drove off a sober man.

Now they were in the engine-powered canoe that was taken them to Ibeshe, and Janet found herself sitting next to Anthony. The driver of the canoe had done a lot of reshuffling of people’s sitting positions to get the canoe balanced, and Janet found herself sitting next to Anthony. He had changed to a black t-shirt that was a little too small for him, bringing out all his rippling arm muscles. Janet was never into muscular guys, but for some reason, she was s€×ually drawn to him. They didn’t exchange any words as they had not been introduced, but the s€×ual tension she was feeling was driving her crazy. She didn’t recognize herself any longer as it was unlike her.

A lot of the others were taking pictures as the canoe sped through the water, but her mind was on controlling her emotions. They cut through water smoothly, and as they took a bend, water started splashing on them. Anthony was at the edge, and in his protective nature, he shielded her from getting w-t. She smiled at him, and he smiled back and nodded.

……….

Everyone retired to their individual rooms when they got to the resort. The place had rows of bungalows with dozens of rooms. There was a pool beside the bungalows and a bar that played really loud Nigerian afrobeat music behind the pool. After people freshened up, they came out for food by the beach, before coming back into the resort to swim.

Majority of people got into the pool, but Anthony stayed on the sidelines, sipping from his red cup. Frank had quickly recovered from the beat down he received earlier, and he and Benjamin were cracking jokes in the pool. They were the funny duo. At a point, they faced Anthony, and started pressuring him to get in the pool, till he succ-mbed to the pressure. He had said he couldn’t swim, but they said the pool was just about 4 feet deep, and at 6’2, he could walk around the pool with no issues.

When he came out in shorts, most of the girls were fixated on his body. Janet also couldn’t help herself. Her eyes were glued on him. He had muscles that looked like they had been carved by an artist. She wasn’t into all that, but what attracted her to him was the fact that he was such a powerful person, but appeared so vulnerable and shy as he got in the pool.

They were playing volleyball in the swimming pool, and he happened to be on her team, by her side of the pool. He relaxed after a while, and even though they had not been introduced formally, they started to have little chit-chat about the sport, and then about swimming. She tried to get him to float, but he wouldn’t let himself go and relax, and it made her laugh how stiff and scared he appeared.

After a while, everyone got out of the pool, and retired to their rooms. She didn’t bring up the cheating issue again when she was alone with Frank, but she wasn’t in the mood for s€×, and pushed him away when he made a move on her. They ended up watching music videos on TV till Paul knocked on their door at 9pm to inform them it was time for burn fire and barbecue.

……….

They were by the beach now; everyone was scattered here there, in little clusters of crews. Some couples sharing rom-ntic k-sses in dark areas of the beach, Paul and his barbecue crew were working the grill, some couples were strolling around the beach, Benjamin was going from one small gathering to the next, cracking jokes, Anthony was sitting by himself close to the water, and Janet and frank were leaning on an abandoned canoe, not talking to each other.

Frank was restless. She had been with him long enough to know what he was up to. There was a girl that didn’t have a date he had been eyeing all night, and she knew he was looking for a way to get her busy so he could go after the girl. “Anthony!” He shouted out all of a sudden and startled Janet. She lost balance and almost fell into the canoe. Frank grabbed a hold of the dashiki she had on and pulled her back to place.

“Anthony, what are you doing there by yourself? Come here jor.” Frank shouted out. Reluctantly, Anthony dusted off sand from his jeans and walked towards them. “Mr. Geographer, abi you are calculating the distance between the moon and the stars?” Frank said and they all laughed. “Ehen, Janet is also a Geographer.” He added as he shook his friend’s hand.

“Frank, I’m a geologist, not a geographer.” Janet said.

“All join abeg.” He said and started walking off. “Let me go get drinks.” He added and walked off.

“Hello.” Anthony said to Janet.

“Hi.”

“So…what school did you study Geology in?”

“University of Ibadan.”

“Oh, nice.”

“And you?”

“University of Lagos.”

“Nice. That was my dream school, but they don’t offer Geology.”

“Hmm. Are you sure? I’m positive they do.”

“Well, I might have been mistaken. Maybe I heard their Geology department isn’t so good.”

