A fleet of exotic automobiles ground to a halt and disgorged some uniformed men into the licentious company of young girls into the beautiful panorama of Ariya Garden. It was approaching evening, so the garden was already blooming with neon lights from big globes propped on metal poles swathed with red and yellow ribbons. The poles littered the vast expanse of the smooth lawn. Smooth white painted stones dotted the edges and borders of the lawn. Sweet-smelling flowers glowed in the sodium lights. The air was cool and pleasant. It was saturated with the aroma of expensive beer, roasted fresh fish, spice, garlic and smoke. The soft serenade of highlife music, from a colorfully dressed band, warmed up the night and promised a memorable evening of good music. Beside a king-size refrigerator with a glass door, revealing stacks of bottle and can liquor, was a Samsung LCD TV screen for those who would rather not be entertained by the band.

Soon the bar was in full swing, the garden being already occupied. Floating rounds of liquor permeated the place. Waitresses with bosoms straining angrily against their white T-shirts upon which was written Gulder, the Ultimate and bum-hugging jeans, drifted to and fro. Their trays were expertly balanced on their palms. They smiled nervously through flaming crimson lips. They faked accents and footfalls. They moved their posteriors exaggeratedly from side to side so that in all they completely tumbled short of the whole idea of waiting on tables or at least what their jobs should stand for. For them, the motivation for working at the garden was much more than the pittance they earned. It was the rare opportunity for them to become rich. It was a platform for them to own their own cars, their own houses and their own gardens. It was their chance to be like Madame Benson who now did the occasional special duty only with important men.

Madam Benson, the proud matron of the establishment, had been conceived and born when there was still a small floating population of harlots in the city, her teenage mother being one of them. From the first month of her life, when she’d been handed carelessly from one prostitute’s hand to another, the lesson had been learnt not to care for a person greatly or bestow high hopes on any relationship, but rather get all possible benefit from one and move to the next. She had learnt how to treat people, especially men, as clients. No real attachments, no commitments except for gain. Benson had early in life and, like her mother, abandoned herself to every possible caprice and led the most licentious life for money. She had fought into the thick of money and risen from grass to grace. People, as expected, spread all kinds of nasty tales about her, but she was past caring. She was rich and that was all that mattered. The girls had every reason to want to be like her. For most of them their parents had ‘released’ them from their villages. They had told them to embrace their destiny without much ado. They had warned them not to return home without bringing big cash and big cars and building big houses in the village. They must make the whole village gather and gawk at their return because of their display of money. They must make their family proud and bring shame to the enemies of their household. This is what many of them lived and worked for: a triumphant entry into their villages every end of the year or after so many years of being away.

The lights grew brighter with the fall of the indigo night. More people drifted into the garden. They came in groups normally of more women than men. They exchanged pleasantries as they laughed heartily, grabbed seats and ordered liquor and food. In the garden were white-haired men in uniforms: officers from the Nigerian Army, Air Force and navy, big paunched civilians in flowing robes, European diplomats and business men, carefree young men with shaved heads wearing shorts and sport tops. There were prostitutes and schoolgirls in tight tops to complement their shorter than short miniskirts; they would twist their mouths as if to smile shyly and throw wisps of hair from their faces. They all tried to look attractive, but some of them were not. What some gained in the legs, they lost in the face and the other way round. Some lost on all fronts but were not bothered. There were also colossal women in their fifties, forties and thirties with thighs stout like banana stalks, their chiseled features sunk into fatty folds. These females had been unwilling to leave the society of the desirable from which they’d been expelled; therefore they tried to remain attractive by all means. There were sweet-scented young women and handsome men with charming smiles. There were couples in similar garments linking their hands rather too firmly as though to tear them asunder was to altogether engage the collapse of their blissful marriage. And indeed that may perhaps not be far from the truth. This is because the arena was filled with a great number of singles, males and females, with greater intentions than the relish of a sumptuous food. No one was safe. It was a free zone where anything went down and the fittest survived, even thrived.

