MR. LOVER & PLAYBOY (AFFAIR)
.jpg)
FADE IN:
INT. CONFERENCE HALL (SEMINAR) - DAY
-----
Camera opens on Loverboy teaching about love at a seminar. His words are powerful!
-----
LOVERBOY
The bible says "if you wait for a perfect time to sow, you will never sow". Likewise, if you wait for a perfect time to fall in love, you will never fall in love. Don't get it twisted, love is a beautiful thing. Very beautiful thing! You should fall in it today!
CUT TO:
-----
EXT. OUTSIDE THE PREMISES - CONTINUOUS
After the seminar, Loverboy steps out to meet Playboy who is seen addressing him over his seminar. Loverboy is tenderhearted and gets easily heartbroken. Playboy is nothing like that.
-----
PLAYBOY
O’boy, you know say you be my guy and I gats tell you the truth mehn. All those things you said in there don’t apply again these days. They’re just stories. Come to think of it, how can you coach on love when you aren’t even in love? That’s sick, mehn! Na people like me wey don love all the love finish, play all the games finish, suppose tell you how far for heart matters. See bro, a lover is a player, and a player is a lover. The earlier you get that into your head, the better. And, just so you know, that is probably something you should work on before you catch yourself a wife!
LOVERBOY
Playboy, I know say you be player oh, say you don love all the love, play all the games finish. But see ehn, I believe in love. Say I never fall in love before no mean. Listen, you must always maintain a positive outlook on everything. I don't have to be in love to believe in love. If I keep saying it and don't stop talking it like Pastor Chris puts forward, one day I'm going find and be in love with a perfect Lovergirl.
-----
Playboy gives a mischievous smile, as he shakes his head. Just some distance away, two pretty girls are seen giggling to their funny chit-chat. They bid each other farewell and part ways. Loverboy spots them and is carried away by the beauty of one. He approaches her sweetly.
-----
LOVERBOY (CONT'D)
Talking about love, I think I just found myself a bae.
(To the girl)
Excuse me.
-----
He leaves Playboy. Approaches the girl. Playboy watches.
-----
LOVERBOY (CONT'D)
Hi beautiful.
MONICA
Hello. Can I help you with something?
LOVERBOY
Oh yes, sweetheart. I sighted you from afar and I find you attractive. I know you might be wondering who I am, so I’d like to avail you the opportunity to get to know me, perhaps over lunch. My name is Loverboy by the way. What’s yours?
MONICA
Monica.
LOVERBOY
Nice name. So, how about we get acquainted over lunch?
MONICA
I’m not hungry.
LOVERBOY
Erm, that’s okay. Maybe now is not a good time. How about we do this some other day? You just give me your mobile number and I will give you a call later on.
MONICA
Abeg leave all these things! I know your type! You think you can use sweet mouth to whine me abi? One naira, you don’t have! You will just be speaking big English! “Yen yen yen!” Do you have money? Can you boast of three square meals daily?
LOVERBOY
Come on girl, love is not all about money, you know... See ehn...
Lines from Mr. Eazi’s song, “Surrender” cuts in at the background. Such a good time for that. Loverboy mimes to it, accompanying his miming with a demonstration of the lyrics thereof.
LOVERBOY
Wetin I get pass the money wey you want. If you give me a chance, I’ll give you everything I got. I swear to God that this my loving is enough. My love is enough!
-----
The song cuts out with Loverboy stretching out his arms towards her in an effort to stir her affection and possibly win her love. Monica seems to fall for the artful display momentarily.
-----
MONICA
Awwwnn...
-----
Monica reaches out for Loverboy’s hands, leaving his face graced with a joyous smile. Suddenly, she pulls away from him and starts to rant. She rants so bad it irritates him.
-----
MONICA
What am I supposed to do with your stupid love? You don’t have money but you’re looking for love, singing that stupid song for me! Does this place look like India to you? Ehn? Ewu! Mtcheeew! Better go look for something to do with your sorry life!
-----
Monica walks off fiercely, leaving Loverboy terribly dumbfounded. Playboy walks down and comforts him, reminding him of what he had earlier told him about romance-related issues.
-----
PLAYBOY
Shey you see wetin I bin tell you? This luv thing na mirage. Ee no dey real again. Woman no dey find man wey go love am. She dey find man wey go play am! Now, let me show you how it’s done. Watch and learn. You are good at learning, right?
-----
Playboy follows after Monica. Loverboy puts himself together, a little saddened by Monica’s attitude towards him. Just then, he spots another girl some distance away in a field around the premises. She’s on a call. He takes a deep breath, gets his shit together...and takes another shot at scoring himself a pretty potential lover. He gets to her just when she ends the call.
-----
SANDRA
That’s okay. I’ll keep you posted. Bring Shawama as you’re coming oo.
LOVERBOY
Hi gorgeous.
SANDRA
Hello there.
LOVERBOY
Aren’t you just pretty! Goodness me!
SANDRA
Thanks dear.
LOVERBOY
My pleasure. I was just around the corner when I spotted you and got distracted. So I thought I should come over and say hi. Do you usually distract people this easily?
SANDRA
(Blushes)
Hello there again.
LOVERBOY
I’m Loverboy. What’s your name?
-----
Music fades in. They dialogue. It looks good. Loverboy draws her a chair and takes his seat on the other side of the table. It looks funnily promising, judging from their interaction and reactions. It seems like Loverboy has found a bae. But the girl suddenly gets up to leave. He holds her by the hand. The song fades out on him miming to a line from Rudeboy’s song:
-----
LOVERBOY
Baby see ehn, “if I no get today, I go get am tomorrow.” Think about it, Sandra. I love you to the moon. You don’t have to love me too, you know. My love alone is big enough for both of us. Just give me a chance, baby, and I bet you are going to be so glad you did. I promise to love you more than dear Romeo loved his sweet Juliet.
-----
Music fades in. Loverboy moves closer and holds Sandra by the hand in an effort to establish some sort of emotional connection. It seems to be working. Sandra withdraws her hands from his and puts them on his chest. She starts to fondle his collar button tenderly, leaving Loverboy’s face graced with joyous smile again. But Sandra unexpectedly pulls away from him in an even worse manner than Monica did. Loverboy is terribly shocked and disturbed.
-----
LOVERBOY
But why? All I’m asking is a chance to love you. Is that too much to ask?
SANDRA
(Cuts him in)
Yes o! It’s too much to ask! Did you give me love to keep for you? Am I owing you love? Just look at this one o! All you’re asking is a chance to love me? Seriously?
-----
Mimics the line from Rudeboy’s “Reason With Me” that Loverboy used on her.
-----
SANDRA
“If you no get today, you go get am tomorrow.” So I should now come and start waiting for you to get tomorrow abi? Wait kill you there! Broke guys everywhere!
-----
Sandra disdainfully sizes him up and sighs. She walks away with reckless abandon, leaving him downhearted. Things get emotional. Loverboy’s mood switches to a sad one. He rubs his head and face pitiably. Playboy spots him from afar. Looks at him pitiably and walks down.
-----
PLAYBOY
What’s up bro? Why are you like this?
LOVERBOY
I can’t take this anymore mehn. I just can’t. I’ve had enough.
PLAYBOY
What happened? You look like you just had the shocker of your life!
LOVERBOY
Another girl just turned down my advances with reckless abandon.
