The Pandora's Box

S

TARK NAKED, MY BLEARY eyes riveted on the naked corpse beside me on the bed. Her eyes were wide open towards the ceiling, and drool was all around her mouth. Panic gripped me and my heart thudded in my chest like artillery.

It was 10:47pm now in the ambience of the red lighted room of Quincy hotel, where I was stuck with another man’s wife who happened to be dead.

My head was imploding, scores of thoughts rioted inwardly. The loudest of it indulged me to run off. Another little one warned me that if I did, I would eventually be caught.

 I frequented the hotel and was known by most of the hotel boys. Once my description got to the police, and then my car, her family would only think of only me and pointed finger. I mean, I drove a red Audi car with LFC’s sticker on the wheel screen.

I had the complexion of Ramsey Nouah and the height of Desmond Elliot. I had bulging eyes of Segun Arinze. Believe me; this description would reel me out. The hotel would then confirm me as her secret lover and killer.

I didn’t kill her though. I mean, not voluntarily. We had sex, great one at that. But yes, we had it rough, the way she’d always liked it. Then in the middle of it, she began to convulse, having seizure. Suddenly she died. My gut told me she had had a bad heart and it failed. The scene kept replaying in my mind. It was so vivid.

I tried to save her. Heavens know I did. I even put my blackberry between her gritted teeth. I knew what I was buying all along, now I only had my self to blame. 

A sudden rap on the door jolted me back from my delirious thoughts, a knock I’d expected. I‘d booked a two-hour short time and it was out. I prayed silently it was Peter, the room service boy I was friendly with the most.  

I couldn’t contain my nerves. They jumped and sent my whole body into a shudder as mad rush of blood moved through the vessels under my skin.

I miraculously moved my laden legs to the door though. Still naked, I opened the door slightly. There, Paul was standing.

“Your time is up, sir”, he said politely, “I’m sorry to…”

“Paul”, I said, “There –is- a –pr-ob-lem”, I said incoherently.

“Problem?” he retorted in bewilderment.

I let him into the room. He saw the diminutive naked figure on the bed, and didn’t flinch.

“She’s dead”, I said.

“Seizure?” he asked and then sauntered closer to feel her cold body.

“Yes” I retorted, “How did you kn…?”

“The drool” he said pointing finger at her mouth.

He told me he had to go and get the manager. Each breath I took hung halfway as I waited for the manager.  Less than five minutes later, Paul reappeared with the bald headed man.

“Who is she, and what happened?” the manager asked, trying hard to comport himself.

He knew me as a good customer. Sometimes he hung in the bar with customers when EPL football games were showing on the cable TV. We supported the same team, the Reds. I explained how she’d died and all. He understood I couldn’t have killed her because over the years I had brought scores of women including this dead one to the hotel and none had ever died on me.

“Her name was Lillian. She was my neighbor’s wife and a mother of three” I’d explained, “I’m dead. How do I explain this to her family, or mine? That I poked and prodded her to death?  I’m so dead” I huffed.

“Oh, The police…?!” I nodded in regret.

“Police?” the manager retorted derisively, fidgeting around the place and nodding his head simultaneously. I was bewildered.

“This is a repeated occurrence here, the third as a matter of fact.  You are not the first”, he started. I was all ears, every hair on my body bristling. “I’m going to tell you what most hotels do” he paused and then perched on the edge of the bed, with his bald head he looked like a vulture, looking at me sternly for body language, he continued.

 “They let the customer get the dead body out of the hotel quietly and ditch”, he continued.

My jaws were suddenly on the floor instantly. He spoke on, however.

“The police don’t care if you killed her or not. They will only come here acting CSI Miami, with the media  taking no prisoner, shooting the bad movie titled A Man Sexually Kills Neighbour’s Wife in a Hotel”, he hesitated, then continued. “This is bad publicity for all of us, lives will be affected. And it is very bad for business. Our customers will feel exposed and start going to other places, worse still think that this place is cursed or something”

“Is that what I’m supposed to do now, get her body out of here and thrash?” I asked with a hangdog’s look I guess.

He said nothing and just looked away like it was my choice to make. I buried my face in my palms and pondered for a moment.

Time was volatile. I had to make up my mind fast. So I thought deeply. I’d been given an easy way out and the odds were good.

I heaved a long sigh and my mind was now made up.  I was nailing this Pandora’s Box for good. I agreed to the plan. Get the dead body out. Ditch. Move on.

The manager told me to go and wait in my car and leave my trunk unlocked. In my car, I waited for about ten minutes, praying this plan didn’t go south once I was out there on my own with the corpse.

I would no longer have the benefit of claiming I’d killed her sexually in the hotel. I’d given up my lodging receipt. So the hotel had deniability I was ever there on the night. My crime would change complexion.

However, I was taking my chances. I was getting rid of the body. Otherwise, shame would kill me before anyone recommended jail.

After a while, the electricity went off in the whole hotel. Someone must have engineered that. I guess it was in the plan. It was unnecessary though; I saw no one loiter in the premises.

Suddenly, I saw Paul hurry out through the reception with a Ghana-Must-Go sack poised on his shoulder, big enough to haul a human being as diminutive as Lillian in it. He came around to the trunk of my car and gently placed the sack into it. It contained the dead body of the woman I’d sexually killed. 

Suddenly, the hotel’s light came back on. Paul shut my trunk and gave me a nod to move on. I put fire in my car and drove off in a trice.

I drove for a few minutes and then veered into the expressway. There were curtains of grasses by the sides. And jungles were deep inside. I found a perfect spot and parked.

I got out. The place was dead dark, silent and empty. Though, I pried. Then I quenched my headlights and depended on the moonlight. I opened my trunk, and unzipped the sack to confirm it was her in it. Lillian’s face sent me a chill and I felt my heart bolting into my throat. Each breath became heavy for me again.

 I wasn’t proud of what I was about to do. I managed to lift her out of the trunk. I hauled her into the bush and dumped her. I scurried back into my car and purred away.

I drove into my compound and parked. Once out of the car, I was faced by the block of four flats where my family and Lillian’s family lived. Suddenly Henrietta, her twelve years old daughter appeared   on the balcony from the living room to see if my car was a cab returning her mother home. She waved at me and I did back. Then she went back inside.

I stared at the sky, the moon looked exactly like Lillian’s dead face, and real tears trickled down from my eyes. I quickly wiped it.

I walked into my apartment like a sinner from church on a Sunday. My wife, Tessie was still up watching Big Brother Africa on the TV. My twin daughters, Honey and Melody had already gone to bed. I kissed my wife on the forehead, trying not to meet her eyes that would probe. She sensed something was wrong. She saved the pleasantries and gripes though. I headed to my daughters’ room to kiss them goodnight.