But of course, the food too was a major attraction. The air was filled with its appetizing smell. King size freshwater fish, well prepared, marinated in curry and spice, each plate garnished with potato chips, diced garlic, ginger and slices of citrus. Pepper soup, specially cooked with the head of a goat locally known as Isiewu. Kilishi, a northern delicacy and kind of barbecue made from dried cow skin. All were offered at Mrs. Benson’s establishment and varieties of beer to wash them down.

The frequent visits of the rich to the garden on Friday nights proved that some would stop almost at nothing to enjoy the pleasures offered, which many have rumored bore the influence of juju. People said Madame Benson usually made incantations early in the morning before cooking. Some even said she buried a cow alive on the premises to speed up sales. All these, however were too feeble a reason for the many customers of Ariya Garden who always looked forward to weekends with great anticipation.

Zizi and Ngozi arrived just in time before the last few seats were filled.

“Here we are, my sister. This is the place. This is where we de chop life every weekend,” Zizi announced as soon as they were seated. She fished out a handkerchief from her purse and dabbed at the light perspiration on her forehead.

“It’s a nice place,” Ngozi said as she looked around, obviously affected by the ambiance surrounding her. She had tagged behind Zizi and wandered around rather ill at ease among the clusters of people in their search for seats. She felt even more awkward now. The two worked in a government secondary school as teachers and had gotten close by mere coincidence. They had been drafted to teach the senior secondary students science courses, and they shared the same staff room. At first Ngozi didn’t fancy Zizi but before long she began to grow fond of her. Now Ngozi admired her even more than she was willing to admit. The gap between them had been obvious- Zizi had been there and done all that. She had a lot of money to throw about. Ngozi often wondered about the source of her money, considering the fact that they both collected the same salary. The Government paid them two thousand naira, minimum wage, a level they attained after about two months of strike action for salary increment, after the workers marched to town, singing solidarity songs and offering public prayers for Holy Ghost fire to intervene against injustice and oppression. This protest started with peaceful intentions but resulted in an attack with teargas and the discharge of bullets, which killed the NUT President and seven others in front of the state government secretariat.

Ngozi also wondered if promiscuity and money came together, if you couldn’t attain to the latter without the former. Circumstance had changed Ngozi. Years of hardship had sufficiently worked on her so that what she detested about Zizi now became that which drew her, that which she envied. Beneath her was a longing to be better than her friend, to have what she possessed and much more. So she was going to learn from her how to run then beat her at it.

A Gulder waitress approached their table.

“A beer is it, Ngozi?” Zizi asked.

“No thanks, Malt will be okay.”

Zizi turned to the girl “A bottle of beer for me and malt for her. And please tell them to put our fish on the grille.”

“Okay, Madame.” She smiled and took off, waggling her bottom. Ngozi wondered whom the girl was trying to impress. It seemed everyone was out to make a statement here, she thought.

“One of my students got an A in his WAEC” Ngozi said after a while. This was not for want of something to say but to feel better, a consolation of sort.

“Beautiful, Ngozi, beautiful, not all of them are blockheads you know? Once in a while, one of them makes you really proud.”

“How did your students do?” Ngozi asked her.

“Bad news as usual,” she said without emotion. Zizi had no similar triumph. Ngozi felt good about it.

The conversation after that turned upon things women generally talk about. The drinks were brought, but the arrival of the food took longer. In the meantime, Zizi and Ngozi took their drinks in little, miserly sips. Two men and four girls at the table nearby had drunk more than was required of them to pass the time. Their tentative sips had long given way to huge gulps; they talked loudly around the table crammed with tumblers, ashtrays and stuffed ladies’ handbags. The slightest encouragement propelled them to uncontrollable laughter. Their attention was drawn to a man in a huge white agbada embroidered with silver being interviewed on TV.

“As the chairman of the Transition Implementation Committee what does your team stand for?” The female reporter said, thrusting the microphone at the man.