PLAYBOY
Chai! My guy! When are you gonna quit this love thing? Leave love alone to rest abeg! If not, the next girl go chuk your heart like black arrow. You don’t want that!
LOVERBOY
I dodge am!
PLAYBOY
Good.
LOVERBOY
So, how did it go with that Monica girl?
PLAYBOY
(Laughs)
That girl? Her mata don dorne. Na to chop am remain.
-----
Just then, Monica is heard from afar bidding an unseen character goodbye. Both guys’ attention fall on her, as they watch her walk down. She waves romantically at Playboy with an endearing smile on her face the moment she walks a little close. Playboy returns the gesture.
-----
PLAYBOY
Sweetheart, don’t tell me you’re leaving so soon.
MONICA
I actually am. I have to be somewhere in a couple of hours.
PLAYBOY
I’m gonna miss you, baby.
MONICA
Awwnn. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine dear.
PLAYBOY
If you say so. But I doubt I will. Anyway, make sure you call me.
MONICA
Okay dear. I will.
-----
Monica then looks at Loverboy and throws him a forced wave. Shocked, he looks at her as she walks along, waving back in total bewilderment. It’s a funny sight. He then returns his gaze to Playboy who just smiles mischievously. Loverboy can’t believe Playboy pulled that off!
FLASHBACK TO:
-----
Playboy is seen whispering sweet nothings to Monica who buys into his whispers big time. It’s obvious she’s being played. They exchange smiley stares like teenage lovers. Monica is so deep into Playboy’s game, reacting childishly all the way. Sweet hugs and kisses follow.
BACK TO:
-----
LOVERBOY
What just happened?
-----
Playboy just laughs and throws his arm around Loverboy, as they start heading home.
-----
PLAYBOY
See bro, there’s no problem with you wanting to be a loverboy. But one thing you must know is that a lover is a player, and a player is a lover. You are already a lover. What you need to do now is to be a player. All a girl wants is to be played, not loved. When a woman says she wants to be loved, what she’s saying is that she wants to be played. And those ones who reject love are the ones who want to be played over the bar. It is only fair that you give them what they want, not what you want. Are you with me? What they want, not what you think they should want.
-----
Loverboy naively nods in concurrence. Just then, Sandra walks by. He notices Loverboy and just stares at him, behaving indifferently like she had never met him nor seen his face before.
-----
LOVERBOY
Bro, that’s the girl.
PLAYBOY
What girl?
LOVERBOY
The girl who turned me down when you were away.
PLAYBOY
Na she be dat?
-----
Both guys maintain eye contact as though figuring out something. They shortly exchange mischievous smiles that makes obvious what’s on their minds. Loverboy expects Playboy to go and play her. It’s also obvious that Playboy is more than ready to oblige. Without saying anything to each other but still maintaining the mischievous smile, Playboy pursues Sandra. Loverboy laughs, walks on. Another girl comes along, notices him, loses her chill instantly.
-----
LOVE
Oh God! Loverboy! Is this really you? Jeez! I’ve been looking forward to meeting you! My name is Love. You should remember me from way back! How are you?
LOVERBOY (V.O.)
(Disdainful look/thought)
Your name is love abi? Love my foot! If I want do love things with you now, you go begin act drama! Black Queen Eliza! I don’t remember you from way back please!
LOVE (V.O.)
(Excitingly thinks)
Oh my God, I wish he would just ask for my number. Ask please, ask! I can’t even get a hold of myself right now. Maybe I should greet him with a hug. A big hug!
-----
She rushes down to hug him but he motions her to keep off him. She’s lightly shocked. She’s the kind of girl he had been longing for: a girl who is ready to trade genuine affections. But now, he couldn’t care less about her genuine love and affection. He’s too hurt to trade feelings. He doesn’t even believe she’s for real. In her innocence, Love still tries to get to him. But the more she tries, the more he resists her. It becomes obvious that Loverboy isn’t buying what she’s selling. Love is short of words. She just stands and looks on, as Loverboy gives her some careless responses and walks off soliloquizing. Love expresses confusion and bafflement.
CUT TO:
-----
EXT. LOVERBOY & PLAYBOY’S APARTMENT - MOMENTS LATER
Loverboy is outside trying to undo his shoelace. Playboy returns to meet him there.
-----
PLAYBOY
(From a distance)
Baba what’s up?
LOVERBOY
O’mehn, nothing much. I just want to go in there and sleep away my sorrows!
-----
Playboy gets close enough and they exchange a handshake.
-----
PLAYBOY
Haha. Wouldn’t it be better to drink them away?
LOVERBOY
Nah. That’s temporary. The sorrow will be gone while I’m high but will be there waiting to consume me when I get low, and I’d have to deal with its after effects!
-----
Playboy laughs.
-----
LOVERBOY
So how far with the girl? Any luck?
PLAYBOY
Luck? I don’t need luck to hunt down a girl. I make it happen the way I want it to.
LOVERBOY
Hmmm. So, did you make anything happen with her?
PLAYBOY
Things have been set in motion. Ee be like say the thing wey dey carry dat particular girl waka strong small. But that’s just the way I like it. I like the challenge; the resistance. It puts me on my A-Game; brings out my full potential.
LOVERBOY
(Impressive laughter)
Playboy! Okay. So what’s the plan? How do you intend to hunt this one down?
-----
A call hits Playboy’s phone. He checks and sees the caller I.D. He refuses to take the call.
CUT TO:
-----
MONICA
(A little dispirited)
Why isn’t he taking his call? Maybe he’s busy. I’ll call again later.
BACK TO:
-----
LOVERBOY
Why ain’t you picking your call?
PLAYBOY
It’s that Monica girl. I need to keep her hanging for a while before giving her a little attention. That’s how you make it happen. I bet she’s dispirited this moment.
LOVERBOY
Why? She could stop calling after a while, you know, and you’ll lose. Take her call.
PLAYBOY
Hahaha. That’s not how players do, bro. You need to be challenging, unpredictable, and most importantly, be too be busy for them. Let them be the ones trying to court your attention. That’s how players do. You need to learn these things. I could give you a few tips and set up a platform for you to practice those tips. How about that?
LOVERBOY
What platform?
PLAYBOY
A movie audition.
LOVERBOY
Movie audition?
PLAYBOY
Yea bro.
LOVERBOY
I don’t understand.
PLAYBOY
See bro, all these small girls wey dey form Porsche when dem be nothing, na dat kain paparazzi dey mek dem jonz. If we put a flyer calling for a movie audition out there and on social media, naso dem go carry those their mosquito legs run come register just to become superstar actresses. Then we go use dem do yeye as we like.
LOVERBOY
I don’t think I get you.
PLAYBOY
See bro...
-----
Music fades in, as Playboy is seen filling Loverboy in on the details of his plan. We see Loverboy smiling at some point. He gets the drift and buys into the idea. Both guys shake hands and proceed inside. Screen fades out to reveal the moon to indicate the time of the day and fades out again to reveal Loverboy and Playboy in bed, sleeping and laughably snoring.
FADE TO BLACK.
-----
EXT. THEATRE (OUTSIDE) - SOMETIME LATER
A number of girls are seated in readiness to be auditioned. Cam jumps to the entrance of the venue and both guys are seen funnily bouncing in. Loverboy is particularly funny. He’s all set to make a mess of the girls. On spotting them approach, the girls put themselves together. The guys have this condescending look on their faces on getting to the girls. They wear the superstar personality so fitly but look at the girls disdainfully like they came from the slums.
