Fourteen

"You said you don't find Skylar attractive. Unless you're gay, I don't see how that can be. Plus you aren't involved with anyone. I've never even heard you talking boys."
"Just because I'm not in a relationship doesn't mean that I'm not in love with someone." This too is a lie, well, perhaps not. The guy I'm pinning for doesn't even know I exist. Celebrity crushes are the worst.
She pauses. "This is the first time I'm hearing of this. Who's he?"
"If I told you I'd have to kill you... That sort of thing." When she rolls her eyes, I add, "But I promise, you'll be the first to know, okay?"
"Yeah, sure."
When we reach my house — a rectangular white, six bedroom house with a huge kitchen and flowers that grow obediently on their carefully tended beds — the porch light isn't burning.
Where's everybody at this evening?
"I'll see you tomorrow," I call out to Okoh.
"It's a date," she shouts back. She lives two doors down the street. Though her house isn't anywhere as big as mine, it has what mine lacks most, warmth. The feeling of home. She's going home to a sizzling meal. When she enters her house, baked green beans and burnt, grilled stake will beckon her towards the kitchen. When I enter I'm greeted by a empty pizza box on the doorway and silence.
"Papa? Daniel ...?" I shout. "You guys home?"
No answer.
I enter the kitchen, fix myself a bowl of cereal and get started on dinner. By the time the food is ready the sun hangs low on the horizon.
I hear laughter upstairs. It's a girl. She's giggling. Shouting stop between uncontrollable fits. Daniel must've bought Samantha home again. He's probably tickling her. Samantha's the only girl he brings home.
Papa would oust him out the house if he came home to whatever is happening in that bedroom. I have to see inside that room. Shivers spring out of me but the fading sun has nothing to do with it.
This is no ordinary situation. Daniel has a way of getting himself into the worst possible predicaments. The thump, giggles and male voice are coming from our father's bedroom. Papa would let it slide if Daniel had sex with a girl in his own bedroom but if Papa were to come home to whatever is happening in his bedroom, he would lose it.
Dammit. Daniel can be so stupid sometimes. But since I love him so much I won't risk Papa finding out, even though Daniel seems to have no qualms about it. Somebody has to be responsible; and since I am the one who popped out first, it has to be me.
As I jolt up the wooden stairs, adrenaline is surging through me. Now that I'm outside my father's door I take a moment to curse Daniel to hell and back. I'll have to get those sheets clean before the old man gets home. I want to knock first before I enter, I'm kinda afraid to go in. Believe me, I don't (and I mean it) want to see my brother naked or some broad with a perfect pair of tits(that's how Daniel likes them).
I knock three times. No answer. There's more giggling and clicking of glasses. Gosh, what is Daniel thinking? Not only bringing a girl home to Papa's bedroom but also alcohol?
I gather my courage with a huge intake of breath and open the door with short lived confidence. I'm standing in the middle of my parent's presidential suite inspired bedroom door utterly dumbfounded.
The sheets are in a tangled mess on the floor, moans of ecstasy fill the room, while Samantha mounts the man with unusually large feet and uses her hand to slip him side her. Once Samantha has him deep inside, she begins a slow rotation of her hips. Samantha holds her partners hands down above his head and lets her firm chest touch the man's mouth, nose, eyes, cheeks. The man pretends he is trying to break free. His hands caress Samantha's lean back and finally rest on her curves, just where I'm certain Daniel rests his during sex. The man lifts himself up and Samantha grips a pillow in her fists and lets out a soft moan. Sweat slips down her back into the man's hands. The sloppy sounds of their movements make my eyes water. I blink once, twice and the bodies come to focus again. I can make out the man's face now. It is Papa. Zayed fucking Addas. My father.
This is not happening.
Papa's eyes flash open and he blinks. His widen in horror and then he gasps and scrambles to his feet.
"Dammit, Kadre, what the hell are you doing here?" Papa asks, his voice is a mix between anger and hopelessness. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!"
An outbreak of unfamiliar emotions flow through me, nearly knocking me down as my hand grips the chest of draws to steady myself. I'm unwilling to pull my eyes away from the excruciatingly familiar face.
Samantha pushes her perfect body off the bed. Even a fool can tell she is a model, at five feet six inches, she is glorious. Her long wavy light brown hair is in wild disarray, her high cheekbones flushed from ecstasy, her blue eyes as bright as the sky on its worst. I can't deny she looks beautiful even now. With sweat dripping down from her forehead to her generous chest, stomach heaving from the recent work out.
"Dammit, Kadre!" Papa is dressed now, in cargo pants and white t-shit that he's never worn before. What the hell is happening? "Couldn't you knock or something?"
Confusion ripples through as the shock makes me numb at the knees. Maybe this is all just a bad nightmare. One I should wake up from. Please.
"I did. More than once." I finally utter.
"Fuck, if you'd just told me you were coming. You said you were going to a friend's place." Papa continues. He can barely hide his anger at me. "It's your fault you had to see this."
I don't understand. My father doesn't swear. Nor does he have sex with high maintenance teenagers with their love of credit cards, manicures, tight yoga pants and incessant demands. (Not all, but still.) What the hell is going on here?
"Shit!" Papa sits at the edge of the bed. And runs a shaky hand through his silver hair. "Sorry, kid," he continues. "But I promise, it's definitely not what it looks like."
"Wow Papa, couldn't you be original at least." I breathe through the nose to calm myself. "Of all the excuses you could give me, you give me the oldest one in the book?"
"No. No. You have this all wrong." his hands are in front on him now, waving from side to side. He always speaks with his hands.
"Really?" My eyes hurt from the deep frown I feel on my forehead. "You were having sex with your son's girlfriend." The bile rises up my throat. "Ex-girlfriend." Now.
Papa sighs. "You won't tell Daniel."
Are you shitting me? I want to say you can bet your sorry ass I will, but of course, like the perfect daughter I am (supposed to be?), I nod and point at Samantha. "But she has to stop seeing Daniel. And you too, this is the last time y'all are together, okay?"
"Seriously kid, you weren't supposed to see that."
Samantha walks towards me.
“Can we all just talk this through?” she asks, motioning to the empty desk on my left, were she was previously sitting. I nod and shuffle to the chair. I take her previous seat.
“So how long have you two been screwing each other?”
Samantha, at least, has the decency to look guilty. "Something close to two years now. This is a business deal. It's a mutual beneficial thing. Look, Clara, I like your brother but there's just something... Odd about him."
I look at her dark make-up, at the three tattoos of the devil on her body and say, "Oh, I'm sure. And Papa, how could you? You were so hard on Daniel but you're also ..."
"Kadre, this is none of your business." He sits up straighter. "Still ... I'll make it up to your brother."
My father's idea of apologising is a shopping spree in Paris (for me) and a trip to Los Angeles (for Daniel).
"I'm so disappointed in you, Papa." I spring to my feet. Point at Samantha. "When I get back I better find you gone. If I even suspect you two are still seeing each other, I will tell Daniel. And Papa, you know your relationship is rocky as is. Can't believe you'd betray your own son."
"Kadre, wait, where are you going?"
"For a walk, Papa, I need some air." I'm pissed off. My voice taunts. "Do I need permission for that?"