[size=8pt][size=8pt]The lady was looking at me. This was in the heat of the hot afternoon, in the spin of motorcycles and vendors, she was looking down at me from the backseat of her jeep. Her stare was too direct , not sufficiently vacant. She was not just resting her eyes on the car that was standing next to hers, as people are wont to do in lagos traffic; she was looking at me. At first , I looked away but then I directed my gaze back at the haughty silkiness of the weave that fell to her shoulders in loose curls, the kind of hair extensions that was popularly known as Brazilian Hair and was paid for in dollars in the prestigious Victoria island hair salons, at her fair skin, which had the plastic gleam that comes from using expensive creams; and at her hand, her forefinger was covered in expensive jewels which she raised to wave away a magazine hawker away, with the ease of a person used to waving people away. She was beautiful, or perhaps she was just so unsual looking, with eyes that were deep in her face. She was the kind of woman I imagined my lovers wife was, a woman who was accustomed to having everything done for her, who loved all her whims to be met as soon as they surfaced.

My lover, it sounds a little overemotional, but I don’t ever know how else to refer to him. Boyfriend seemed wrong for a stylish man of 45 who carefully slipped of his wedding ring before he touched me. Chijindu called him ‘your man’ with a faintly condescending smile, as though it was a joke both of us shared. He was in reality not mine. ‘Ah you are always in a hurry to leave because of this your man’ she would always say as she tilted back in her chair smacking her head with her hand over and over. Her scalp was itchy beneath her weave, and this was the only way she could come close to scratching it. ‘have fun, as long as your spirit accepts it, but as for me, I cannot have sex with a married man’ she said this often, with a self righteous tone as I packed my file and shut down my computer for the day.
We were friends by inevitability, because we had both graduated from Enugu campus and ended up working for mtn, in lagos as the only females in the community relations unit. Otherwise, we would not have been friends. I was vexed by how full of simplified certainties she was, and I knew that she thought I behaved like an irresponsible dimly foreign teenager; wearing my hair in a natural low cut, smoking cigarettes right in front of the office building in the full glare of everyone and refusing always to join in the prayer sessions our boss led after Monday meetings. I would not have told her about my lover- I did not in fact tell her about my personal life- but she was there when he first walked into her office, a lean dark man with a purple tie and an affluent manner. He was full of the sleek self regard of men who shrugged off their importance in a way that only highlighted it. Our boss shook hands with him with both of his hands and said Welcome sir, it is good to see you sir, how are you doing sir, please come and sit down sir.................

Captivating from the very first paragraph. I'm following already!