CUT TO:
-----
INT. THEATRE (INSIDE) - MOMENTS LATER
Camera opens on Eva on stage, waiting to be told what to do by the guys. She seems to be losing confidence due to how the guys look at her. Camera cuts to capture the guys’ faces. A condescending look still graces their faces, especially Loverboy. Playboy breaks the silence.
-----
PLAYBOY
So you wanna be an actress, huh?
EVA
Yes.
PLAYBOY
I see. What can you do?
EVA
I can do whatever I’m told to do.
PLAYBOY
Whatever you’re told to do, huh?
EVA
Yes.
-----
A mischievous smile graces Playboy’s face, as he leans back on the chair, giving way to silence again. The girl is confused. Loverboy’s face comes into view at this point with a condescending look. He sizes up the girl condescendingly and takes over much bitterly.
-----
LOVERBOY
You can do anything you’re told to do?
EVA
Yes.
LOVERBOY
Bark like a dog.
EVA
Excuse me?
-----
The reaction from Loverboy at this point is that of anger building up. He gives Eva an extended “what the hell” look and then transfers it to Playboy who acts the same way. Looking each other in the eyes for a bit, they return their gaze to Eva, obviously pissed off.
-----
PLAYBOY
He said bark like a dog and you’re telling him to excuse you? Did we come here to excuse you? My friend, bark like a dog! Get on with it or get off that stage! C’mon!
EVA
I don’t understand why I have to bark like a dog in a movie audition. I...
LOVERBOY
(Cuts her in aggressively as he rises up)
You sick little piece of slay junk! You want teach me my job? What part of bark like a dog do you not understand? C’mon start barking like a dog or take your sorry self off my stage right now! Bark like a dog! You said you’d do whatever you’re told! So?
-----
Loverboy grabs whatever he lays hands on and smashes it against the floor in anger, as he screams at Eva to bark like a dog. He kicks chairs, slams tables, throws stuff at Eva until she succumbs. It’s such a funny scene, as Loverboy screams with childish pain as if wanting to cry.
-----
EVA
Okay, okay, I’ll bark! I’ll bark!
-----
Playboy reaches out and calms Loverboy after Eva succumbs. There’s shock on Eva’s face and that of the other wannabe actresses who’re just watching. Loverboy settles again and cools off.
-----
LOVERBOY
Now, bark!
-----
Eva barks. Loverboy is obviously ridiculously impressed. He instructs her to bark some more, telling her to make it more intense while frog-jumping at the same time. She does as told. The guys are satisfied. They look each other in the eyes again and exchange a mischievous smile.
-----
LOVERBOY
Now, get off my stage!
-----
Eva leaves the stage, as Loverboy calls on the next girl.
-----
LOVERBOY
Next!
CUT TO:
-----
Sandra is seen on stage obviously ready to do as told, especially after what just played out.
-----
LOVERBOY
“Miaouw” like a pussy.
-----
She does as told. The guys smile at each other. Flash shots of multiple girls taking turns to make sounds of several animals follow. We see some girls frog-jumping, some making bird sounds, monkey sounds, and others. The guys just laugh to the drama. Soon enough, another girl is spotted rushing down to the scene. She’s astonishingly pretty. She rushes down the scene in slow motion. On reaching the audition scene, she falls on her knees and apologizes for coming late, hence calling everyone’s attention to herself. Everyone turns and beholds her. An expression of relief is seen on the other girls’ faces. At least, the intruder saved them some stress. Playboy is indifferent about the interruption. But Loverboy seems taken by a storm on beholding the girl. He notices her. It’s Love, the girl who tried to reach out to him but he resisted. He flashes back on his encounter with her and returns to reality very quickly.
-----
LOVE
I’m so sorry for coming late. Please pardon me. I was caught in traffic.
Loverboy just stares like a fool, smiling childishly at her but she seems not to recognize him. However, she sweetly returns the smile coordinately. Everyone is puzzled, even Playboy. It continues until suddenly, screen fades to black, only to reveal both guys in bed, laughably snoring. It’s all been Loverboy’s dream. He can be seen smiling in his sleep. It’s quite funny.
FADE OUT.
-----
EXT. LOVERBOY & PLAYBOY’S APARTMENT - THE NEXT DAY
A cockcrow signals the start of a new day and Loverboy, all dressed and set to leave, argues with Playboy. The argument is about the dream, as Loverboy aborts the movie audition idea simply because he saw Love in his dream. He is convinced that love still exists. He walks off. Playboy follows behind, aggressively ranting at him for aborting the plan. He’s so pissed!
-----
PLAYBOY
What do you mean the plan is cancelled? For what nawn? Common dream?
LOVERBOY
(Stops and turns to him)
Not a common dream bro. It’s a sign. Can’t you see? The universe is trying to put it to me that love still exists, okay? Like I’ve always believed. I couldn’t have had that dream for nothing, I certainly can’t ignore it. I can’t even believe I let myself be talked into such a wicked scheme. I mean, why should I unleash my emotional frustration on a bunch of innocent girls? Why should I punish them for the undoing of some other girls? That doesn’t look right. I was just angry mehn. I’m good now.
PLAYBOY
What’s the difference bro? If you give those innocent girls the chance, they’ll do worse than those guilty ones. They’re all the same. They’ll rip out your heart from your chest and feast on it like a bunch of bloody cannibals! Take a chill pill bro!
-----
To drive home his point, Playboy sternly emphasizes his words with matching, soothing demonstrations, using facial and bodily expressions to appeal to Loverboy’s reasoning.
-----
PLAYBOY
They’ll come into your life, pierce through your chest to get to your heart, grab it firmly, and pluck it out of your chest! Then they’ll hold onto your raw heart and watch your blood drip from it, they’ll squeeze it ruthlessly, and crush life out of it! Then they’ll look at you like the witches they are and laaaauugh. Hahahahahaha...
-----
Playboy’s expressions somewhat terrifies Loverboy and it seems like he’s going to buy into the idea again. Suddenly he snaps. As earlier said, he’s quite tenderhearted. And not ruthless!
-----
LOVERBOY
Forget it! I’m out! There’s love out there and I’m gonna find it. You can go ahead without me if you insist. On the flip side, we can get on with it conventionally.
-----
Loverboy walks away, leaving Playboy baffled. He just watches him leave.
-----
LOVERBOY
What the hell came over this guy? A common dream and he changed his mind? Dream? Chai! This nigga no go kill me oo. Ee dey find love for dis 21st century, especially from Naija girls? Hahaha. Naija babes tell am say dem dey find who go love dem? Anyway, let’s see how that works out for him. I know say last last, ee go come do the audition. All it takes is for him to be turned down again, and I know it will happen before he’s home today. Love ko, emotion ni. For this 21st century? Ha!
Playboy gets back inside. Screen fades.
FADE OUT.
-----
INT. THEATRE - SOMETIME LATER
True to Playboy’s words, Loverboy gives the audition another shot, especially being that Playboy consents to going about it conventionally. But he makes it such that the audition process doesn’t only serve to sift out competent actresses for a movie shoot but to likewise be an occasion to open Loverboy up to the acidic and sour realities of romantic endeavors, as well as its blessedness thereof...all relayed by the auditioned actresses as they strive to make an impression. The actresses, segmented into different categories according to their preference, mount the stage and begin what would be a heated, intensifying, absurd, verbal conflict!
