The Smell of Your Aftershave

This should not be happening to you. You are having a hard time figuring out what to get all clad in for the proposed rendezvous. The interesting part is, the time and place have not really been decided, and, as a matter of fact, everything is pretty much in the "suggestion" phase, but you are more than slightly anxious (to put it mildly).

No, you are nervous. Uneasy. Unsure of meeting someone who has not confirmed his willingness to spend a few hours of his weekend with you. It's funny because you always keep your weekends sacrosanct. Your line of work does not afford you too many hours to relax; your weekends sometimes even get snatched from you, thanks to those evil office mails. Now, you're totally eager to give up that precious time so freely.

You're also dissecting every item of clothing you own. Your T-shirt now seems too loose, your favourite pair of shoes now appears too old, and since when did you begin to care about that short-sleeved chequered shirt being too rumpled?

***

It all began when he stepped into the banking hall three weeks earlier, with the intention of making a huge cash withdrawal. While your job required a significant display of courtesy (and incessant smiles laden with plasticity), the transaction had absolutely nothing to do with you. You weren't a teller; you couldn’t have been drafted to work alongside those HND holders who handled cash they could never own, earned significantly less than you did and wore their discomfort in their frequent frowns. You were a customer service officer.

Never mind that your university degree was not remotely connected to any of the management sciences. You were tired of switching from one low-paying job to another, and your parents had complained about your corporate instability, so you did what you had to do. You clinched this job and absorbed all the pressure, demands, querying mails and verbal abuse from superior officers and yelling from irate (and sometimes ignorant) customers. You decided to manage this until fate smiled widely enough on you to allow you to land the sort of gig and salary you felt your excellent university grades deserved.

His eyes came in contact with yours, and you still don't know what prompted you to speak, but you found yourself blurting out:

“Hey sir, I think I like your beard.”

He tried to suppress an embarrassed smile as he thanked you, but not without adding the fact that his mother hated it and often asked that he shave the damn thing off. You were tempted to say something about him being a mommy's boy, but you knew it would sound awkward coming from you. Besides, you did not want to get too informal with a customer who did not approach you directly in the first place. As a result, the conversation switched to small talk about ladies and their love for members of the 'beard gang'.

He left the hall minutes later, but as you sorted the transaction tickets on your table, you kept wondering what led you to compliment him. You quizzed yourself as to why you noticed how dark and well-oiled his beard was, how good he smelled despite the unforgiving Lagos heat and how seamlessly his dark skin blended with his fitted shirt. You had no business checking him out.

You treated yourself to a long, meditative bath when you got back home. You forgot all about it.

Then, he showed up the following week. This time, he made his way straight to your table. He wanted to clear a cheque from another bank. You stamped his deposit slip, informing him that he would get value on the next working day. You stealthily stared at his beard, and he seemed to notice. He also seemed to notice that "I don't know if I should, but I'd love to have a conversation" look in your eyes, because he started to inquire about securing huge bank loans.

You brushed it off; maybe that was just a coincidence, and he was interested in another service. You explained the process to him, and then he commended your customer service skills and warm disposition. He asked how you ended up in the banking industry, commending your warm disposition. You regaled him with your sorry tales of long unemployment stints, and he, in turn, told you that things would be fine.

You really liked the sound of his voice. His accent was not of the "I just got back" or "Dubai vacation" varieties; it was actually genuine and unforced, to you at least. The conversation had evolved to his long stay in the States, his attempt to make a mark on the nation's volatile oil sector, his search for a lady to share his last name with, and his mother's influence on his life.

You had listened with rapt attention, chipping in occasionally, and when the conversation took an emotional turn as he recounted an ill-fated long-distance relationship with some Amaka, you played the supportive role, dropping the "There are still good girls out there" line. Work was relatively light at your desk that day, so you obliged him as he poured out his soul, but when the teller from another desk began to gaze curiously, you switched back to professional mode, causing him to drop his complimentary card with you.

Not wanting to appear too eager, you waited until the weekend to put a call across to Iyke - that was his name. He sounded rather stoned when he answered the phone, coughing violently too and you apologised for "distracting him". You promised to dial him up some other time, and he replied with a promise of his own; he would call you up for a rendezvous the following weekend.

His cough worried you, and you hoped he was okay, then you wondered why you felt so much concern for him. You were a tall, broad-shouldered straight Nigerian man. When did you start being so warm, endearing, affectionate and thoughtful towards another man? For a few moments, you felt like a lady smothering a guy she fancied with the ever-present "have you eaten?" question. It disgusted you a little bit, but it also made you think and remember.

You remembered your undergraduate days when you did not react so violently when your butt was grabbed by that slender man from Anambra who lived next door to you in that stink house you called a hostel. You remembered the time, earlier in the year, when you did not scream when a soldier giving you a lift on a rainy Saturday night tried to caress your thighs on two occasions (good thing the pair of jeans was thick enough). You wondered if you liked it and if that was why you didn't draw attention to it and merely pushed his hand away.

The other day you had to apologise to Linda, a curious Twitter follower who chose to pay you a visit, for driving too fast and too furious in and out of her nether regions, but you did not tell her that you only did that to achieve some "mental purging", to reassure yourself that you still played for the right team, to clear any self-doubt...

But did it matter, really? Why did men have to hold all their feelings in all the time? From being unable to tell their fathers they loved them, to adding the "no homo" suffix whenever they showed any care or concern to a male friend, society mandated your gender to hold it all in, to be insensitive and soulless. Did it matter if the feelings actually crept in? Couldn't people go to bed smiling with thoughts of whoever got them all warm and fuzzy inside on their mind?

***

"Jesus! What the....?"

You wake up from a power nap, your face filled with horror. You had just seen yourself stroking Iyke's beard with your right palm before leaning in to kiss him passionately. You went on to expertly unbutton his blue shirt with the thumb and index finger of your left hand as his hands worked on your belt and zipper.

You make the sign of the cross four times. It was just a nightmare. You head to the restroom and insert your fingers into your throat, causing you to puke.

***

Three hours pass and Iyke hasn't called. You tell yourself you're glad he hasn't called but, somewhere within you, there is still the desire to have that phone ring. The thrill that comes with encountering something different is beginning to seduce you. You suddenly begin to wonder what his aftershave would smell like: did he like Nivea, or was his preference tilted towards Gillette?

Noon fades. No word from Iyke. You chuckle and conclude that it was all in your head. You change into a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, and head for the door, eager to relive another sadomasochistic experience of watching your favourite team fail to win yet another football match.

Your phone rings.

It's Iyke.

You let it ring and decide to pick up at the last minute, but it gets recorded as a missed call.

Your abdomen is home to an army of butterflies. You exhale and sink into your mattress.

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