“Well,” he coughed delicately “the transition implementation committee was established by the military government two years ago, and our mandate is simple. We have been given the responsibility to ensure the stable progress and full realization of the democratic process and transition to civil rule as his Excellency has promised. This we are going to achieve by the special grace of God.”

“Chief Ekponta, in recent times there has been a call from government officials and solidarity groups for His Excellency to join the presidential race...”

“You are absolutely right!”

“Yes and it seems His Excellency is silent on this matter, tonight being another example. What do you think is really happening?

“Thank you very much. That’s a very good question. You see, the laws of this land do not prevent the commander-in-chief from running for president. There is nothing wrong with it at all, given the other African states that have gone down that route and been the better for it. I don’t know if he has given it any thought but what I know is that he would not be pressured to take any decision that will jeopardize our journey to democratic governance. There are so many things involved and I know very soon he’ll reveal his stand concerning the matter. But whatever decision he makes, we will respect.”

“Seriously, Thomas, do you really think he has plans to remain in office as civilian president? I mean the C-in–C?” Asked one of the drunks.

“The head of state is power drunk. If he has his way he will rule for the rest of his bloody life.”

“Be careful how you speak, his boys are everywhere.”

“I am not afraid of anyone, my friend.”

They broke into ungovernable peals of laughter, convulsed, coughed, and kept quiet for a while.

“I don’t think nothing can stop him now,” said Thomas at last. “The climate is not right for his enemies. There must be frustration in the society or at least frustration that can be given voice to. He’s not allowing that, not even in the army. That guy is a bloody bastard!”

With that they burst into laughter again. A man in uniform drifted past, and the men almost at the same time drew their hands up against their mouths in shock. They became quite sober after that. Zizi and Ngozi were amused.

“The fear of the military is the beginning of wisdom!” Zizi winked at her friend.

They both laughed. Ngozi enjoyed that.

The waitress brought their food and placed it on the table, smoke whiffing and sweet smelling. Zizi dug hastily into her purse, brought out a wad of money and peeled out twenty wazobias for the waitress who smiled and left.

“You gave the girl a thousand naira,” said Ngozi in a small voice.

“Yes. Two plates cost a thousand naira.”

“Oh. Sorry,” she muttered, her mind wandering. She bit the corner of her mouth. With a thousand naira she could buy enough foodstuff to last her family a week.

“OK Ngozi, I feel your pulse. This place is expensive, but you know you have to give yourself a treat once in a while.”

“Of course, Zizi.” She feigned a smile. She damn well did feel her pulse. Once in a while? She called her lavish weekly spending once in a while? Ngozi thought bitterly as she ate quietly, feeling something of guilt mingled with envy within her.

The band struck up a fresh beat and the trumpeter blew out a familiar number. Guitars twanged. It was Victor Uwaifo’s 'Joromi'. The men whistled aloud. The women shrieked, but no one made anything of it. They only weaved in their seats, beating time with their fingers.

Zizi dumped her food and danced alone to the empty floor. She carried her flesh and shook it to the tune, her stiletto shoes making clicking sounds, her innumerable bangles jingling up and down her arms and her breasts bobbing in the negligence of her blouse. At once, the band varied their rhythm to her, showered her with their attention so that she was soon wrapped in the music. Her plump body seemed to fill the floor. She used every ounce of her flesh. She swayed her bottom subtlety but independently of the rest of her body. It was as though her backside assumed a life of its own. It swayed from side to side, rolled, and moved up and down. She left nothing to chance as to the possession of the floor, even when other women drifted out to increase their own sense of importance. It was as though the splendor of life was emptied upon her, and she was preventing it from boiling over and wasting into steam and froth.

A drunken woman joined the crowd of dancing ladies holding a tumbler of beer frothing like her mouth. In a loud slurring voice she invited men to the floor. She said they were not man enough. She insisted, in many words, that pleasures must be crowded into the fleeting hours of youth, that life has no duplicate. She was not attractive, so no one gave her attention.