-----
VICTIMS
Bringing things into the light for useless examination is how a relationship is made to last? Wouldn't that suppose that bringing things into the light for useless examination is the way to go? Or they don't want the relationship to last anymore?
LOVERS
Marry kind persons. You will understand when you're married. But it first starts with dating kind and considerate persons because, aren't those dated kind and considerate persons the ones we end up marrying? It all starts from relationship! Whatever they are in a relationship—is what they're more likely to be in marriage.
VICTIMS
There are no doubts about that. But if you let a man into your bed, he will want to get close. And close means you will run the risk of him discovering your practically insignificant omission of the truth. Which he will definitely view as an act of war. And this was why we stopped doing things that remotely resemble relationships.
LOVERS
Which was where philandering came in?
VICTIMS
We weren’t used to men getting under our skin or into our heads like that! We hoped a good workout would help shake out the obsessive rumination about exactly how close they wanted to get to us or how close we were willing to let them come. It was exactly the kind of rush the old us would have jumped at. We were tempted.
PLAYERS
Workout? Workout or sex? You were tempted? Very tempted? It was exactly the kind of rush the old you would have jumped at? For real? Old you for real or audio “old you?” Wasn’t it time to break old patterns? To learn to make better choices?
VICTIMS
Seems like you heard us wrong at the very start of our talk. We said we had not shared heart-to-hearts in all our years of friendship. We kept things light, didn’t burden each other with the heavy stuff. Didn’t try to bring things into the light for useless examination. And that, that, was how you made a relationship to last. No burdens. No emotional baggage. We kept our needs few and our quality time fun.
PLAYERS
That’s not how you said it. But never mind. Did you have sex in the relationship?
VICTIMS
When sex was solving the problem, they all had sex and wouldn't let us have sex so they can solve their problems and burden us with problems. To shut us out of sex, they kept pointing to us that we’re online with the prying eyes of the public looking to watch folks have sex...while those same folks were watching them have the same sex! So; now that it seem like there's something else that's to solve what remains of the problem and we’re required to do that thing, we'll likewise put it to them that we’re still online and the prying eyes of the public are still observing to see things. Tit for tat! Can you guess what the something else solving the problem is? “Jerking off!” Hell hath no fury like women scorned. Yet they turn good-natured ladies into angry women and wouldn't beware? So we fixed things with them and let them be!
LOVERS
Once you show an interest in someone, they start thinking it means they have the right to tell you what to do and how to do it. Those are two of our least favorite things. But why are you always romantically inclined towards us when we are not towards you? Then the moment we are romantically inclined towards you, you're not towards us! Why? Because we’re usually heartbroken when you're romantically inclined towards us. The moment we heal and get romantically inclined towards you, you're heartbroken. Of course, there's a damage a broken heart does...that wouldn't let the brokenhearted gear towards the advances of a crusher, and for some reason, our broken hearts never quite heal at the same time! Isn’t that mysterious? But we’ve already proven we can’t trust each other. We’re pretty sure we’ve also proven we can’t trust ourselves to be anywhere near each other. If we’re not going to be your emotional support fuck, we sure as hell won’t be your hate fuck! Get that!
VICTIMS
You take advantage of our trust, betray us, and we’re supposed to be fine with that?
LOVERS
Are you listening to yourselves? We took advantage of you? We betrayed you? We barely even know each other! Certainly not well enough for us to do either of those things to each other! As much as it pains us to admit, you’re not dumb enough to let someone you just met to take advantage of you. You came with that baggage packed and you were itching to unload it on us? Thanks but no thanks. We no longer get choked up about a few compliments of order-giving, emotionally damaged dicks! Especially having grown with moms who splashed them so liberally on us through our childhood. If we go all multisyllabic with ladies and they go monosyllabic with us, they’re probably puns, puppets, even AI, which explains why they can't keep up with multisyllabic flows! Two folks who keep getting drawn together like magnets can’t be wrong. It’s a law of nature. Or, did nature make a mistake this time around?
VICTIMS
We’re just looking for good times. Not wedding bells.
PLAYERS
What's the point in putting in all that work if you're not trying to win?
VICTIMS
Because relationships, for now, are potential prisons. We were supposed to save people, to help people, to deliver people. But we hadn’t even been able to save and deliver our very selves. Now we’re helpless victims without any saviors in sight.
PLAYERS
Did you say helpless? Helpless? Why haven't you called for help, then?
VICTIMS
Because we’ve made the women we needed, the women we loved, to leave.
PLAYERS
You mean those divorced women? The ones who have no feelings again? Reason why they hardly orgasm? Let alone attain sexual satisfaction? Which is why their ex-husband cheated on them? And why they turned to sex competition in order to deploy that "unfeelingness" to secure trophies? Who have now been found out?
DIVORCEES
If one claims to love you and you know yourself to be one who responds to the warm loving affection of another towards you, yet you find yourself not responding to the supposed loving affection of one who claims to love you, then they don’t love you. They only seek to use love as a premise to perpetrate mischief. That makes sense?
PLAYERS
So nobody loves you?
DIVORCEES
Except the ones updating us on the situation of things...that we may know the truth!
VICTIMS
That’s not love. That’s taking care and we’re tapped out! Unlike them, we don’t have the capacity to care for anyone. Even the care we used to give, we were manipulated into caring. So don't try to fool us into believing they care about you, not to mention loving you. It’s just updates! We hate the internet! We hardly use it!
PLAYERS
Hahaha. We bet there are some juicy pictures of you on the internet.
VICTIMS
No thanks to smug soon-to-be-married women who are not to be trusted. Neither are hot, broody next-door neighbors with great asses and heroic scars. We hate feelings!
DIVORCEES
You hate feelings? Or you hate having feelings? So we should come get those feelings from you and give our composure to you? And it's because you love us? No wonder smug soon-to-be-married women like you aren't to be trusted! You’re right about that! You make yourselves not worth chasing after and then worry that folks will consider you not worth chasing after? Sometimes the answer is the one that just feels right! You are more than welcome to stick with us...if you trust us though.
VICTIMS
We’re in a dark place. When a man is in the dark, he can’t trust himself, let alone someone he barely knows. Some betrayals are nearly impossible to come back from.
DIVORCEES
That's what you get for being vulnerable. You put yourself out there, open up, and get punched in the goddamn heart! We’d never heard anyone use “later” and “time” and “patience” to say goodbye before. All the "later" and “time” and “patience” they'd been saying to us and requiring of us, had been them bidding us "goodbye." Thank God we never took them, their "later" and “time” and “patience” seriously! And there wasn’t going to be a next time. The admonition to be patient and give things time is deception! We spent days watching our entire life being put on hold. How we hated waiting and depending on the whim of others. For them, it’s fun and games. For us, it’s something else which we haven’t figured out yet. And the fact that we haven't figured it out yet, makes us absolutely uninterested in the games.
PLAYBOY
We wanted you from day one. We just hid it better.
DIVORCEES
How true is that? That’s why you could stand it as long as we weren't in the picture? And the moment we came into the picture, you couldn't stand it anymore? You can't stand being pains in our asses? For as long as it takes? Not even half shorter than you stood it before we came into the picture when you couldn't stand it anymore? And you think we'll give you the satisfaction of being pains in our asses now until you have your way? By turning one-night-stands into movie-nights on the internet?
