Free Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett Page A

silver-coloured Honda CR-V. ‘Your belt,’ she said to Furo after he climbed into the passenger seat, and when he was buckled in: ‘I’ll make a quick stop before we go to my place.’ She switched on the ignition. The flash of dashboard lights, a blast of stereo music, streams of air from the vents, and the machine purr of an engine eager to go. The car cruised out of The Palms, and when Syreeta accelerated (even though he couldn’t drive, Furo could tell that she handled the wheel with panache, to which the Honda responded like a dance partner) towards the Lekki highway, the easy motion of the car pulled Furo into a sinkhole of comfort. Every breath he drew, every rub of his tired shoulders on the soft leather seat, every sensation contributed to his need to pee.
    Her quick stop was the five-star-looking Oriental Hotel. Furo realised this when the Honda swept through the gateway into a parking lot overflowing with millionaires’ toys, and by the time Syreeta found a spot and reversed into it, he’d convinced himself of the quickie reason for her stopover, the abysmal state of her morality, and the dangerous nature of her daring. She demolished his assumptions by asking him to follow her in. Together, side by side, they walked into the hotel’s lobby. To the right of the entrance was the reception counter, and Syreeta turned left. She clicked past a knot of men dressed in bankers’ suits, and pausing in their conversation, they stared after her, their eyes burning with the fever of acquisition. Furo skidded across the smooth stone floor in his efforts to keep pace with her, and when she halted in front of the elevator, he felt a vicious stab in his bladder. He couldn’t hold it in any more.
    ‘I need to ease myself,’ he whispered to Syreeta.
    ‘Let’s get upstairs first,’ she responded, but a quick look at his face changed her mind. ‘Go on, the loo is that way,’ and she pointed. ‘I’ll wait here.’
    Furo trotted towards the lavatory, and once he was through the door he hopped from foot to foot and fumbled with his fly before bounding to the nearest urinal. He panted at the first spurt, pungent and steaming, the colour of factory waste, a whole day’s worth topped with a cup of milkshake, which splashed into the glistening ceramic and rattled the coloured mothballs and foamed in the drain. His nerves calmed with his stream, and soon he glanced around to confirm he was alone, and then down at his trousers to ensure he had no reason to be self-conscious. He finished and gave a yawn, closed his zipper, and then, as his eyes caught the brand stamped on to the urinal, he barked with laughter. He hadn’t noticed he was peeing into a Toto – a vagina. Yes, a dirty joke , he thought as he strolled chuckling to the washbasin, but when he saw his face in the mirror, his mirth caught in his throat. A monstrous joke, a monster’s joke: that’s what this is.
    Syreeta was standing where Furo had left her but she was no longer alone. A portly Chinese man wearing rumpled cargo shorts and a crocodile-patterned shirt was speaking to her (her face was averted from his fixed, unctuous smile) and indicating with his hands that she follow him. When Furo arrived at the elevator, the man dropped his arms to his sides and fell silent. ‘Done?’ Syreeta asked, and when Furo answered yes, the man veered his face towards him, his smile wiped off. Syreeta poked the elevator button, the doors slid open, and the man backed away.
    They rode up in silence, all the while looking down at the spread of the city through the elevator’s glass wall. Reaching the second floor, they emerged into a corridor, and Syreeta led the way across its deep carpet. In the last few feet to the corridor’s end, as Furo saw that the door ahead was inscribed ‘African Bar’, he hastened around her and held the door open. With a quick look at his face, she brushed past him into a dimly lit hall. Spinning disco lights, their gaudy pinpoints