It was not long before some men left their seats and began to ‘spray’ the dancers with cash. Zizi attracted the most admirers. About half a dozen men crowded around her, dancing gently, peeling out wads of naira, which stuck on her body then rained on the floor. Each individual contested for supremacy, one trying to ‘out-spray’ the other by increasing the amount of money sprayed, the denomination and the currency. It was a matter of pride, a matter of status.

A fat-bellied army officer, who became intoxicated by the spraying game, went hastily to his seat for fresh supplies of cash. Not naira this time around, but dollars. So when he grabbed a bale of mint notes and drifted to the floor, more women joined in the dance.

The musicians too were not left out in the spree. Each cascade of cash falling on them jeered them to a more melodious tune. The lead trumpeter seemed to possess an endless gust of air in his lungs. The veins on his neck and head were taut as ropes. Tough, jutting and working, the veins bore the immense strain of the sound. Ngozi glared at the dancers and Zizi, her eyes glazed with mixed feelings: surprise, envy, righteous indignation. She, however, did not know what to make of her feelings.

The music ended, and the applause ran out loud, and long, and spontaneous. Zizi went back to her seat, taking gentle, haughty steps, aware of the things whispered in her praise and envy, the eyes incessantly challenging her notice. She enjoyed every moment of it.

“How did I do out there?” she asked Ngozi. She opened her bag for her handkerchief. Moisture beaded on her head, around her throat, went all the way down and was lost in the hairy valley of her heaving bosom. She wiped her face then blew air with pursed lips into her cleavage.

“Simply remarkable! Remarkable!” Ngozi ejaculated, and she meant it.

Zizi brushed the compliment away with a wave of her hand. “Don’t be silly, Ngozi. I was not that remarkable.”

Ngozi was about to insist on her remarkableness, at least one more time, when a voice interrupted. It was the girl Zizi had contracted to gather the proceeds of her sterling performance.

“Here, Madam.” The girl handed a huge bundle of miscellaneous notes to Zizi. With the swiftness of a shrewd trader, Zizi counted the girl’s share and gave it to her, then tucked the rest in her bag before the girl could say thank you.

“I’ll give you your own share after the party,” she told Ngozi.

“My share?” she said softly.

“Of course, you think I am taking all this money home with me? You must be kidding! And besides, we still have more coming. The night is still young,” she said excitedly.

Ngozi said nothing. Silence engulfed them as they ate their food and sipped their drinks.

“You see those men over there?” Zizi nodded at a group of uniformed men. “They are looking at us. I am very sure they want us.”

“Want us?”

“You see we have managed to catch everyone’s attention.” Zizi lowered her voice. “We have displayed our wares in the open for people to buy, but we will only give the goods to the highest bidder, and you see, soldiers always offer the highest price. They are moneybags. They literally distribute money in sacks. I heard the Head of State once called the mint company in the early hours of the morning to print money for him because he wanted to prove to a hooker that money is heavy. The soldiers who carried the sacks were sweating like Christmas goats. Girl, one night with any one of those guys can change your life.”

“We?” Ngozi muttered.

“Don’t be naïve, Ngozi. Are you ready to rock the night with me or not?”

“Really, OK, yes,” she agreed nervously.

“Ok then. We will order another drink and wait for them to come. I know you might not be used to this, but this is how it goes down here. They lay you, you get paid, and they forget about you. They don’t remember your face. They don’t call you the next day. You go back to your family, your husband, and your life. Everything goes back to normal. No, everything does not go back to normal. You become rich, and you can control or end your miserable marriage, and tell the government to swallow their low-paying jobs.”

“So why are you still teaching?” Ngozi asked, puzzled.

“It keeps me sane. I must agree, with the peanut salary and the bad teaching conditions, teaching is an honorable profession. You should at least be known for one good thing. And besides, it provides a good cover. And as for my husband, I am still with him because he is hopelessly in love with me. So it makes no difference if I love him or not. I just want to be with him. He is perhaps the only one that makes me feel loved and worth more than what is between my legs.”