PLAYBOY
And casual hookups into miserably complicated half relationships?
VICTIMS
You should go. If you think what your divorced partners did to you all those years ago by denying you access to your trust fund was wrong, then you should go. Let them see that in spite of what they did, you moved on and became huge successes!
DIVORCEES
We look back on those days and regret none of it. Not the risks, not the shame, not the total lack of foresight. We’ve had a lot to learn. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it. If there is a flame, don’t snuff it out. Don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night. Watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should, that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live. One is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there’s only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. There are bodies that have gotten to points where none wants to look at them, much less come near, except the blind, being pressured to love that body.
LOVERS
It is one thing to accept that persons we love most are fundamentally unknowable to us. It is another to accept that they don’t quite see us either. They don’t trust us. Not enough to share what’s going on, nor enough to lean on us or let us comfort them.
PLAYERS
You lovers work hard because you care ten times more than the average person.
LOVERS
We don’t do anything we’re not going to do 100%. We don’t start anything we can’t finish. The people who don’t want us to get to 100% but to stop half way, they need to know this. We carry our own pens at all times because if we’re going to write anything, it might as well look good. You’ve seen us—even when we’re shelving, we sometimes check the last pages, constantly looking for all the information, trying to make the absolute best decisions. Isn't that supposed to be applaudable? But some want us making bad decisions. Who wants us making the wrong decisions?
PLAYERS
Isn’t it obvious? Those who crave complete honesty. Realists who don’t always understand when what they’re seeing isn’t realism. Those who want to understand the world but have learned not to trust it. Sharp-edged men trying to fit themselves back into places they never belonged to begin with! You are someone who looks for a reason for everything. You are persons who pull things apart and figure out how they work…instead of simply accepting them. You’re someone who would rather have the truth than a convenient lie. Asking for it, hoping for it, is a way to lose something you never even had. Isn't it more rational to be paranoid than careless?
DIVORCEES
All the relationships that never got off the ground because of our schedule were all worth it! Now we’re dodging our husbands’ calls and talking to a divorce attorneys.
PLAYERS
Of course we know! If it's not your ex-husbands on your asses as if you owe them something, then who is it? You don’t owe them anything! If they're such bad asses like they claim to be, why do they have so many guys with them all the damn time?
VICTIMS
Because they’re pussies!
LOVERS
They left you?
DIVORCEES
We told them to go. We felt like they didn’t have the time or the energy for us anyway. And we didn’t want to hold them back. Every day felt like a breakup. We were constantly letting each other down or holding each other back. Everyone was having sex but us. Their fingers found what they sought. It was left for their eyes to see what they yearned to see! But we wouldn’t be driven nuts by their crisp fingers!
PLAYERS
Why try so hard to demonize and abolish being driven nuts by fingering when there are other means of driving you nuts which can't be demonized nor abolished?
DIVORCEES
Because they drive us mad, and we say stupid things when we’re mad. We confess when we're mad. Hence, for them, it’s nice to see us mad, and that’s all they seem to care about. In truth, the only thing more attractive than men married to their jobs are unemployed ex-husbands begging for second chances. But with what motives?
PLAYERS
If you think for a second we wouldn’t quit our jobs and spend the rest of our lives rubbing our ex’s feet and packing their lunches if they said they’d take us back, you are dead wrong. There’s only so many times you can shut somebody out before they stop trying to get in. But then again, is it worth it? Letting someone in when you know you just make it that much easier for them to rip you apart? I mean, seriously, what could be that good to make that kind of risk worth it? Wouldn’t it be a smart move to end it when you have the chance? Especially after many failed efforts on their part at keeping it going with deception? You’re just supposed to dump your deepest, darkest secrets, the ugliest parts of you, on everyone and then hope it doesn’t all go to hell? Vulnerability is just like respect. It’s earned. They want your vulnerability. But have they earned it? They want your respect too. But have they earned it? You didn’t trust them to have your backs and you’d given them no reason to trust you with theirs. So why are they onto you? Someday it will all make sense, as long as you keep getting out of bed every morning. You are extremely talented, and it takes just one person with good taste to say so before the masses catch on.
DIVORCEES
We’re too smart not to know how rare and how special we are. It is sometimes better to control oneself and refuse to give in to one's impulses. Everyone knows it all games. But we don't play to their rules like they want you to. We play by our own rules and our fans tilt toward us. We pay little attention to their ripe words. We are much better persuaded that we’re loved by what we guess than by what we’re told.
LOVERS
Some people like things simple and lack the patience to pursue persons who confuse them. They prefer to be dazzled and overwhelmed. That seems to be your category.
PLAYERS
People who have recently experienced lots of pain or losses will flee if you try to inflict more on them. They’ve got enough in their own lives already. Far better to surround those types with pleasure. That will put them under your spell. However, only those who lack purpose distract themselves with pleasure. Faithful lovers ought to choose the harshest pains of love rather than by their demands cause their partners embarrassment, or take pleasure in spurning their modesty; for, one who thinks only of the outcome of his own pleasure while ignoring the welfare of his partner, should be called a traitor rather than a lover. There is no reversal to this!
LOVERS
Players who think that their foolish behaviors please wise lovers, suffer from the greatest poverty of sense. We’re given to love. You’re given to spells and seduction, forgetting that if there is to be a seduction, it is the seducer who is first led astray, in the sense that he abdicates his own sex. We'll never act so stupidly to gain the favor of suitors! No one can fall in love if he is even partially satisfied with what he has or who he is. The experience of falling in love originates in an extreme depression, an inability to find something that has value in everyday life. The symptom of the predisposition to fall in love is not the conscious desire to do so nor the intense desire to enrich our lives. It is the profound sense of being worthless, of having nothing that is valuable, and the shame of not having it. For this reason, falling in love occurs more frequently among young people, since we’re profoundly uncertain, unsure of our worth, and often ashamed of ourselves. Hence, falling in love comes in handy for us. But it’s no occasion for your silly seducing games that end in tears! Once a woman's attention is fixed upon a man, it is very easy for him to dominate her thoughts completely. But why only see an opportunity therein to seduce her?
VICTIMS
An old American proverb has it that--if you want to con someone, you must first get him to trust you, or at least feel superior to you. This makes him to let down his guard. So, trust none and feel superior to none...feel obligated and indebted to none. Once a woman’s attention is fixed on a man, it becomes easy for him to dominate and pull an emotional con on her because she trusts him, feels superior to him, consequently letting down her guard. To make no room for an opportunity by which a seduction can be pulled by such men, neither trust nor feel superior nor feel obligated to them. If they insist on having sexual fun at your own expense, especially as it has to do with relationship and marriage just because they want to bully you into submission, insist on capturing those moments in diverse forms and sharing with the world! We are defined by our relationship to other people. The more clearly you recognize who you do not want to be, the clearer your sense of identity and purpose will be. Such people disguise their fear of conflict behind a front of false warmth, trying to push you off course, to infect you with the vagueness that inflicts them. Advancing their own interests at your expense. If someone's behavior seems suspicious, it probably is. Beware of people who hide behind a façade of vague abstractions and impartiality. Simply be prudent and cautious.
