Clementina’s Sweet Pleasure Spot (CSPS)
Ayotola Tehingbola
WELCOME to Clementina’s Sweet Pleasure Spot. Oga BBC, balance well, okay? Or else. If you fall, nobody will carry you here. There is no ambulance or 911. Angela, these bottles of Coke are not cold. You wan make these Oyinbo people faint for my hotel? You are welcome, my August visitors. Who is Clyde among you? You are the one they told me about? Make yourselves at home. Only me? BBC? When Big Poppy told me that one international journalist wanted to interview me and my business, I opened my mouth wide and couldn’t close it. This small me? Hope this red lipstick is not too red for the camera. It is my signature look. You see me walking down the street with my red mouth and gold walking stick and you just know Madam Clem is in town. Cameraman, what is your own name? Seth? Make me fine, okay? Make sure you edit the video well well, remove all these wrinkles. You people are welcome.
No. Oga, Cly, or whatever your name is, I said no. You cannot interview my girls. Come and be going then. I know you came from abroad but I don’t care. Don’t you know where you are? No be Naija we dey? You wan carry their face put for TV? If you are here to do an interview and you have not asked how to do things here, maybe you are not ready. Is prostitution allowed in your country? Okay, but you know it is not allowed here, yes? So why are you now doing anyhow here now? I’m in the business of saving these girls. All these girls. I know all of them one by one. I know their pain. I know where they came from. I have protected them and I’ll continue to protect them. Don’t you understand what kind of business this is? When I’m talking to you I won’t even give you their real names. I will tell you what you need to know, all six of them. I have more that come and go, but these ones are the ones that stay here. My regulars. This house has eight rooms. Me and my husband Dawi share one. Six for each girl. And one extra for short stays. Yes, I’m married. You think this ring is fake? This ring is not fake. It shock you? It shock even me!
Why did we become prostitutes? Why does anybody become a prostitute? And why not?
I did not plan to get into this business but I don’t regret it. Never. I came to Lagos in 1994. I was sixteen years old. My cousin came to Lagos a year before I did and we were hearing only good news about her. The house she was working in was good. They gave her new clothes, and she slept in a big bedroom, only her. They put her in school and she sent her report card home. She came first in her class every term. And the madam and oga said if she kept coming first they would sponsor her education, all the way to university. I was living with my brother then, he was looking for work, thinking of becoming a driver, and there was no money for school fees for me. He didn’t want to let me go to Lagos, but after some time, there was no choice. We just kept praying that whatever madam and oga I get would be kind. My employers were not bad people, but most of the time, it was like I wasn’t even there. My madam had a big shop in Balogun market and I was cleaning and carrying goods and running around to buy drinks for the customers. Unfortunately, they didn’t put me in school but the work was not hard. And the customers always gave me small change. I spent three years in that house. It wasn’t bad at first and I was saving money. Then, katakata burst, everything scatter. Their son came from England to visit them. As usual, you know what happened. This their son is married and has children in England. He tried to touch me and I gave him an uppercut like this, see. Big blow to his chin. He went to go and report to his mother, and you know what she did? She beat me. The woman that has never even shouted at me in three years beat me and sent me out of their house. She didn’t let me pack my clothes, my load, nothing. All the money I have been saving, poof. She didn’t let me go back inside the house. I would have gone back to my brother, but no head, no tail, I had nothing. There were no phones like we have now. That night, I slept in front of her shop in the market hoping that I would beg her in the morning and she would accept me back. The extra beating I received, I cannot begin to describe it for you. This my walking stick is not for fashion. I was so hungry and my hands were shaking, like this, see. I helped people carry their loads to their cars for small change or else I would have died of hunger. I didn’t have anywhere to sleep. Every night, I would go from under the bridge to an empty church or a car park to sleep. Do you know what kept following me? Men. The thing I did not allow to happen inside my madam’s big house followed me everywhere. After some time, I started sleeping under cars. I would stay still and try not to move, try not to make a sound. I thought nobody would find me there. But this Lagos? Eventually, one man pinned me down. All my running was for myself. He did what he did. I decided, look, if these men want to take, they can take. Is this what I was protecting? But, if they must take, they will not take for free.
Did he rape me? Are you not hearing me? What do you think? And who have they not raped in this country? They have raped all of us.
