Chp 3 - Make Me Forget

“Sanmi, please I need a room!” The man said urgently to the guy at the counter after scanning the faces of the people who were inside. The guy tossed him a key urgently with a raised brow.

“I will explain later, Let’s go,” he said to Tanya then turned back to the guy who was looking at her curiously “I am not here, Sanmi,” he said to the guy meaningfully.

The guy nodded without a sound, giving Tanya a respectful nod.

The room was a simple one according to Tanya’s standards. It was a far fetch from what her management team would have ever thought of getting for her. It consists of a bed, a table, a chair and a cable TV set up facing the bed. The toilet/slash bathroom door was open and Tanya could see how small it looked.

“Two people would need to stand or walk sideways in there for them to fit or crawl in fact,” she thought in amusement as she envisioned someone crawling on the probably grimy floor just so.

Tanya sat heavily on the chair as she thought of what had just happened.

Something she wouldn’t have thought would happen to her when she woke up that morning.

“Today had been the day for the unexpected, from Martinez’s betrayal to this,” she thought to herself as she remembered what had made her be at the spot where he had met her earlier.

“I can’t believe I almost got killed,” she muttered to herself then she looked up at the guy, who was looking down at the street from the window while standing sideways so as not to be visible from the street in case someone was monitoring him as well.

“I almost got killed because of a stranger today, someone I do not even know. My God!” She rubbed her hands over her face. “Do you think they are still after us? Could they have given up and gone back to….” She flung her hands. “To whatever it was that criminals do when they are not terrorizing people and making living a hell?”

“I am sure they wouldn’t stop for a while but let’s just hope they didn’t discover this place.″ the guy said matter-of-factly without looking back at her.

Her panic kicked in again “You me…you mean they can still discover us here? Do you mean we can still be dead by morning? That I can still be dead by this time tomorrow? ″ she struggled for breath as her panic increased.

“Well…. let’s just…” he looked back as he heard a thump behind him and he rushed to her as he saw that her eyes had rolled back in her head and she was struggling to breathe.

“Hey, hey,” he said, taking her face in his hands. He looked deeply into her widened eyes.

“Hey, breathe, breathe, there you go. Slow does it,” he crooned to her.

“I..I..ca…I can’t die now, I can’t,” she started hyperventilating.

He had no experience with hysterics in females and he thought of what he could do to distract her mind from the impending danger as the only other thing he tried to avoid more than he avoided female hysterics was having a female faint at his feet.

And she very much seemed like she would do that if he didn’t think fast about a way to diffuse the situation.

As hard as he thought, only one thing came to mind that he felt he could use to distract her.

He kissed her!

Tanya’s eyes flew open as she felt electricity go through her from the fusion of their lips to her tingling toes. Her heart rate decreased and then increased again for a different reason.

She trailed her hands up his arms, to his neck, and his shoulder.

And then she held his face as she moved back from the kiss. Her eyes trained on his bobbing Adam’s apple.

He looked shaken by the kiss as well as he looked away from her “Listen, I know I shouldn’t have done that. I am…”

“What is your name?” Tanya whispered.

“What?”

“I should at least know the name of the man I would probably die with, don’t you think? I am Tanya. I would shake your hand but mine is not so steady right now, my whole body isn’t.”

“Tanya. That is a beautiful name,” he said after giving her a long look. “I am Ayo, Ayodele”

“Hi, Ayodele, be sincere with me, okay? Who were those men chasing you tonight? Chasing us, I should say. Are you a criminal that I should beware of or an unsavoury character?”

He smiled cynically “Would you believe me if I said I am not?”

Ayodele felt like her look was penetrating his soul, so direct and full of meaning as it was when she muttered “I would believe you because I know that you wouldn’t lie to me right now.”

Ayodele sobered up and his eyes glistened as he remembered what he had seen that night. “No, I am not a criminal. I just witnessed...a friend being murdered tonight, that happened to be my crime,” he stated, humbled by the compassion and grief in her eyes for someone she didn’t even know.

He shrugged like it didn’t matter so she would stop looking so sad but he was unaware that the wetness in his eyes was increasing.

“Men,” she thought “When will they learn that tears are not demeaning?”

Ayodele wanted to turn his face from her as he felt a tear plop on his face, then another, and another but she wouldn’t allow him.

“Don’t hide from me, Ayo. The person obviously meant a lot to you, what is there to be ashamed of in that?” Tanya said as she proceeded to do something her family, her friends, her fiance, and her teams would never have believed that she could do in a million years.

She dragged his face back to hers, kissing him soundly. Pushing her tongue into his mouth as she tore at his shirt.

“Whoa! Whoa! Hold on a sec,” Ayodele protested and moved back a bit to clear his head as he looked at her eyes and saw a frenzied look in her eyes.

She didn’t let him go.

She seemed like someone who needed a kind of validation.

“Are you sure about this?” He asked.

“Why not, we’d probably be dead soon anyway” Tanya tried to reply flippantly but her voice caught on the last statement.

She looked into his eyes determinedly “Have sex with me. Make me forget about it all. Make me feel alive this moment,”