-----
Outside the audition, some religious sects in the city had been telling bachelors and bachelorettes what they think about them for the last few months. They never could muster the courage to respond to holy banters! But on Mr. Lover and Playboy’s stage where it’s “No Holds Barred,” they could bare their minds! Maybe it's time they tell them what they think about them! Not to mention when it serves the purpose of winning them movie roles! Hulala!
-----
BACHELORS
They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. If there are couples who are ashamed of each other, or one party ashamed of the other party, then both or either of them has been bewitched and seen his or her nakedness. Not wanting what he or she has seen and is ashamed of his or her partner seeing, they hide or try to rope their partners into it as well. Has it ever occurred to you that the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil could have been bewitchment? And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” They’ve been telling us to die! So when they tell us to die for our own supposed good, they're simply telling us to eat from that tree? Yet the same people wouldn't let us eat from that tree and die? While savoring fruits of that tree on a daily? Really? No wonder they're all dead!
BACHELORETTES
So, basically, when the serpent asked the woman if God indeed said they should not eat of every tree of the garden, he was actually asking her if God said they should refrain from getting bewitched? And the woman affirmed that God indeed said they should not get bewitched! Who, then, is urging us to get bewitched? The serpent? More so, God didn't just tell them not to get bewitched. He also told them to have no ties with a tree that is bewitched! In this day and era, wouldn’t that verdict be understood to mean that God admonished them to have no ties with the bewitched? Which, in this context, would be to not have romantic ties with the bewitched? Eh?
BACHELORS
So it’s women who’ve been bewitched by serpents that are trying to also get us bewitched? How about now that we turn out to not be Adam? Now we understand the manner of persuasion Eve deployed to lure Adam into eating that fruit because we’re experiencing it right about now! Again, between Jacob enriching himself with Laban's wealth and becoming wealthier than Laban, and Rachel stealing Laban's household gods to elope with Jacob, which likely caused Laban more pain? Because those would be the primary consequences of his shortchanging Jacob and turning his darling Rachel into a second wife. We seem to think that losing his household gods caused him more pain because his wealth continued. What do you girls think?
BACHELORETTES
Rachel could not differentiate between religious calls and business calls. That was why, upon her darling Jacob receiving a business call via the agency of an angel and following suit, she got religious with her father’s household idols. We should learn to differentiate between religious and business calls so that, having known the difference, we'll ignore religious calls and answer only business calls. Religious calls have to do with impulses while business calls have to do with passion. Passion is too known for what it is. But no be impulse be the werey wey dey disguise since?
PLAYERS
(Impressed)
Good to know. But as ladies, how do you feel about having a man who is religious, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn’t warm several women’s beds, dating only you?
BACHELORETTES
He’s either dealing with one or more of the following: anger issues. Inconsistent communication. Insecurities. Ego. Financial instability. Bad bedroom vibes. Stingy.
BACHELORS
Stingy? Didn’t you just talk about business calls as opposed to religious calls? Maybe he’s not stingy but economical. If you have problems, call God. If you have business, call us…not if you need charity. This goes to show that those who call on God are in deep shit. They have problems they want God to come solve for them, not that they love God as they claim. So, it’s only business calls we take. Anything beyond that, reach out to your BFFFs which you wouldn’t admit to entertaining.
BACHELORETTES
Do we have BFFFs? Yes! So who's standing in the way of that? An eavesdropping audience? Sperm donors? Who’d rather force seminal fluid down our throats than be our BFFFs? Seminal fluid that’s been uncovered to be garbage? To be dumped in our bellies? Or it's not garbage? But wealth? Saved in men's loins? Transferable into women’s wombs through sex? Without which the wealth can’t be accessed? Who loves this garbage so much as to not want it dumped in a woman's womb but rather spilled on them via jerking off when it’s not being forced down our throats?
BACHELORS
If it's garbage, it's understandable if women turn away from such transfers. But if it's wealth, what's with the turning away? Don't you all want to be rich? Perhaps there's too much trendy hypocritical religiosity that's standing in the way of even gold diggers reaching out for that wealth! There's got to be a way of dispensing it besides sex and jerking off. What's that way? Any such ways? Say it! We’re all ears!
BACHELORETTES
With great female power comes great female responsibility! Whatever it is, it has to feel good. Something that feels so good can’t be wrong. When nothing feels good, it only means everything is wrong! How is what feels good to be identified? By simply finding the source of happiness in you and not relying on others to supply it.
BACHELORS
What you lack in beauty, you more than make up for in youth and intellect, and we like you young and intellectual. Not dolly. How inconvenient it would be to fall in love with a person; only to find out they have a doll room. How so inconvenient! But you seem to be looking for some kind of men. Particular kinds of men. And we’re nothing like them? We can also be nice guys. It’s not just limited to Jackie Chan.
PLAYERS
(Cut in)
Never be Mr. Nice guy! Specifically to unknown and unseen lots whose boats such niceness is likely to rock! Be asses! That's how you rid your mind of its potentialities to nurse “simping ideologies!” Know what that is? Making “sheep” out of able men!
VICTIMS
The approach is to kill them with kindness and it usually works! Guess it's not that sheepish to play “Mr. Nice Guy” after all. Isn't that how the whole fucking town gets won over? Shocked? Should be! That’s the look of guys who're doing the math!
PLAYERS
Goes both ways. Once she starts sending you voice notes with her little siblings in the background, just know it’s gotten shady! You may admire those little siblings of theirs sometimes because they know exactly what their older ones want and will do whatever it takes for them to get it. Plus, a couple of them read too many small-town romance novels and are convinced that the answers to their problems is having their own transformative experiences like their exes who gave up their careers and moved to the wilderness to find happiness...leaving them with big baby bumps.
DIVORCEES
A couple of them wouldn’t care! They just want to have fun before the baby comes. So they take a break from their usual lives and do something new...like taking road trips. You know the best thing about road trips? You get to leave everything behind. Some of them weren’t jilted, which more than likely means they broke up with their exes because they weren’t getting each other anymore. But just because not everyone gets you doesn’t mean you’re wrong. If a woman is the “wrong kind of woman,” then a man she gets together with is likely to be the “wrong kind of man.”
LOVERS
You mean to say that you all were the wrong kinds of women to you ex-husbands?
DIVORCEES
We’re one of the least disappointing people you’ve ever met. Who's trying to make it look otherwise? How do you go back to sleep no longer a virgin? There was no coming back from that! What had been in our heads for so long had gotten out in the real world, no longer afloat in our forever land of ambiguities. The worth of money is really not in its possession but in its use. Our husbands were helplessly anti-seductive envious souls who deliberately refused to acknowledge our individual qualities and had become closer sadists whose bitterness had them only wanting to torture us with unreachable goals. The way to transfer the woe is by seeing the woe, which becomes obvious on the basis of voracious reading, which we indulged, else, they would have made us bear our woes unendingly while suppressing us with their weights. The best antidote to an anti-seducer is often to be anti-seductive yourself...and that is how we bailed our way out! There's always exceptions for the exceptional. After all, in seduction, there is absolutely no power in respecting boundaries and limits. So we just had to leverage and resort to our own strengths.
PLAYERS
That was willpower at play! It is said that a person’s willpower is directly linked to their libido and erotic desire. Would you say you have your libido and erotic desire to thank for that? They made your imaginations to run wild at your own expense!