So you see Angela, the girl that brought your Coke? She is my second-in-command. She was the first person that my brother sent to me. This house is a place of escape, a place of security. After like three or four years of being on my own, I started to send small change to my brother, Orode. He started to think I had money. Everybody outside Lagos thinks everybody inside Lagos has money. They think anybody can come here and make it. I told him what I was doing, honest to God, and he didn’t even shake, didn’t even blink his eyes. He just said we all must do what we must do. Then after some time, he wrote to me that he needed me to help him take in Angela. Her husband was beating her. As if that was not enough, he was teaching her three boys to beat her too. Yes, she has three boys. She does not look like it, I know. I like to call my girls girls. No customer that comes here wants to sleep with a woman. Every man wants a girl. So, imagine your own child beating you. I don’t have children, but a child that I pushed out from my own toto beating me? The first child beat her. The second child learned to do the same. Angela’s brain came loose when the last one, just seven years old, small chonkolo thing like this that you can carry with one hand, threw his cup at her head because he wanted more beans and she said no. She descended on the child and then her husband and her other two children descended on her. She lost three teeth. You can’t see it, but under that wig, there is a wound where hair cannot grow anymore. I don’t know how my brother met her, and I didn’t want to know. He wrote to me about her and I told him that as long as she was okay with this line of work, I will be there for her. Two weeks later, she was in Lagos. I always release my girls after five years of working for me. Angela has been with me forever. She was here when I laid the foundation for this house. She has said she will be here till the day she dies.
My funniest girl is Hajara. That girl can make any man laugh. She is a hijabi. Even when she is with customers, she keeps her hijab on. You can never see her hair or her neck. You would think that is a problem in this line of business, but it is not. It just means when the Muslim men come, we are ready for them. They like it, walahi. They feel holier somehow, closer to Allah, doing it with a hijabi. Even the ones that are not Muslim want to have the experience of sleeping with a hijabi. Some of them, when they enter her room, will start trying to remove her hijab. She just has to scream and Big Poppy will enter and throw them out. Hajara came to me just four years ago. Her time with me is almost up. Hajara has suffered seizures since she was a small girl. Many people in this country see seizures as a curse. So she didn’t find a husband till she was sixteen. But, when her husband’s family came for inquiries before the sealing of the marriage, they found out that she had not been cut. They nearly canceled the marriage but Hajara’s family begged them, that they didn’t do the cutting because of her seizures. What if the seizure starts when there is a blade between her legs? But the husband’s family said she must be cut before they marry her. If you see Hajara, she is a big woman. How many people will hold her down? And by now, she was old enough. How will she endure the pain? So she ran away from home. It took her a while to hear of me and find me, but she eventually found me. And I told her, you don’t have to change yourself in Clementina’s Sweet Pleasure Spot. Keep the hijab on. Come the way you are.
When Patience came here, she said she had to leave her husband’s house and village because everybody believed she was a witch. I told her, all of us are witches. Patience did not get pregnant after she married. The first year, the second year, the third year, she kept counting, nothing took. So her husband married another wife. By the second month, the new wife was pregnant. Then, she lost the baby. She got pregnant again, another miscarriage. This new wife went to her church, and the prophet saw a vision that Patience was the one eating her babies. That Patience made a deal with the devil and ate her own children too, that is why she could not have babies, and now, she was eating her co-wife’s babies. All these prophets and the things they see, the things they say to destroy lives. Her husband sent her out, and her parents did not accept her back. Nobody will accept a woman-witch-child-eater. But I will.
Oga BBC. What will you eat? My girls will arrange anything you want to eat. There is abula down the road. The amala there is very light, and the soup? Heavenly. I like Mama Rafiat’s cooking. Everybody eats there. You will go to heaven and come back. There is rice and beans. I don’t go to the beer parlor because I sell drinks myself, but I have heard of the goat meat there. So soft the meat will just be falling off the bone like this. If you want, plantain and roasted fish are available. Pounded yam and egusi. They will make it for you fresh, a la carte. I will tell them not to put plenty of pepper so that your face will not turn red. And I have cold drinks, mortuary standard. You must try Big Stout. Have you tried Big Stout? You will go to heaven and come back. You must experience the real Nigeria. Please excuse me for some time, my husband is back. I have to go to him.
