Securing The Bag (The Lagos Hustle)

Lavida Loca

JECINCTA

I have an incredible view from my balcony and I like to sit with my plants and sip my beverage every morning while I think about how my life had changed in such a short time. I now owned a flat in one of the elite residential housing areas in Lagos. I was the only child of my parents and although they didn't have much, they had worked twice as hard to make sure I didn't lack the basic needs. It's funny how less than 2 years ago when I first came to Lagos to be with Fifi, they had struggled to send me a monthly allowance of 10k, before I finally got the job in the mall. Now I was the one to put them on a monthly allowance of 100k each. My mom had renovated her shop, stocking the small shop with enough goods to rival a supermarket. I had the satisfaction of knowing my parents were proud of me...did they know what I did for a living? I didn't bother myself with such thoughts and they probably didn't believe getting promoted to mall manager would yield such financial benefits which was my official line the first few times they'd asked until they stopped. Why question what was working so well anyway?

I shielded my eyes from the sun rays, looking at the second view I enjoyed from my balcony. The adjacent apartment two floors down belonged to my crush. He was some serious eye candy. over 6ft tall, broad shoulders and narrow hips. The only con I could see was that he was light skinned, I liked my men chocolate color... but then again his hard rock abs and biceps made up for it. We'd met in the elevator once and he'd introduced himself as Tony and asked for my number. I didn't give him, even though I'd been seriously crushing on him for weeks at the time. 

The thing was I had just moved in and I was extremely wary of Mr. D's jealousy. He did things for me I couldn't imagine and spent unbelievable amounts of money on me. But if he had one major character flaw it was his jealousy. I had come to be wary of his scathing jealousy. He was also very paranoid, whenever we went out, it thrilled him to see other men lusting over me but it also put him on the offensive and made him very paranoid. He'd made it pretty clear to me he didn't want anyone touching me but himself and the last thing I wanted was to receive a call from a guy in his presence. That'd be disastrous. Remember the first rule Fifi had taught me; 'Always keep the money source happy' 

But that didn't mean I couldn't look, and I ogled Tony as he worked out on his treadmill, glistening with sweat and enjoying the audience as usual. Mr Doings was at least in his late fifties and I didn't expect him to be a bedroom stud. Still, I had read somewhere on the internet that red wine improved the blood flow which in turn improved a man's libido. I knew he didn't drink much during the week because of his mysterious but stressful job but he always had a glass of red wine in his hand every time I saw him but his sexual prowess was nothing to write home about. He was what Fifi used to call an early-comer. sometimes I missed Abobo my ex or mornings like this I lusted after my hot neighbour. I'd run into him a couple of times, we did some serious flirting but I never gave him my number . A part of me wanted to risk it, it's not like I was married to Mr D or anything, we were more or less having an affair but it didn't make sense, it was like having an affair on another affair and I didn't want to screw things up. Life was good, I was living lavida loca all thanks to Mr. D and if it meant I had to deal with sexual frustration I was prepared to carry my cross, I recently bought a battery powered bullet to make the lonelier nights bearable and it helped a lot. I had also come to care for Mr D a lot and understand his many moods. He was full of eccentricities and very spontaneous but some days he seemed depressed. He wouldn't divulge much information to me when I asked him but I knew it was work related. Since the very first night I seduced him and he talked a little about work, he never spoke about his job again. I had the feeling he always made a conscious effort to leave everything concerning his work behind whenever he came to my place for the weekend.

Anytime I asked him if he had made any progress with his plans to leave his boss. He always mumbled something like he was working on it and changed the subject immediately. Once I asked if his crazy boss was a notable figure I might know and he actually gave me a thorough warning to never ever ever again ask about his boss or even think about him. After that incident I never asked about work again. I wasn't totally comfortable with the fact that he knew almost everything about me and I didn't know much about him personally except that he had an estranged Egyptian wife in Australia and 2 teenagers, his first name was Brian which I just didn't believe, and that he had a strange but super profitable job of 'collecting interesting things'....not to forget the boss he believes has gone looney.

Curiosity aside, it wasn't really my business. I had more engaging things like managing my social media accounts. These days IG handles were as important as phone numbers and I took great pride in my profile. My pictures were colourful and sexy and most importantly they screamed class! I had over 30k IG and twitter followers combined and I was live at least once a week, keeping them updated with every yatch ride, every dinner party, every late night clubbing and the occassional twerk video.

I hadn't seen Fifi since I moved out of the house. She kept saying she'll come visit me one day but she never came over. She called me once, urgently in need of 120k to complete the house rent and I sent her 200, that was my own slap in her face and I knew it stung harder than the 3 slaps she had once given me. Don't get me wrong, I still loved Fifi like a sister, but I decided it was better to love her from afar.

Mr. D and I still spent every weekend together and most times we stayed in my place and ordered Chinese food, then had lazy sex which lasted for a couple of minutes before he fell asleep while I went back to twitter and E entertainment.

Sometimes I wondered how long our arrangement would last. He had changed my life no doubt and I expected one day we would have to move on. I wasn't ready for that day yet. I was 21 years plus and living my best life, lavida loca.