Ngozi remembered her own husband. She had told him a friend’s cousin was getting married, and they’d be away for a few days. Generally, Ngozi’s husband was one of those worn out middle-aged men. When he wasn’t working his bones out at the quarry on the outskirts of the city, he would sit in a chair in the doorway of their cheap grimy apartment, snuggling up to his old transistor radio, listening to ‘Voice of America’ or thinking bitterly of the good old days when he was able take proper care of his wife and buy her lots of things. When he worked with the Customs Service and ran a private business and made both work together perfectly well. Tears welled a bit in her eyes as she thought about what had become of the two of them, what their marriage had come to.

A waitress came, whispered something to Zizi and took off. Zizi responded with a giggle and a nod.

“They want us to come to their table, the officers,” she uttered, trying to keep the excitement from her voice. They drifted to the table where the uniformed men were and introductions were made.

“I am Lieutenant Dingi,” said one that appeared to be the leader of the group. He was tall and slim and had three tribal marks that ran from the two corners of his mouth up to his cheeks.

“This is Lance Corporal Bello and Maliki,” Dingi said. The two of them, though not as tall as Dingi, were built like wrestlers. They simply nodded. “You danced well well tonight. Beauripul, beauripul” Dingi said to Zizi.

“Thank you, sir.”

“And you too madam, you are beauripul too. You did not dance, but you are beauripul” he said to Ngozi. Ngozi did not know what to make of the comment. She simply smiled and nodded. Lieutenant Dingi ploughed ahead. “You see, we like beauripul girls with beauripul smiles. Any amount you want, we go pay, whalai talai!”

Ngozi felt something of annoyance within her. These guys were treating them as if they were some sort of commodity to be exchanged for money. Weren’t they supposed to at least flirt with them? Talk about how they loved their backside? How their bosoms looked like ripe mangoes? How much they desired to get under their clothes? Wasn’t that supposed to come before negotiations?

“We are not prostitutes!” Zizi expressed Ngozi’s concerns.

The three soldiers laughed as though what she said was some kind of joke.

“We know you are not prostitutes. You are just beauripul girls,” Dingi said and his boys laughed. The two girls feigned smiles, playing along.

Dingi ordered a round of drinks and after a while they all moved out of the garden, laughing and staggering. Their car was parked at the other side of the street. It was a green Peugeot 504 with tinted windows. The Nigerian flag was in front and Nigerian Army plate numbers. Lance Corporal Bello took the wheels and off they went.

“Where exactly are we going?” Ngozi said to no one in particular. She was not as drunk as Zizi. She had agreed to take a bottle of Stout, but then she was feeling as though she had taken six bottles. Meanwhile, Zizi was so drunk, she was drooling.

“We are going somewhere beauripul,” Dingi said, this time wearing a villainous smile. Then it dawned upon Ngozi that they had been fooled, following strangers to a place they did not know. And also the drink, they must have put something in the drinks, she surmised. Now fear engulfed her. For a moment her hazy mind groped for a way out. She weighed different options but surrendered them all to fear.

“We want to get down!” She slurred.

Dingi told her to shut up but she persisted. Lance Corporal Maliki plunged into action. He wrapped his huge arm around her neck and used his palm to cover her mouth. Her screams became muffled but she didn’t stop. Zizi was still oblivious to what was happening. She was singing a song and talking to herself. The Peugeot swerved off the main road and plunged into a bush path, brushing past tall plants and grasses, galloping. They drove on for a while farther into the bush and halted several minutes later. The ladies where dragged out of the car by Bello and Maliki. Zizi was gradually becoming conscious of the events around her, conscious enough to know that there was trouble. The two ladies kicked, screamed, cried and begged to defend their honor but the hefty men didn’t say a word. Lieutenant Dingi had been the one doing the talking. Talking was not their job.

The boys began undressing the ladies as soon as they hauled them on the wet grass. The piece they could not yank off, they tore out. The lieutenant watched his boys with a grin, a bulge growing in his trousers. The ladies struggled to break free but were no match for the soldiers. They were stripped naked and summarily raped. The lieutenant made the first move. He lugged off his trousers and went on to exhaust himself. Afterward, Bello and Maliki took turns. They were strong as horses. They ravished the women over and over again without a word uttered; only gasps of intercourse were heard.

