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Update is daily.

For HeraScribbles

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Liz shot up with a faint gasp. Tears were streaming down her face and she shivered in fear. She quickly gathered the blanket around her to cover her body and the naked body beside her grunted from the lack of warmth the blanket offered.

She folded her legs under her chin, hugged herself and leaned followed letting her honey brown curly hair fall like an halo around her.

The light from the Star shaped glow in the dark stickers created a soft ambience around her.

Do you ever try running from the darkness, especially when the darkness resides in you? Its exactly how Liz felt every time she had the same dream. As always the dreams were vague, she tried hard to remember something but thinking about it always gave her a piercing migraine.

Repressed memories were like bad tooth. It's there eating away at you. Pulling out the tooth hurts, leaving it in isn't healthy for you either.

Her eyes temporarily followed the dark patch of hair on his chest downwards to his groin area and she felt disgust. Not because he wasn't a fine man but she felt her body tighten in arousal. He was taken deep nasal breaths that sounded like a pig grunting and it irritated her even more.

God! I hate men that snore.

Most rape victims could either have a high affinity for sex or detest it in total. Fate gave her the former instead of the later, so here she was hooking up with random strangers and foolishly letting them sleep over.

She still couldn't believe she let the guy she picked up last night in the bar spend the night. This mistake was one she never made, but seeing as the body was still firm asleep even after all the noises she made from her nightmare, she was safe.  At least, she wouldn't have to explain her nightmares neither did she want to be comforted by him.

Liz trudged towards the bathroom clad in only her birthday suit. Her feet almost noiseless on the polished, brown, wood floor.

Shower was a sacred time for her. She was grateful for the jets of water above that made it easier for her tears to mingle with it downpour before she began to scrub. Liz scrubbed under the hot water till her fair skin was red and almost bruised.

It was still too early to send Mr hot stranger out. Instead she settled for getting ready and updating her case notes on her Mac book.

***

The usual pale, brown, sad eyes greeted her in the mirror. It was housed in a round, oval face with smooth, shinny skin she got from her biracial British mother.

Liz stood in front of the huge mirror that had rose gold furnishings around the edges. It was more like a routine not because she wanted to admire herself. Sometimes she saw herself at other times she just stood there, staring but seeing nothing.

Being beautiful and feeling beautiful are two different things.

She wore all black. An off shoulder jersey material top tucked into high waist, skinny, ripped jean trousers and black Vans. Large gold hoop earnings that could pass as bangles and an apple customised watch was the only accessory she had on.

One last glance in the mirror and she moved towards the bed where her fling from last night still lay sprawled on the bed with the blanket barely covering his butt.

"Wake up," shaking his legs vigorously in anger. Even after taking a shower and getting dressed he still wasn't awake.

"Uhn!" He groaned out finally and turned covering himself more with the blanket.

"Last night was fun but you need to leave." She ordered and went about gathering his clothes that where tossed about in the room.

Mr stranger stretched his arms towards her and smirked but she just felt more turned off. "You need to leave, I have flight to catch Mark!"

His face suddenly twisted in confusion and anger, "my name isn't Mark, it's Marcus."

Well I tried, give me credit they sound alike. Liz simply shrugged and Marcus finally began to see the foolishness of staying naked where he wasn't wanted and started putting on his clothes hurriedly.

"Well can I get breakfast or even coffee?" He begged and Liz hissed.

"No, you need to leave." She said more firmly pointing towards the door.

"Why do you have to be so rude and haughty?" He asked with a sneer on his face.

Liz tried to breathe deeply and reason with him, "I have a flight to catch you need to leave Mark."

"Why didn't you just say that earlier? Are you daft or what? My name is Marcus!"

Liz listened to the way his words dripped with condescension, it must feel weird for him to have to do the proverbial walk of shame.

"Leo!" She shouted sharply and her German shepherd dog bounded towards her from his position in the hallway. The huge, brown, grumpy dog sneered and growled at the stranger taking his position beside Liz.

The next events that followed were comical, one man was running down the stairs with only boxers and an arm full of clothes chased by a dog close on his heels.

Liz enjoyed the show and laughed in dark humor. This was the first man she threw out using Leo and made a mental note never to let anyone ever spend the night again. Her box sat beside the door in preparation for her trip to Nigeria.

"Leo," she called out again and the dog rushed towards her, wagging his tail excitedly. Their pet bond was broken by the shrill  tone of her home line.

"Elizabeth Brown speaking" Liz answered lazily while stroking Leo's ear, who was suddenly lapping her all over the face.

The more she tried to avoid his licks cause of her makeup the more he was adamant on licking her more. It was always a game for him. Liz could swear he did things just to get the kick out of her sometimes.

An unusual silence greeted her response which was weird considering it was the person who called. "Hello," pursing her lips in anticipation as she waited.

A long stretch of silence dragged on again alongside it came a fresh wave of irritation. "Hello, who is this?"

She couldn't help the long loud hiss that fell from her lips and made to end the call when finally a subtle "hello," came in.

No!

Hell no!

That voice was one Liz was all too familiar with, it sounded close to hers anyway. She quickly slammed down the telephone back into its cradle. She did it so hard her body shook with tremors of a panic attack and she began to hyperventilate.

