The Perfect Gentleman ✔

A: Midnight Lover

Seven years ago

It was a chilly evening in the middle of August. A black Toyota Camry was packed in front of a traditional set of apartments in the Surulere slum area of Lagos. The building had three two-storey buildings built next to each other with barely five meters apart in between.

This was the typical housing setting in this area with the obvious brown roofs indicating rusted aluminum zinc. Each building had a total of twelve apartments. Each floor had four two-bedroom apartments with a living room, a kitchen and a common bathroom. There was a central water system that supplied the whole three buildings and was dependent on the time and season of the year, as that part of Lagos was very close to the water table and required shallow water wells as their source of water supply.

Electricity supply was a different matter altogether. The electricity distribution company were very dedicated to their work and made sure to let the different parts of the town get a fair share of the distribution. Suffice it to say, electricity was an on-today off-tomorrow affair.

Today was the off-electricity situation and Martin Oforah -who was now privy to this living situation- was using it to his advantage to visit his girlfriend, Judy Adegoke, who lived with her strict parents in the first apartment in the middle floor of the first building. To be his watchful eyes and ears, he had dragged along his two best friends James Duran and Lucas Caspian-Asiegbu, who were now waiting patiently for him in the car parked out front.

The pair had been waiting for their companion for a while, and were finally reaching the end of their patience rope. They had been stuck in this car for three hours, waiting for nightfall to reach and for the coast to be clear. Now, Martin was taking too long to just say 'hello' to his girlfriend and they thought he should know so. Lucas was the first to speak up, obviously not used to accompanying someone on a clandestine love meeting.

"What's taking him so long?" He quizzed with a frustrated sigh, adjusting in the passenger side of the car to look up to the middle floor where Martin supposedly was.

"Love is. He's completely in love with that girl," was James' chuckle, shaking his head mildly.

Lucas grimaced at the thought. It was not a feeling he was familiar with. "More like obsessed. He's with her cause she has big butts. It's his weakness," he reiterated.

James sneered, grinning from ear to ear as he stroked the steering wheel in thought. "I believe I know someone who is also interested in that asset on a woman."

Lucas rolled his eyes at him and smirked. "I was, but I'm a changed man now. I'm more of a boob's guy only because I'm thinking about plenty baby food for my future kids."

Both of them threw their heads backwards and laughed heartily. After the laughter had died down, Lucas gaze swept to that apartment again and he sighed. "She must really be something if he's prepared to risk his life just to see her."

James nodded as he remembered what Martin had told him. "Well, he did say she saved him when he was mugged on his way to his father's village in Easter. So he's repaying her kindness with feelings. Sincere feelings, something you know nothing about."

Lucas scoffed at the absurdity of it. His female companions knew what they aimed to get from him before they even met. Heck, if it was him, he wouldn't be surprised if the girl had arranged to have him mugged just so she could save him later. His life has always been like that, and he was used to it already.

"So Martin's girl is the Florence Nightingale of Surulere?" He grinned, causing a chuckle to escape James's lip.

Both elapsed into silence, still on the lookout for the Adegoke's, Judy parents, who were both elders in the church and would not condone impecunious cunning men flirting with their only daughter. Hell would break loose if they ever found Martin in the same vicinity as their daughter. As they say, show me your friend... and Lucas Caspian-Asiegbu, a certified playboy, was his friend.