Lulu Akaki“How much for the hour ” I hear his rough voice ask. “For you, just 200 shillings” I answer. I knew what was coming. We had done this several times before. All I had to do was lie there and let him get on with his business. I was not happy about it, but fighting back only resulted in bruises and no food for a week. So I smiled as he walked in, helped him remove his clothes and lay on the bed. This was the part I hated most. He got on top of me and my mind did what it knew best. It drifted to another world…
“Mama, my shoe is untied” I smiled as I knelt down to eye level with my 5 year old son. We had gone past the stage where he needed me to tie his shoe-laces. But once in a while we played the game where he wanted me to do things for him, and I let him. I tied his shoe lace and watched him run off to join his friends in play. I knew it would be hours before he was ready to go back home. So I relaxed and thought of the coming week and the activities it held for us.
It had been a long time coming but in a week’s time I was finally walking down the aisle. I was going to marry my son’s father. Five years coming and I had finally accepted to get married. I was going to have my dream wedding. The wedding was just a formality for us, we had lived together for years but I was still excited about it. The day got closer and I got more and more excited. Nothing could get in the way of my happy ending.
The day was finally here and I could not wait to say those two words. The words that would make all the difference in our relationship. I walked down the aisle and said my vows. I turned to look at my husband and say the words we had waited to say for months. I opened my mouth to say “I do”.
The words were hardly out of my mouth when I snapped back to reality. He was on top of me grunting and sweating, right in the middle of climaxing. I felt sadness wash over me as I remembered where I was and what was happening. Tears ran down my cheeks as he finished up and paid my mother on his way out.
I thought of my dream, one I had experienced more than once. It was always the same, right before I said those two words, I snapped back to reality. I had seen my future; I knew how it would end. I wanted to say those words. I wanted to have my own family, to be happy. But I was stuck in a one roomed house, being forced to sell my body. I wanted that fairy tale wedding, but most of all I just wanted to grow up and end my life as a child prostitute.