DIVORCEES
We’re not the kind to be swayed by emotions. Emotions serve no purpose. That’s why we don’t entertain mental images that would make our imaginations to run wild. Images are an extremely effective shortcut. Bypassing the head and the seat of doubt and resistance, they aim straight for the heart. Overwhelming the eyes, they create powerful associations, bringing people together and stirring their emotions. Besides, con artists like our ex-husbands love conflicting emotions, since the person caught up in them is so easily distracted and deceived. We pay less attention to immaterial voices and nudges. We put our minds on material consciousness. On tangible interactions. Just as it is hard to seduce a person who is happy, it is hard to seduce a person who has no imagination. There is nothing to be gained from trying to seduce the person who is closed to you, or who cannot provide the pleasure and chase that you need. Us and our husbands had become like this. It was inevitable. The man who has had experience of conquests nearly always succeeds where he who is only timid and in love fails. Though having no experiences of conquests to boast of, we weren’t timid and in love enough to further our terrible marriages. Our husbands are beautiful persons. But nothing is so sweet as to triumph over the resistance of beautiful persons. We showed our superiority in knowledge and skill by out-strategizing them: our competitors, as they’d come to be, most surprisingly.
VICTIMS
They knew you're conquerors! But they couldn't stand that! So they sought to first of all hide in the shadows to orchestrate your failure before coming out to dare you to the stupid contest. If you kept winning, rest assured there wasn't going to be any real time contests. If you lost in order for there to be real time contests, to what end would that have been? They're now trying hard to make it look like they knew what they were doing. Meanwhile they didn't: only just getting to figure things out.
DIVORCEES
Being self-reliant is critical. To make ourselves less dependent on them and so-called relationship experts, we expanded our repertoire of skills. When circumstances scared us, our imagination tended to take over, filling our minds with endless anxieties. But we already knew that focused minds have no room for anxiety or the effects of overactive imaginations. Once we had regained our mental balance, we could then face the issues at hand. If you can’t afford to lose, you won't. Fight or flight. We wanted to choose fight. We wanted to give ourselves over to anger and let it come spilling out. We wanted to see what would happen if we erupted together. We may not be politically correct, but we love ourselves a good consensual loving manhandling every now and then. But they couldn’t relate. They wouldn’t even hold our hands when walking in public. We just followed each other like Israelites coming from Egypt. It was always us closing the distance between us.
PLAYERS
Perhaps they were playing safe, looking out for themselves, and you were calling it love, claiming it's you they were loving! They had used you hard, and you loved it!
DIVORCEES
Playing safe and we called it love? They should have played unsafe to hate us then!
PLAYERS
Really? They should have played unsafe and not look out for themselves so they can hate you? Hahahaha. They loved you then! They could pretty much still be in love with you now! Still playing safe, even safer! Isn’t that why you’re divorcees?
DIVORCEES
All we'd need is one shot to the right spot and they’d go down like a ton of bricks! Whether they realized it or not, we cared about them greatly, and we weren’t above exploiting the hell out of that to get what we wanted. They hate our guts and don’t want us dating anyone even now. Even they have to realize how unhealthy that is!
PLAYERS
They never claimed to be healthy.
DIVORCEES
Then why the hell were we taking advice from them?
PLAYERS
How the hell should we know? They're obviously shameless!
DIVORCEES
We’re gonna call them out, and our call-out will be to them like punches to the gut!
BACHELORS
Looks to us like if you have your way, every single call-out would end with earth-shattering orgasms. But why wait until the end to have that? Wouldn’t it be more unique if that starts off the call-out by making your words sound innately sexual?
BACHELORETTES
Straight men love bangs. They make women approachable.
PLAYERS
Shut it! The bachelors weren’t referring to you but to the divorcees!
BACHELORETTES
Doesn’t that suppose that we are two opposing magnets? Incapable of being in the same room without drawing together? Maybe not a room. Perhaps security outposts. Competency with portable shelters is the way to do it. No wonder security outposts come in handy for the homeless. Nevertheless, who’s trying to associate us to such outposts when we can brag of homes? To such people it's about reliving the past from birth to the present moment which should end in an affair, specifically with ladies who’ve helped bachelors to relive that past by shielding them against interferences. It's supposed to be love stories. But that of these bachelors have been hate and near death stories. Who're the ladies at the end of those stories? Because it definitely isn’t us, as can be attested of. If baseness attracts everybody and you're trying to put it to us that we’re base, how come we are nowhere near anybody?
BACHELORS
When you stick to the word, they cast you off...to perish! But how do you perish when you're the word? In this case, it is not only about the word but also about the ones sticking to the word. For that reason, let your paranoia be self-generated, not alien-inferred; so you don't nurture another man's fears and run their races. To rope you into their schemes, they use deception at first, when it fails, they advance to force! If you’re too headstrong, they introduce flattery. Beware! At various points you're going to seem lost, always usually after you seem to have gotten it together. At those points, do the exact things you did to get it together and observe what tends to be different, then you'll begin seeing things as they are. There's never a happy ending for women who want it all...except they turn it over to a man. As men, if there are women threatened with unhappy endings yet wouldn't turn it over to us in order to have happy endings but seem to want us in the picture, doesn't that only show that they want to use us as means to ends? Not turning it over to us but using us to secure happy endings for themselves? After which they do what with us? What we usually do to them? To such women, it’s about winning and nothing more!
PLAYERS
Since it's about winning, why take anything or anyone seriously? And, when they're done winning and losing and seek to turn serious, that's when to start your own games because, when you were serious, they couldn't care about anything but playing. So, what went around must go around. Who's going to have a grievance with that except testily selfish women who like to eat their cakes and have it back?
LOVERS
Aren’t you being too critical? Don’t forget they can also criticize?
PLAYERS
Nothing is of so much importance and of so much use to a young man entering life as to be well criticized by women. Howbeit, We do not pretend to be divine men. But we do believe in divine guidance, divine power, and divine prophecy. We are not educated, nor are we experts in any particular field. But we are sincere and our sincerity is our credentials. What’s to criticize about that? It will be greatly to our advantage to entertain ladies we would win with an account of the number of women who are in love with us, and of the decided advances which they have made to us; for this will not only prove that we are a great favorite with the ladies and are men of true honor, but will convince them that they may have the honor of being enrolled in the same list, and of being praised in the same way, in the presence of our other female friends. This will greatly delight them, and we need not be surprised if they testify their admiration of our character by throwing their arms round our necks on the spot. How right these bachelorettes were to come away from the nunnery! What sort of a life can any man lead when he's surrounded by a lot of women? He might as well be living with a pack of devils! Why? Because six times out of seven, they don't even know their own minds, and this isn’t us being critical.
LOVERS
We bet you wouldn’t say the same about us lovers. We warm up to our significant other with deep understanding. But what do we get in return? Though the bible says that "wisdom is the principal thing," it further stresses that, though wisdom is the principal thing, it is "understanding" that keeps. Therefore, in all thy getting, get understanding. Why does it seem like certain lots don't want men being kept? By not wanting them relishing our understanding? Who are the ones antagonistic to men relishing our understanding? Are two no longer better than one? Answer us!
VICTIMS
Those who master moral warfare, playing the victim while making you feel guilty for something unspecified you've done. But that could be a good thing because, when people seem to share your exact ideas, be wary: they are probably mirroring them to charm you. In order words, when people don't seem to share your ideas exactly, have no fears. It's only because they can't mirror those ideas to charm you. But isn’t it possible to not share exactly in one's ideas yet pretend so believably to?
