KEKELOGUE : Easy Virtue....!

She joined the Keke I was in at Cele Junction, Ajamimogha. She looked in her mid-20s and was dressed very indecently, in a skimpy blouse that exposed her bellybutton and a provoking black, mini skirt. As she climbed in, you could tell from the way her breasts swung loosely, and from her protruding nipples, that she wasn't wearing any bra underneath. She sat quite close to me and the combining smell of cigarette and alcohol oozed from her mouth.

Then her phone rang, she picked and began communicating with the caller:

"My love, wait for me for Court '4' Junction, I don dey come. I dey near Word of Life Church, I don near you," she responds in a tipsy manner.

"You go soon see me now, just wait. I dey with you this nite na, you too dey quick vex."

While on that call, another call was coming in but she ignored it and continued talking on the phone. The call came in again and she engaged it:

"Hello...baby, I am fine...Na my cousin I dey talk to before," she says very calmly and clearheaded this time.

"I dey go Word of Life all-night with my cousin." (We had driven past Word of Life Bible Church at that time)

"Where you dey?" she asks the caller.

"You know say i nor like that place o. Wetin you dey do for there by dis time? You suppose dey house na," she says, obviously feigning love and affection for the caller.

"Baby, you know I have to go to the all-night na, I nor go fit come."

"Baby, sorry na. You know I love you na. Don't you know that my cousin, na me and her dey go the all-night, I nor go fit come."

We got to Court '4' Junction and she highlighted and continued with the call. The Keke rider was pissed off because she was still calling and taking so much time to pay him.

"I beg, give me my money...see as your mouth dey smell cigar," the Keke rider screams at her annoyingly.

Then she stretched her hands distractedly, paid and walked into the street.

As we continued the ride to Ugbuwangue (the final stop), the Keke rider tried to initiate a conversation about the girl and her likes, but my day had been quite hectic and wasn't in the mood for any petty Keke discourse.

"Imagine, she tell her boyfriend say she dey go all-night, meanwhile, na another man she dey go meet...all these girls ehn, na so their life be o," he says enticingly, like an experienced gossipmonger.

I resisted the luring invitation and kept mute. When he saw I wasn't responding, he stopped talking and rode on.

On my sofa much later that evening, reflecting on the highlights of my daily activities (like I always do before I shutdown), I thought about the Keke event deeply and drew my conclusions.

Although, I couldn't hear the caller's voice, I could piece up the entire conversation from the girl's responses. She was definitely an unfaithful lover, a cheat, a double dater, a street girl, and most likely a commercial sex trader. What astounded me the most was the ease, smoothness and effortlessness at which she lied; she lied without blinking, not even minding our presence. And the rider was right: they are so commonplace these days.

Such is the society we find ourselves today. Values and norms that were once held sacred have been discarded and replaced by perverse and wayward behaviors all in the name of modernism. Morals have deteriorated, and what we now have as replacement for decent, esteemed, well nurtured African girls, are ladies of easy virtue.Sad.

© Joel Onojovwo