“Okay.”

“Yea…most likely.”

“So…you always wanted to be a geologist?”

“Yea, after I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a kid. But the course didn’t turn out as interesting as I had envisioned as a kid.” She said and they bought laughed. Frank came back with a bottle of cognac, and plastic cups. He handed them cups, poured them drinks, and disappeared again.

“What about you? Did you always want to be a geographer?” Janet asked.

“Nah. I actually wanted to be an Economist. But I couldn’t get in, and the next option was to study Geography.”

“Hmm.”

“Well, I don’t regret it. I loved every moment of the four years I spent studying the course.”

“Cool. I guess God works in mysterious ways.”

“Yea.”

……….

They had talked for about an hour, and Frank was still nowhere in sight. When silence overtook them, Anthony checked his watch and said, “Frank has been gone a while, let me go look for him.”

“Don’t go.” She said as she grabbed him by the arm. She let go when she noticed how awkward it was. “I know he is busy shagging that girl he has been eyeing all day.” She said in a low tone.

Anthony laughed lightly before saying, “You’re kidding, right?” Janet just shook her head. She knew her nonchalant attitude about the prospect of Frank cheating on her concerned him, but she had already made up her mind to dump him when the trip was over. She wondered why she stayed with him this long. He could be funny and a sweetheart sometimes, but his philandering ways was getting too much for her to condone any longer. It was like he had no control whatsoever over his s€×ual urges. “Did you see that?” Janet said, pointing at the ocean.

“What?”

“The green light.”

“Green light?”

“Look, it came on again.” She said, tapping his arm to get his attention. “I hope it’s not the liquor getting to me.”

“Where did you say you saw…” He was saying then stopped when he saw the green light. It came on for a split second, and then went off again. “Oh, I think I saw it.”

“What do you think it is? Do you think it is some invaders from Mars or something?”

“Invaders from where?” He said between laughs.

It was so cool seeing him actually laugh and it made her smile. “It could be. Okay, what do you think it is? Look, another green light a few meters from where we’ve been seeing the first one.”

“Yea, I saw it too.”

“It can’t be a sh¡p. Sh¡ps don’t come this close to the beach.”

“True. It is probably fishermen boats; they sometimes fish at night.”

The place got quiet again, and Janet fought the constant urge to move closer to him and just have been hold her in his arms. She felt the literal green light was a figurative green light sign from the universe for either of them to make a move. She had never been one to cheat, even though, like most girls she had her fare share of fantasies, but tonight, she didn’t know if she could keep her good girl status much longer.

Stylishly, she closed up the gap between them so that their arms now robbed against each other when they moved. She could feel the s€×ual tension between them and she knew he wasn’t going to make a move, so she slipped her hand into his, turned to face him, looked him in the eye for a second, before leaning in to k-ss him. He k-ssed her back for a while before pulling away. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t. Let me go and look for Frank.” He said and walked away.

She felt crushed. The first time she was making a move on a guy, and she got turned down. She was about to start walking off to meet the rest of the group too when he suddenly turned around and started walking back towards her. “I’m sorry Frank.” He said under his breath before holding her face in place and k-ssing her passionately.

……….

The next day, while going home in Frank’s car, she felt dirty for the make-out session she had had with Anthony the night before. She felt no better than Frank’s cheating ass. Not like she had done it to spite him; it had happened naturally, but still she regretted doing it. She was sure Anthony also felt the same, because even though he knew his friend was a serial cheat, he had broken the bro code by having something to do with his friend’s girl, and she was sure he was someone with high morals. She felt guilty for sed-cing him and even though she was genuinely attracted to him, she made up her mind not to follow it up.

There were a lot of her friends in the past that she had known to cheat on their boyfriends and justified I with the two can play that game mentality, but it never made sense to her. Now that she had done something close to it, the mentality felt stupid to her. She didn’t even feel she had the rights to be angry at Frank’s infidelities any longer. Although hers was a mistake that would never happen again, she still did it.

It would break his heart in a worse way than all his meaningless s€×capades could ever do to her. She decided to keep it a secret and hope Anthony did the same.

The End (please comment)

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