This is the time to go on my knees and beg this stupid old man. I moved closer to his table and promptly went on my knees. “Sir, I beg you in God’s name, please, help me. I did not get pregnant by choice, I was raped by a guy. I swear, he drugged my drink and raped me. Please, I am young enough to be your daughter, I’m probably your last child’s age mate, just see me as your daughter…..”
“Hey! Please, stop all that sermon! What nonsense is all this?” he snapped at me, raising his voice in anger. He was not impressed with my plea, despite that I was in tears on my knees before him. “I’m not interested in your age or whether you are my first daughter or last daughter’s age mate, all I’m making you here is an offer, do you want it or not? And if you don’t want it, then get out of my office because there are dozens of patients out there waiting to see me!”
I was stunned. This man was heartless. I couldn’t believe that despite my pleas and explanation, he could still behave insensitively to my plight. The manner in which he suddenly changed and very nearly threw me out of his office told me one thing very clearly – I was dealing with a very mean and heartless human being.
I just couldn’t understand why he would be asking to sleep with me, somebody that’s young enough to be his youngest child. I had heard of tales of older men asking girls young enough to be their daughters out, but I had never quite seen one before and now it was happening to me. The only difference this time is that this man was not asking me out, he was not giving me the chance to decide if I wanted to sleep with him or not. Rather, he was taking advantage of my helpless situation to blackmail me because he knew I was in a very bad situation.
“Sir, can you just give me a minute, please?” I asked him, terribly scared of his outburst.
“Go on and say whatever you want to say and make it fast, “he’d snapped at me.
“What if I raise part of the money and bring to you and then bring the balance after you have helped me?” I asked, tears still welling up in my eyes.
“And if you fail to pay up, what should I do, come knocking on your door every morning to pay me my money?”
“No, sir, I swear, I will pay you,” I pleaded for the umpteenth time.
The man was livid. He gazed hard at me for seconds and then slowly shook his head. “You this small girl, you think you are smart or what?” Again, he smiled and shook his head slowly. “Listen to me, if you know you don’t have anything important to say, you had better leave my office now before I get really angry with you!”
“Okay, okay, sir, I have heard you,” I said to him.
“You have heard me what?”
“I have heard what you said, sir, I will do what you’re asking for,” I pleaded with him.
“Now you’re talking like a sensible girl,” he said to me. And for the first time, the idiot beamed me a smile. It was not a beautiful smile, it was a smile that still showed that the man was not the kind of man you could turn to when you needed his help as a friend.
“So, how is it going to be? Do we do what we need to do right here or you would rather we go out?”
”You mean, you want us to do it right here and now, in your office?” I was shocked. I was speechless. But the shameless old man didn’t find it the least funny, he was dead serious.
“Sir, I’m not sure I can do that here in your office,” I told him.
“Okay, so we should go out?”
“I think that will be better, sir.”
“So, can we go right now?’
“I thought you said you had lots of patients to attend to.”
“You don’t you worry yourself about that, that’s my business” he retorted.
I gave up. This man was something else. “Okay, sir, but please, you will have to give me time…”
“Time again?” he’d cut in before I was done talking.
“Yes, sir, just give me two days to prepare myself, I will come and meet you myself,” I’d assured him.
“Okay, I will be here waiting for you,” he returned, his eyes probing into mine, trying to read my mind to see if I was up to something. “But here is the thing, if after tomorrow I don’t see you, do not even bother to come back here because I won’t even bother to attend to you again, do you hear me?”
Scared, confused, terrified, I left his office. And I as walked out into the open, with my heart slamming hard against my chest, I felt my legs wobble under me. I saw flashes of my father’s angry face sneering at me, threatening to beat the shit out of me. I couldn’t go home, I told myself. What would I go home to do? Go and wait till father and mother find out I’m pregnant and then get skinned alive by my father? Or simply go home to wait for money to fall from heaven and then go and pay the doctor? No, I couldn’t just head home and wait for death to come, I had to do something. I decided I was going to go straight to Bobby’s house. He got me into this trouble, he should be the one to get me out of it.
Bobby’s house was quite some distance from the hospital. I didn’t have enough money for transport fare on me, but I didn’t mind. I would trek the distance I could trek, inspite of the scorching sun. If I needed to trek the length and breadth of my town to find a solution to the mess I had gotten myself into, I would gladly have done so, so long as I get the solution I was looking for.
When I got to his house about an hour after, I met him in the house with some of his friends and some girls to keep them company. There were four boys, including Bobby, and four girls about my age to complete the party. They had shared the girls amongst themselves, each guy had his girl beside him. There was light music coming from the sound system and empty bottles of drinks lying around the house. I took one quick glance at the girl sitting on Bobby’s laps, she was fair and cute like me. And I wondered if the same fate that befell me would also come to her.
“Hey, hello…hello, Rosie….” Bobby said the moment he turned and found I was the one at the door. He was shell shocked to find me there. “How are you doing,” he was trying to sound normal, like I was just some girl in the neighbourhood who had come in to ask for his mother and not him.
“Can I see you, Bobby, for a minute?” I said coldly, my eyes hating him, hating the girl he had beside him, hating everything about the house that had brought me so much pain.
“Is it really that urgent, why don’t you come in and join us, maybe we could…”
“I want to see you now, Bobby! Right now!” I didn’t know when I screamed at him. He was startled. Everyone in the room froze. They all turned to look at me. If they thought for a moment that I was just one of the girls in the neighbourhood, now they knew they thought wrong.
Quickly, Bobby whispered something into the ears of the girl on his laps. The girl got up as Bobby jumped to his feet and gestured at the rest of the group to carry on with the party.
I stepped outside the door and waited for him to come out to meet me. “Hi, Rosie, I wasn’t expecting you here,” he tried to beam me a smile that did not work for me.
“I didn’t expect I would be here either, “ I returned, really pissed that I had come to tell him the result of what he’d done to me and still found the bastard frolicking with another girl.
“I hope there is no problem, you don’t look too good,” he asked me, trying to sound like he cared.
“Does she have any idea what you would do to her afterwards?” I’d thrown at him. He seemed lost, he had no idea what I was talking about.
“Sorry, I didn’t get you, what did you say?” he asked.
“The girl with you in there, does she know that you most likely would drug her and rape her afterwards?” I’d shot at him. “Maybe I should save her from you…maybe I should go in there, tell her and the rest of the girls what you did to me so they all know what they’re getting themselves into!”
