When The Operator

SAMUEL COBBY GRANT

THE OPERATOR

Kuuku stared at her silently and covered her with a duvet and switched off the light in her bedroom. He went to lie on the sofa in the living room and was of two minds whether to go home or not, but felt that in the state that she was in, it was going to be cruel to leave her all to herself. So on the sofa, he laid, checking on her from time to time.

He checked on her at about 1:00 am, and saw that she had tossed and turned to the extent that she was halfway out of the bed. The upper part of her body was out of the bed and her legs were still on the bed. He put her on the bed properly and as he was tucking her in with the duvet, she wrapped her arms around him and whispered.

“I want to stay in your arms forever, Killer.”

He froze, unsure of what to do, and after a while, her arms relaxed and she fell deeply into sleep. Kuuku stood up and looked at her silently, rubbing his chin in thought. He then left her to continue with his sleep on the couch.

***

Manza had returned from her assignation with KK, the other Kuuku, on Sunday morning after two days of romping at a discreet location at New Amanful, just by the sea. And as she stepped out of the taxi she had hired as Kuuku had claimed that he was too drained to drive her, Dinah her friend also alighted from another taxi, and from what she was wearing, it was obvious that she had spent the night out.

“Eeii Manza, where are you coming from?” she asked, laughing teasingly.

“You too where did you sleep, Ashawo,” she shot back at her.

They ended up laughing and reminiscing on what had gone on in their outings.

It was only much later that Manza got to learn that KL had visited.

“He came here two times on Friday evening,” said a woman who sold Bom powder in front of the house.

“Ewuradze!” She said and placed her hands on her head, feeling sad for herself.

“I’ll visit him tomorrow at work in the afternoon.”

In the evening, Dinah urged her to accompany her to a new club that had opened at Fijai which almost everyone was talking about. Though they didn’t regard themselves as prostitutes, they had no qualms about going to bed with men based on what they could reap from it: financially.

Manza had actually gotten Kuuku KK to promise to help her get a container to do her dressmaking business. Since she returned from Accra, she had been sewing but only for friends and neighbours.

Not many people patronized her trade. When they got to the Club, it was packed solid. It wasn’t a place for the faint-hearted. It’s mostly patronized by riff raffs though it was a moderately nice place.

They went in and immediately stepped onto the dance floor to dance the night away. Two men who had been dancing with them offered them drinks and they didn’t think twice before accepting. They found just two seats so they sat on the laps of their new partners, which allowed them to get into the fondling mode with them. Soon they were in the mood, and that was made possible by the dark nature of the lightning in the Club.

The men knew immediately that they had found candidates for their beds that night, and were thinking of leaving the Club with them when Dinah’s sharp eyes spotted Ackah meandering his way through the crowd. She feigned some discomfort in her tummy and requested to visit the washroom. Manza went with her.

“What’s the problem?” Manza asked.

“Ackah is here, let’s leave.”

“What about them. The boys,” she asked.

“Snub them. Let’s leave now.”

They left the washroom and were about to take the turn that was to lead them out of the Club when they came face to face with their new partners. They stopped, apprehension on their faces.

“We are done here,” one of them said. “Let’s leave and continue what we started here.”

“We are dead today,” Manza mused.

***

Pat was in a quandary. She woke up the following morning to find herself in bed. Later she found KL sleeping on the sofa in the living room and didn’t know how she got home that night but she felt that KL was God sent. He was a very capable person and she couldn’t have asked for more in a friend. She vaguely remembered him telling her something about his sister the night before, but she couldn’t recollect the details.

After she had found him sleeping on the sofa, she had woken him up and served him with a cup of steaming hot coffee, and he had left as soon as he was done with the excuse that he had something important to attend to. She had a strange feeling that some occurrences in the night had made him wary of her.

“Ohh my God, did I make a fool of myself?” she wailed, wishing he was spending the whole day with her.

She prepared a lot of different sauces and soups for the following week’s use and spent the rest of the day chatting on phone with her family.

“Be careful with Takoradi men o. I’ve heard they aren’t reliable,” her mother admonished when it was her turn to talk to her.

“I hear you wai, Madam,” she said with a smile, thinking about KL. “But I don’t think all of them are like that.”

She hung up and thought about what her Mom had said about the men in Takoradi.

“Certainly not my Killer,” she said inaudibly to herself.

She suddenly felt the urge to call him.

“Hello, Pat,” he said when he picked up.

“Eeii, Killer, so you won’t even check to see how I am doing,” she chided him.

“Hmm, sorry o. I have been sleeping saa. I have just woken up and was going to buy some food at ‘God is Love’ when you called.

“Don’t go please, come here for home-cooked food,” she said, happy with herself.

She served boiled yam with gravy prepared with corned beef and eggs, with bits of cabbage, carrots and green pepper.

He ate everything, drank a glass of water and smiled at her.

“I really enjoyed this. Thanks and God bless you. You’ve just saved my life.”

She looked at him adoringly and laughed. A burst of happy unrestrained laughter.

“Are you sure?” she asked, enjoying the compliment.

“Surely sure. Apart from your mother and mine, you are the best cook in the world” he said, with a smile

“Hahaha, Killer, have you tasted my Mother’s cooking before?”

“Tell me. Is your mother a good or a bad cook?” he asked, challengingly.

“A good one of course, and a very good one at that. Better than your mom’s I think,” she said, playfully.

“Yoo, m’atse. I will tell my mother that you said her cooking was bad,” he said, with a mischievous look on his face.

“Please don’t, I didn’t mean that.”

He pretended to be unappeased until she promised to bake fish pie for him before he relented. She quickly took the plates to the kitchen and he smiled to himself. He had seen that he had been smiling a lot these days.

They had clicked and bonded in such a short time. She had become his best friend in record time, regarding her as a sister. Nana Yaw her brother who had driven her to Takoradi had entrusted her into his care and he wanted to do just that. He frowned then, thinking about some of the things she had said on Friday night.

He heard a scream from the kitchen and rushed in there, almost colliding with her as she limped out.

“What happened?” he asked, his concern showing on his face.

“I think I have twisted my ankle,” she said tearfully.

He made her sit down and went in search of the hot ointment he had sighted in the first aid box the other day.

When he found it, he made her place her foot on his thigh and gently applied the balm on the affected foot and asked her to take two tablets of painkillers, which she did after a lot of persuasions.

He proceeded to change the TV channel to an all movie one, placed a pillow on a stool and made her rest her foot on it.

After a while, she changed her position, and placed her head on his lap, and stretched to make herself comfortable. He stared at her with hooded eyes for a while and picked up the pillow and placed it between her head and his thigh to make her more comfortable and also to mask the throbbing sensations he was having in his midriff.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked in a small voice after a few minutes.

“No, why do you ask?” he answered, his attention on the movie.

“Nothing. Just asking,” she said and turned around, her back to the TV, her face against his belly and dozed off; breathing gently; soft bubbly breathing.

He couldn’t concentrate on the movie anymore, only on her nearness. So when the movie ended, he shook her awake and carried her like a baby, at her insistence, to the bedroom.

To be continued…

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