Rebellion

14. The Easy Part

“The pattern of the prodigal is – Rebellion, ruin, repentance, reconciliation and restoration.” – Edwin Louis Cole.

•••

“So, he said that sex is only appropriate within the confinements of marriage?”

Amanda shrieked in unbelief, while staring at Tiolu in dismay by her left on the couch. Tiolu was crouched on one end of the couch and was tilted towards Amanda sitting figure. Her right arm cradling her forehead, with its elbow braced on her knee. In her free hand was a mug of steaming coffee.

“Yup, he said its not in anyway appropriate for our relationship.” She clarified with a nod before lifting the mug to her lips. It was Monday, and she had returned from work to find Amanda and Ife awaiting her arrival as promised – yesterday. Fortunately for her, she had been the first to arrive unlike most times when it was usually Anjola. She figured that it wouldn’t have been a pleasant meeting if the girls had to wait for her arrival in the company of Anjola.

Just like her and Dayo, the girls and Anjola were – polar opposites.

“So, what if an individual decides not to get married; wouldn’t that mean they wouldn’t be entitled to sex?” Ife bickered amusingly from a sofa on Tiolu’s left. She was also in a crouching position and was taking coffee. “I thought this guy was supposed to be like really smart? Now, I just don’t get it.”

“You see why you shouldn’t get yourself entangled with men like this?” Amanda piled on, leaning forward on the seat. “Who on earth says that, like really? – Sex is for only married people? Next thing we know he’d be saying its illegal to have children out of marriage. Right? Since marriage is like the ultimate license to all sexually related matters.”

Tiolu couldn’t help her smile. Amanda had quite the personality.

“That’s not what pissed me off, really.” She continued, taking another sip from her mug. “Fine, if you don’t want sex – it’s alright. I’m not going to court martial you or bind you up in ropes to rape you. But the insults he spoke. He basically called me a slut. You know like in those TV drama series, where the enemy of the protagonist–”

“The antagonist–” Ife corrected.

“The antagonist.” She cut in once more. “Where the antagonist hires someone in a bid to slander the name of the protagonist, you know like a sex scandal of the sorts. They’d catch them on tape and all that. That’s what he thought I was all about. He thought I was luring him to bed for that purpose, like nigger – why?”

Amanda chuckled raucously, bracing her wrists on both sides of her ribs to prevent herself from doubling over in laughter.

“Wait, so basically to him – any woman that makes a sexual attempt on him has that intention. How melodramatic. Even if he is that dumb and derailed, and he doesn’t watch actual TV just local; doesn’t he know that much? C’mon, even I watch Africa Magic Yoruba sometimes and I see people having sex casually. So what’s the big deal, what’s so sacred about virginity and keeping it till a particular time anyway?”

“As in ehn,” Ife exclaimed, clapping her hands in dismay. “So you’d be now be ‘wowo’ in bed abi. You’d be inexperienced in the act and disappoint your husband later on. Better to get all the practice you can get now so when the right man comes, you’d be able to pleasure him well.”

The words the girls uttered irked Tiolu a bit, but she didn’t bother to disagree. People with such personality couldn’t just change with few occurrences of debates and disagreement; in fact, she didn’t know if change was possible for them.