I just knew you were going to ask me about him when I came back. We have been married for like a year now. Everybody could not believe it when we said we were marrying. I am older than him by almost nine years. We knew each other for just three months before running to the registry. I run a brothel. I am a prostitute. Who talk say old ashewo no fit find love? Are we not people too? Why can’t I love somebody and why can’t they love me back? This thing is a state of mind. You must see this business like any other business. My husband doesn’t have a problem. We have accepted our fate in this life. Like my brother said all those years ago, we all must do what we must do. I met Dawi over a year ago. One of my frequent customers is a police officer. Crazy man, he can get so angry, so drunk, but it is good to have these police people on your side. When the government is doing raids on prostitutes, he protects us. Or if Big Poppy cannot handle a customer we will call him. But who can’t Big Poppy handle? This my police customer, he can go and come as he likes, he doesn’t pay for anything. But he must never harass any of my girls. We have a good agreement. It works. That day, he came here, telling me of some people he arrested, that they were in the police van outside. I was so angry, that why would he bring prisoners to my spot? So, I went outside to see them to make sure they were not spoiling business for me. But they were small boys, they did not look like criminals. I gave them beer and told this officer to let them rest, let them stretch their legs. Dawi did not take the beer and said he does not drink alcohol. I asked the officer, what is their crime? He said they are Boko Haram people that came from the North. That is how Dawi broke down and started crying. He said he is not Boko Haram. That he is just looking for money in Lagos. That now what will happen since the police have seized his bike as evidence? He was just crying. Oga BBC, I like a soft man. These men in Nigeria are too hard. They will lock all their emotions tight inside their chest. That is why they are always angry. I have never seen a man that can cry in all my life, and I have seen many many men. I told my police customer to release him to me. He said no, that I have to post bail. See me foolish old Clementina, I paid. I paid the foolish bail money and gave Dawi a job. He cleaned. He carried. He did all the small jobs around the house. And in his free time, he was always in one corner reading. Or pretending not to look at me. One day, we sat down and talked and he told me about the sister he was looking for. That was the beginning of our love. Three months later, we were married. The most important thing is we understand each other. We know life is hard. We talk to each other. He is a simple man. He makes me tea, washes my clothes, and helps in the kitchen. He wakes every morning and goes to the beach for one hour, waiting, hoping that one day his sister will show up. He comes home, he cries on my lap and I hold him. I don’t want anything else.
Roseline’s mother was a prostitute in the eighties. Roseline is here because she wants to be here. The end of discussion. She came here at the age of twenty-two because she wanted to make it big in Lagos. She works hard. She goes to the bank every Friday to deposit her money, she keeps the deposit slips, and always rechecks them, calculating her money. She does not play. During the day, she is learning to sew. She prays for her success. She even has a picture of Jesus counting the rosary on her wall. She knows what she wants, and no one can stop her.
Lolade has been here for over seven years. I should actually kick her out. But my conscience will never allow me. It is for her own good. I understand Angela staying. But Lolade has not left because of fear. The outside world is scary to her. But why fear no go hook am? First, her father died of coughing blood. Next, her mother’s stomach started to swell until it burst. Her foolish sisters and brothers decided to sell her to a juju man because they could not take care of her. Do you know what a juju man is? Like native medicine. Like voodoo. Herbal medicine and spirits and the things not of this world we are not supposed to understand. This juju man in their town said he needed a young virgin and her foolish sisters and brothers collected money over Lolade’s head. A fourteen-year-old girl? We human beings are evil. The things her eyes saw in that shrine? God forbid. This is why I can never have children. Lolade is now twenty-seven but if you send her across the street, she will be shaking like a leaf. She has refused to learn any trade. She just wants to hide here. I don’t blame her.
Nnenna is the last girl. Her stepfather was coming to her room every night. And her mother knew. She kept waiting for her mother to say or do something, but when she got tired of waiting, she had a pot of hot water ready. The stepfather was vexed so much that he wanted to send both mother and child packing. But the mother chose to stay with her husband. So, Nnenna is here. Her mother paid her transport fare to Lagos. She likes cars. She has been training as a mechanic. And I hear that she is becoming so good.
Many women have come and gone and they have so many good things to say. Most of them now have businesses. They are tailors, hairdressers, waiters, cleaners, and nannies. One of them is even a driver. Some of them have gone to computer school. They know how to type, do photocopies, collect payments for bills. One of them even went back to school and got her National Diploma. That girl, she is a machine. Another got her teaching certificate and teaches in a nursery school. Things are not perfect here, I won’t lie. But there is something here. This place will let you start from the bottom. It is a choice that they made. The story is different for every woman. But in this particular place, we are survivors. Run-down brothel, cheap ashewo place, say whatever you want. But we have worked hard, and I’m proud of it. I have high standards in this place. You must pay in full even before my girls remove their clothes. You cannot beat my girls. You cannot harass them, or shout at them. Any man that does that, Big Poppy won’t allow him back here. You must use rubber. Before you even enter, Big Poppy will check that you have at least three condoms in your pocket. The girls must put it on for you and they are allowed to check during your time if it is still on. If some men try to remove it, then they are not allowed back here ever. Ever. If you want TDB — Till Day Break, the girls must get fifteen minutes to rest every hour. You cannot force any of my girls to swallow, you must ask first. If you want to do it through the back, Big Poppy will send you to the girls that like it that way. You cannot just ask any girl for that. All the different positions come with additional charge. So you should list all the things you want before you even enter the room. Whatever they bill you once you enter, you will have to take it like that. If you want two girls at a time, you cannot tell them to do each other and you will just be watching. This is not that kind of place.
So, when will the video be ready? You can send it to me on my WhatsApp. Let us exchange numbers, yes? Oga BBC, you know, for small change, one of my girls will take you to heaven and bring you back. I taught them well. You must try, for your research? Yes? Big Poppy? Call Roseline here for me.
