Elusive Skin

Vintage Monday; long day at the office. Nearly four of your active working hours spent at the mercy of
a female judge who could scream at you for not inhaling your God-given oxygen properly in court (her cynicism is otherworldly; legend has it that
she has dressed down a lawyer to the point where he chose to give up legal practice.) You come back
to the office exhausted, and after some more lengthy paperwork, you close from the office at a time when the Sun has retired to bed.

You negotiate through the traffic, wondering why the roads are so choked up when it’s not Lagos.
You eventually get home to supper that has long lost its heat. You take a glass of cold water, hoping for a clear head, but the result is the direct opposite. Barely managing to undress, you collapse on your lonely mattress and begin to punch at your
phone’s keys. For some reason, you decide to go through your photos for the 52nd time, and while you have seen them all before, there is one
particular one that makes you stop scrolling. You decide to spare a minute (or longer) to stare at a
lady with a very seductive pout. You can never get enough of this photo. Afterall, it’s Naomi’s face in
it.

It’s been just over two years since you first met Naomi, but if your thoughts were race tracks, she
must have run marathons on them. She is over 180 kilometres away from you though, and in your
case, the saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder” plays out to perfection.

You didnt like Naomi when you first met her. You had both met at law school, you had heard about
her exploits at the university (she graduated top of her class), she had this “carriage” you couldnt bring yourself to deal with, and you concluded that she was a snob. But you found yourselves in the same (imposed) study group, and like a flower which sprouts out of
concrete, a friendship begins to evolve against your will.

You find out that she used to dance ballet, and on some cold evenings you crave for private dance instructions. The nose which you once felt was too high up in the air is now the prettiest nose ever,
superior even to Cleopatra’s. You watch how she contributes to group discussions, you watch how she answers questions in class, you watch how she studies in the evenings, and one silly feeling
you cant explain keeps popping up. Her focus, her intelligence and her drive inspire you and turn you
on at the same damn time. She reveals that she
supports your favourite team,  Manchester United. You have attained Candy Crush level 5000….

But she is so out of reach, at least in your opinion. Whether it’s a complex or just plain nervousness, you can’t say, but you just harbour the belief that Naomi can’t be yours. She is so pretty, and you are not sure if you have what it takes to beat the
competition. As far as you are concerned, she is “high maintenance”, and you dont have that financial might just yet. Then again, there is the issue of calendars; Naomi is most likely older than you (well, she attended a state university which experienced
lengthy internal strike actions.) It’s not a big deal for you, but she has a biological clock, and besides,
society has its reservations.

You have put up her photo on Instagram and BBM as your #WCW (Woman Crush Wednesday) on more than two occasions. You dont mind putting it up as your BBM Display
Picture tonight, but you are in no mood to entertain questions. You look at her pouted lips again; they look like they would taste like sugar,
and you definitely wouldnt mind trying to find that out, probably covered in rain. You come to terms
with reality however, and you sigh in the realisation that you won’t be stroking that hair, that those lips won’t be locking with yours, that you won’t be waking up next to that skin, and that you can only admire and fantasize from a distance (at least for tonight).