This story does not start like every other story. Other stories may start with Once Upon A Time and go on and on along the lines of a low budget Nollywood flick. This story is about me. For now, I am nobody because I'm just thirteen. This story is a timeline.
I was exposed to blue film when I was just nine—that's what we call it here. The first time I heard blue film, I felt it was a movie with blue background and effects. What kind of movies are unicolored? I asked my friend one day in class. He just giggled.
It was much later I learnt the word Pornography. The first time I saw the word, I knew it was the perfect word to code what boys cluster around to do once the teacher leaves the class. I knew it was the perfect word to hush the moving images of white bodies showing off acrobatic skills from the screen of the Nokia Xpress Music—the one that stored stacks and stacks of .3gp videos. I just knew no other word could describe my new found abstraction the way pornography did.
This story is not meant to be long. Other stories have plots and twist and intricate characters but the main character here is me and I wasn't even developed when it all happened. It happened last week.
The week before, my cousin came to spend the holiday with us. School is out of session. My cousin is eighteen and just completed secondary school. I am thirteen and I will complete secondary school next year. I'm the only child. My parents go to work everyday to leave me in care of my cousin.
Last week Monday, I noticed my cousin leaves the bathroom door open with the shower splashing loudly. I decided to peep. Wrong move! I came back on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday until she caught me on Friday. This story has no dialogues, so you can't hear what she said. Just know she wasn't surprised and the bathroom door and loud showers were intentional—I found out later.
She stripped me and threatened to report to mum if I didn't do what she asked.
“So, you enjoy looking at me ehn? Let's see what you've got” those words slithered through her mouth as she slid her hands down my shorts. Don't trust me when I said this story has no dialogues. I don't know what we did, at the same time I did. My body felt so excited and I felt like I wanted to urinate but I felt something warm and sticky. I was ashamed afterwards. It continued on Saturday and Sunday. I told my friend about it and the first thing he said was “Wow, you're so lucky”. How do one feel so lucky to be used?
This morning I read daddy's newspaper and saw something about rape. I thought about my cousin raping me but then, I'm only a boy. Boys don't get raped.
— Abdulhameed Ridwan O
