Love v

I am going to limit myself to just two examples, the more and the most recent. The more recent is called Makuo’s-Mother. She was my colleague for a little more than four months may be less. Married, with kids some of whom are probably my age-mates. She is beautiful too, yes, yellow complexioned, tall, shapely, tending to look younger than her real age, yes. But none of these is really the point.
The point is she and I became ‘friends,’ this older, married woman. And those quotation marks I have enclosed ‘friends’ in are not at all idle, make no mistake. By Satan I should have vulgarized language to write, say, Ada and I became ‘friends’! If I had to write that sentence in respect of Ada it should read Ada and I became friends. Without the quotation marks.
Ada was as Makuo’s-Mother another beautiful-woman colleague of mine, only younger, single, and, I think, hoping or is it expecting to be married. Quite naturally if you like. The thing some people might call a ‘typical’ woman in fact. Ada might come to work in the morning and say good morning to me first or else I will say it to her first. Not that it really matters either way. Still if you happen to inhabit my Eastern part of Nigeria you will find that such an otherwise trifle thing as who says good morning first as yet is not wholly bereft of consequence. So though it doesn’t really matter either way, if Ada happened to say good morning to me first and I am in one of my lately more frequent evaluative temper I would hear its attendant hesitancy, like that sort, of an agonized choice, like she’s contemplating whether the granting of this boon would be ultimately worth her while or not. Not that this is Ada’s peculiarity, nor is it a suggestion that she is socially offensive, not at all. Indeed it may be that I am the only one who ever makes this manner of observation. So it’s not really so much about her as about me. I raise it here only because of the elucidating perspective I hope it might give to the point I am making about Makuo’s-Mother and I being ‘friends,’ that’s all. Actually I was friends with Ada too, as I was with the rest of my colleagues at this time, male and female, older and age-mates alike.
On the contrary if Makuo’s-Mother came to work in the morning she says ‘Nnaa good morning’ to me and I would respond ‘good morning Nne m.’ Now following the rules she has no business whatever saying good morning to me first. It’s like your mother waking up in the morning in my Eastern part of Nigeria and saying good morning to you first. In extreme circumstances that might actually betoken something quite ominous. It really might. But there it was. And of course being something of a freak myself I took it all quite in my stride. At any rate it might even be she took a shine to me in the first place because of that freak bit, you see.
After about three weeks of my becoming her and the others’ colleague, we transited to contriving an embrace to go with the good mornings. Again this is not a trifle thing. Face it, my Eastern part of Nigeria is still quite considerably a prudish civilization, and a woman hugging a man so publicly and blatantly is a remarkable degree of big deal as yet. It would be utterly unthinkable to Ada for instance to come to work in the morning and hug me as part of good morning ritual.
If at any event Ada happened to do that it might quite expectedly be as artificial and hesitant as her initial good morning. It might also mean she might have cause, say, to 'ask' me to 'help' her buy 'credit'  to be 'repaid' me later of course. Which of course I won't do. Which of course doesn't mean she's a bad lot. Which of course doesn't mean I'm stingy. At worst it would mean she was being a lady and I was being an ungentleman.
But Makuo's-Mother once we had got to this stage quite so spontaneously in our friendship would not for the life of her leave out the embrace upon any morning. There were days she would come to work and for some reason be constrained to forget that exotic bit of our good morning till she had fixed one or other onus at her table. Then she would suddenly discover that I had been there all along, let out a hushed scream. 'O-o-o Nnaa I don't think you and I have greeted today!' And I would just have to get up, out from my own table and navigate towards her who already is making her own way towards me, riding, both of us, on the wheels of the puckish giggles of the rest of our colleagues. And we would say our good mornings. Needless to say wrapped around each other's embrace.
And I happen to possess an emotional bosom whereas it would seem the more normal, perhaps more natural possession of mankind is an emotional penis. If you plant a spontaneous, fussless, disinterested, unhesitant, blatant hug on my bosom, you can bet to have stirred up all the tenderest emotions in me, every single time. So you may guess how it so ‘broke’ my heart to leave Makuo's-Mother so shortly for a new work place. Not even the convulsed tears streaming down Oge's eyes did that much to me, Oge of the sparkling cheek-dimpling smile.
The most recent example is called Munachi's-Mother. She has been my colleague for only very little more than a month now. Married, three kids, all of whom are still mere infants. I have met her husband too, this one, a black sort of round-headed soft-spoken man who I think is a luckiest man alive for that singular fortune of the sort of wife. But none of these is the point. Again the point is I and Munachi's-Mother are 'friends.'
I was barely three weeks old in this new work place where I met her when on a Sunday I visited their, the female staff, quarters following an innocuous joke cracked earlier while we were at work in the course of a just past week. There are single, younger ladies here too as in the old place. I am friends with them too of course. They were profoundly tickled to see me all right. They asked teasingly what in Satan's name I was doing in their quarters, registered the usual courteous regret about not having cola. Oh well, except for Munachi's-Mother. She sort of managed to ultimately monopolize me as her personal guest following the prevailing submissions of courteous regret. I ended up with a decent dish of foofoo and ora soup. And a can of beer to booth! And that was it. The gesture has repeated itself since, as spontaneously, and fusslessly, and unhesitantly, and disinterestedly, and blatantly, with the result that all the tenderest emotions in me have been stirred up, being a possessor too of an emotional stomach, you see.
Of course the single, younger ones have ultimately on occasion made such another gesture. But then it’s never the same thing. You may find that it’s an initial step in the ‘asking,’ say, a ‘favour’ of you. Like the one who ‘asked’ another male colleague of mine to ‘please’ ride her on his motorbike to the gas station so she can refill her cooking-cylinder. This colleague came back from the granting of this favour only to regret it aloud in my hearing. Something to do with ingratitude I think. Poor thing. ‘Come on man, she’s a lady!’ My belly was bursting from sheer laughter. Of course this again doesn’t mean they are a bad lot, these single, younger ones, not at all. It only means I am probably an incorrigible freak.
So I find that, oftener, I and older, married women tend to be drawn more reflexively, more spontaneously to each other. I find oftener that what they and I feel towards each other, what we have between us, is much much closer to what human beings are striving to nominate when they speak of love. Perhaps because it contains the barest predation and tension and opportunism and… oh it makes you want to do something so mind-blowingly sweet towards them that their men will give you a deathly kick in the crotch!