The soldiers visited the boot of the car at intervals to take a swig of alcohol. The ladies continued to struggle, but their screams gradually become stifled until they were no longer heard. Darkness enveloped one girl and then the other.

Ngozi was the first to come around. She woke up to the smell of rodents, blood, mud and human waste. She attempted to scream, but pain gripped her throat and almost immediately she became aware of the soreness all over her body. She struggled to move despite the ache, groped in the dark, and made muffled sounds of help. After a few moments of trying to make sense of her environment, she broke down in tears. She wept softly but deeply. She thought about her family, her husband, her job. She thought about home.

“N…gozi,” Zizi called.

“Zi.. Where are you?” she said in a tear-choked voice.

“I am here.”

“Where?”

“Here for goodness sakes!”

They fumbled about and crawled and touched. Then they began another round of weeping. They wept till they had little strength to weep, and kept quiet. It was Zizi who first spoke.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“How? We don’t even know where we are.”

“It’s no use, girls. The hole is eight feet deep,” a female voice answered them and coughed.

“Who is there?”

“Who are you?”

There was no answer at first, only sounds of cough and spitting. The voice spoke again, “Let me guess? You went after them because they pay more. They told you to name your price?”

“Please who are you, where are we, and what the hell is going on?” Ngozi screamed amidst fresh tears.

It was obvious that the person talking did not sympathize with them. Their condition weighed nothing on the scale of her concerns. Rather, she expected the reality of their dilemma to dawn upon them. She expected them to accept their fate as she had done.

“They need your body parts for rituals, the president’s marabouts. They need your two breasts, your womb and your hair.” She coughed. “They say spiritual sacrifices must be made on behalf of the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief. His enemies must be crushed when they rear their ugly heads after he makes the decision to become civilian president for life. The schemes of coup plotters must also be foiled.

“They say he must be ready for their threats and attacks. They say the sacrifices will be strong enough to make his enemies mad or die mysteriously in their sleep. They say it will also make people agree with whatever he does. So, when the time comes, they will take you to the groove and consult the oracle. If the oracle says your meat is good and your blood is sweet, then you will say goodbye to Mother Earth. If the oracle says your meat is tough and your blood is bitter, then you will live, but wish you hadn’t. You would wish you had died with the others, you’d wish you had your breast severed and your womb carved out. They will wash their hands off you. They will not want to have your blood on their hands but they will not want you to leak their secret either, so they will throw you back into this pit and allow you to rot. My meat was tough and my blood was bitter.”

The girls again began to cry. Ngozi cursed Zizi for ruining her life and Zizi cursed Ngozi for cursing her. So curses flipped back and forth. Their grief seemed unbearable.

“It’s no use girls, accept your destiny in good fate,” the voice told them and spoke no more until morning.

The day broke and they saw who had spoken to them. Her name was Tamara. She must have been about their age, but she was looking like she already had one foot in the grave, and really she did. She was all bones and no flesh. Only a thin film of skin covered her naked frame. Her hair was short and brown with filth, so was her pubic hair. Her breast was flaccid and useless. She coughed often and spat blood anytime she coughed. When she was not coughing and spitting blood, she was sleeping. Sometimes rats would come and chew on her toes while she slept. Sometimes the rats would climb her body and fool around.

By the second day, the girls had begun to have meaningful conversations. They talked about their past and what they would do differently if they were given another chance. An inevitable bond was created between them.

Tamara began to cough and spit blood more often. On the fifth day she announced “Today is my birthday, you know? I am thirty years old today!”

“How do you know?” Ngozi asked.

“I have been counting since I got here, I drew marks here, see?” Tamara said pointing at rocky platform festooned by markings.

“Happy birthday Tamara,” said Ngozi.

“Happy life anniversary, my friend,” said Zizi.

Tamara died that day. The next morning Bello and Maliki men arrived to take their fresh victims to the groove.