"Breathe Lizzy, breathe!" She spoke to herself calmly like she would to any of her patients who came to her for therapy. She got down from her position on the arm of the chair and squatted to the floor while taking large gulps of air to calm down.

She tried to picture her happy place, tried to count something she could see or feel, she tried to breathe.

It wasn't working so she resolved to the counting mantra something that always kept her sane, "15, 14, 13, 12," and as normalcy returned slowly to her system, hot tears bristled beneath her eyelids, trying hard to spill over.

Leo whined loudly and lapped at Liz's face trying hard to console her as best as he could and she smiled gently at his effort.

Liz stayed like that for a while on the floor just counting and hugging her fur baby. Its been years since she had an actual panic attack.

After a while, she gathered her stuff and that of the dog who would be staying with a colleague till she got back and locked the door gently behind her. Fortunately for Liz, she was going continents away from her mother.

*****

LAGOS, NIGERIA

"Holy shit!" Liz swore immediately she stepped out into the waiting tarmac of Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos Nigeria. It was hot over here in Nigeria, like hell fire hot if hell fire did exist.

Almost like the sun was cooking a meal and the children of earth were not fully cooked or rather roasted in this case. Her Dior black glasses was the only shield from this oven and she was already regretting not bringing a hat along.

How on earth did people living here survived?

Already hot and sweaty, compounded by the all black attire Liz dragged her luggage behind her. It was her first visit to Nigeria and apart from seeing her college best friend, Pamela whose husband had begged her to come and paid all expenses she wouldn't be here.

The custom check put her on the edge even more. Was Airport body search really necessary?

The woman who searched her had a permanent frown and kept pressing her body in a way that almost made Liz want to slap the frown off her face and change it to gladness.

She bit back her tongue twice from telling the woman to just quit her Job if she hated it so much. Why take a Job only to pass on your frustrations?

"Excuse me could you please stop rubbing on my laps? You have checked already vigorously." Liz snapped, her British accent making an appearance.

"What did you say?" The security lady whose airport tag read: Ngozi Johnson, asked through her nose in an attempt to mimic Liz.

"Your attempt to sound like me just makes you look foolish rather than intimidating." Liz returned and opened the door ready to cause an actual scene.

"This one dey mad o. Because you be oyibo you wan kon dey form for us." She hissed now and signalled for Liz to go.

Liz was about to leave when she turned back and left the woman a parting gift.

"Werey(Mad person)" she shouted back at the woman.

The shock on the woman's face was funny. Liz wasn't sure she pronounced it well but she knew that word from Pamela.She gave the woman a full toothy grin to irritate her more and finally dragged her luggage behind her. Even though she just acted confident she was happy the woman didn't respond to her in any thing other than English.

Ode.
Werey.
Mumu.

That's the entire sum of her Nigerian vocabulary in its chronological order if it had one. It was the regular curse words or slangs Pamela used according to their frequency.

One minute Liz was dragging her luggage, while searching for Pamela and the next she was pulled to a standstill as a walking supposedly sane human being crashed into her making her buttocks hit the floor with a loud thud and sending his phone flying out of his hands.

The universe is against me today!

The mans glasses fell revealing blue striking eyes which was weird for a man with chocolate skin and curly short black hair.

She remembered him though, he sat behind her during the layover flight in Casablanca. Once, she had felt as if someone was drilling holes at the back of her head and had looked sideways to see him. Even though she didn't bother to spare him a second glance she remembered he had shades on even in the plane.

Like who freaking wore sun shades inside a plane? People always thought it made them look cool but sometimes they just came off as stupid.

She would have remembered those eyes if she had seen them anyway.

"Are you okay?" He asked quickly then added, "Watch where you are going next time please." His voice was surprisingly husky and velvety, sharp and sweet at the same time.

Shocked at his audacity and lack of apology, after all he crashed into her not the other way round. Liz tried to answer him from her position on the floor gathering the contents of her sling bag scattered all over. She dusted her body after seeing that he wasn't planning to help her up at all. She sighted Pamela looking pissed and stalking towards them like an angry, mother Hen ready to fight for her Chick.

The rude man whose phone also fell was putting it all together now and kept hissing loudly and intermittently.

Liz was too confused about he source of his irritation and all in all fed up about the turn of the last two days. The flight had taken twenty two hours because of the Layover flight and she didn't even have the slightest energy.

He made to walk away only to be pulled back by Pamela with his shirt.

"Ogbeni(mister man) hold up!" She shouted in his face, wagging her spare hands in a circular motion beside her head, "are you mad? Did your nuts up there loose? Or you are just blind and stupid at the same time? You crashed into my friend and instead of you to apologize you are here forming James Bond." She screamed.

It was Liz turn to laugh at the shocked look on his face, he could barely answer Pamela's questions before she added "Sorry! Five, simple letter words which you should learn. With all this your fine face add a little character please."

She chuckled now at the look on his face, as Pamela began dragging her hand and luggage, leaving behind their stupefied, rude stranger standing in the center of the tarmac with his mouth wide open.

******

I really don't understand why people do their Job with so much anger and bitterness sha. Like it's no ones fault do it with Joy abeg.

Whatever you're doing, even if its a low menial job please do it with your heart. Smile and do it well.

Finally, the best way to start is to just start so here am I starting.

Please vote, comment, share link and follow.

Love and light always
Orex