African Short Stories: Working Relationship

...8...

"Nobody should be on the courtyard! You heard the bell!"

I'm helping Koko who is my house captain to chase girls into their rooms tonight. Honestly this is the first time I'm ever doing this. Koko has been giving me this strange look like "Heeey! First day!"

At last, when the courtyard is cleared and Koko waves me goodnight before retiring into her room, I tighten my nightwear robe around myself and slink over to the back door downstairs.

One turn of the door handle and not-so-surprisingly, the heavy metal door is unlocked.

Surprisingly though, no one is there.

"Hey sexy. You made it."

"Jesus!"

He's leaning against the wall next to the outdoor back stairs, looking very handsomely Jughead from "Archie and friends".

"You scared me," I scoel at him as he walks up to meet me at the door. Then my eyes drop to his feet and I instantly burst out laughing.

Monkey bedroom slippers?????????

"Are you 19 or 9?" I choke out between laughs.

"You dare make jest of my Louis Vuitton slippers?" he feigns insult in that accent of his. Clown.

"Mine are Padel– made in Nigeria and still they don't look so ridiculous." My laughing fit slowly subsides.

As I regain control of myself, I take him in- fully garbed in pajamas and a mouse brown tweed coat over them. His dreads are untied and flying around his shoulders like free jailbirds, with the crown of his heads tucked into a dark brown beanie that matches his eyes and makes them look even more distinct.

Zar smirks, "The view gets better under the clothing."

I eye him and carefully close the door behind me. "Let's go."

He leads the way to a smooth black Lexus RC parked on the road to the sports arena that runs behind the female dorm blocks. The car looks way too brand new and flashy not to be foreign and cost-a-small-fortune expensive.

We take a gentle drive to the school block in his car with me still stuck in wonder. Zar must be loaded- I've always suspected it with the way he dresses, eats and behaves, but this is solid confirmation!

On arriving at school, we head straight up to the atelier. Inside the studio, instead of the usual lighting, the interior is lit up by mini-strobe lights at four corners of the lab.

"Change in my office," he says to me, slipping off my coat, and then hands me a rectangular red box.

I step into his office, switch on the light in there and flip open the lid on the box.

Hold up... Is this a joke?

"Zar!" I call out to him, "What exactly am I supposed to be wearing here?"

He replies from where he is, out in the lab. "They're undergarments. The top piece is stick-on."

I recoil from the contents of the box, realizing what they are- a very stringy thong and... a stick-on bra???!

"You're right! They're undergarments... for a prostitute!" I feel my nostrils flaring.

"You're a model, Ama. Put them on and I'll give you the dress," he responds coolly.

Okay. There's a dress. Thank Jesus.

I take off my nightwear, don the underwear as best I can manage and put my robe back on as well.