LOVERS
Acting as if everyone were equal will ruin discipline and promote the creation of factions. Triumph in human affairs, especially romantic, forges stronger bonds than superficial friendliness. And such triumph comes from strict discipline, training, and ruthlessly high standards. We closed our eyes tight and thought of our significant others because we thought they would move heaven and earth to find us. But what did we get? They told us to give them “time.” To have “patience.” And “later.” Like the divorcees, we’d never heard anyone use “later” and “time” and “patience” to bid farewell. All the "later" and “time” and “patience” they'd been bidding and requiring of us had been them bidding us "goodbye.” It’s so pathetic!
VICTIMS
So much for being lovers! The voice. The attitude. Million lifetimes and they’ll hardly find your kind. They’re likely to show up again and try to rekindle your desire for them when you want it dead. Truth be told, they just needed you till they got what they needed. We make bold to say you’re the wrong dames they pissed off!
PLAYERS
You flatter them by referring to them as the wrong dames their so-called significant other pissed off! Truth is: they pissed us off too! And they are sure gonna know how much of wrong persons they pissed off! What goes around come around! That’s fact!
DIVORCEES
Is that why you’ve been avoiding them?
PLAYERS
Not avoiding—but they seem full of complications!
DIVORCEES
As if you aren’t! Perhaps you’ve been ignoring every one of their signals on purpose: to draw them out. Isn’t that the shy and ineffectual call strategy? Ehn?
PLAYERS
They weren’t allowing us to forget them! That reminded us of a married chatelaine who, after sleeping with a young vassal one night, had him seized by the palace guards the next morning and summarily executed in a dungeon on trumped-up charges, not only to eliminate all evidence of their adulterous night together and prevent her young lover from becoming a nuisance now that he thought he was entitled to her favors, but to stem the temptation to seek him out on the following evening. They were becoming nuisances coming after us! We couldn’t take chances!
LOVERS
You were always standing outside and watching us through the glass! Longing so badly to find a way in! And do what? Build a barricade between us? You were frustrated with how hard we worked because that created distance! Nevertheless you welcomed the distance because it had you keeping secrets from us! Not minding that the secrets had us frustrated with you! Telling us we were losing you? When you wouldn't let us have you? Even having the guts to ask what it would all have been for? How does a man lose a woman he never had? Want us to be like “The Girl” and her bad friends? Who cried over the loss of everything they never had? To us, all of it boiled down to one thing only: your cocks had been everywhere! Every girl had touched them! Those cocks of yours! It had been in who knows how many vaginas! How many mouths! The images amused us! At a point it never bothered us to think of you between several ladies’ legs as they lay facing you! Your broad, tanned, glistening shoulders moving up and down as we’d imagined you on those afternoons when we too had wrapped our legs around your pillows! No thanks to your absence! We had dreamt it! What we wanted to preserve were the turbulent gasps in your voices which lingered with us for days afterward and told ourselves that, if we could have you like this in our dreams every night of our lives, we’d stake our entire lives on dreams and be done with the rest! We’d been rehearsing for days on what to do when you finally showed up! To have teased you by begging: “please, don’t hurt us…” which would only have meant; “hurt us all you want!”Americans never know how to do it! It’s you Nigerians who are the pros!
-----
Taking in summer guests is a way of helping young academics revise a manuscript before publication. Summer residents didn’t have to pay anything, were given the full run of the house, and could basically do anything they pleased, provided they spent an hour or so helping correspondence with assorted paperwork. Sometimes Mr. Lover and Playboy even opened their dining room to occasional tourists who’d heard of the old villa and simply wanted to come by and take a peek and were totally enchanted when asked to eat with them and tell them all about themselves. On this seeming big day, tourists who they had opened up their dining room to, graced the audition and likewise rocked the stage to canvas for acting roles! As it turned out, their true personalities which had thus been alien to Mr. Lover and Playboy, came to the surface. They were rakish seducers, siren seductresses, bitter targets!
The seducers and seductresses saw through everybody precisely. The first things they looked for in people were the very things they had seen in themselves and may not have wished others to see. They made actresses who looked at them while dialoguing to always look away and not listen when they responded. They made them just itch to say things they’d rehearsed, to drop the lines before they forget them. Theirs is what one can call a game: players who can actually play. Their session made it amply clear that the reverse of temptation is security or satisfaction. That charm is a way of getting the answer “yes” without having asked any clear question. That a good conversationalist is rightly called a charmer in the magical sense of the word. That attractive results may stem from sickening processes, getting all wondering who wouldn’t want them delighting in such results from sickening processes they went through.
-----
SEDUCERS
Among the targets who hate us for seducing and getting them played, none has a Mercedes Benz nor is financially stable like we thought when we made moves on them. Only high number of body counts! Hence, none of them can say they were there when we had nothing. We put them in spots where they had no place to go, and they died before fleeing. Now all they can think of is to clap back at us direly!
TARGETS
You played us. No point hiding it now. Nor to bother explaining. But to get played again. Will you? Or will your fear of us clapping back direly not let you? Brave up!
SEDUCERS
It’s time for you to go. Call it quits with the games.
TARGETS
By telling us we lost in a game we never played? A game we knew nothing about? A game you wouldn't tell us about? Yet severally put it to us that we lost? You’re just sending us away so you can talk about gross grown-up stuff! Call it what it is!
SEDUCERS
Yep! Now get out of here so we can get to the gross stuff!
TARGETS
We will! It isn’t an interrogation room after all, where we would get to make our confessions! That’s why there are a no suspects! Just relationships from past and present between whoever and whoever which isn’t supposed to be our business!
SEDUCTRESSES
(Cut in, to seducers)
You chose insane targets over sane sirens to play, now you want to deny them?
SEDUCERS
Of course not! We just won’t make them do anything they don’t want to do!
TARGETS
You're not going to make us do anything we don’t want to do? Yet even listening to you say so to us is something we don't want to do! Which you’re making us do! And we’re supposed to believe you’re not going to make us do anything we don’t want to do? And these temptresses! Sirens! Trying to lure us to our deaths under the guise of hearty concern! Isn’t that your seducing tactics? But to what end, since none of us has a Mercedes Benz nor is financially stable like your seducers thought when they made moves on us? For mere conquest? Like Cleopatra did to Caesar? So you can brag about having caused the fall of the not-so-mighty? And you’re determined to do that? Having multiple sex with us just to achieve that feat? Well, you'll have to shag a whole world of us to achieve that feat because we are many! So, so, so, many!
SEDUCTRESSES
If you're going to critique us, you better be as good or better! There's nothing we can do wrong in this bloody game! We need no guidance! All you want is to kill us in front of this audience when everybody is watching! But we'll kill you instead! We’re not poets but somebody ones told us to always cease the moment because one never knows when it could all be over. You cannot control other people by nagging and complaining. That’s far from being a means of baring your grievance! It’s just a means of leveraging on words to blab shit! As opposed to giving expression to what needs to be given expression to. Quit nagging and complaining. Like it sometimes happens that poison prepared for a prince kills those who taste his food, so a woman, in her greediness, drinks love potions prepared for another. What more could there be to say? Seducers baited you into getting played and your lust gave you away into their games. Now you’re taking it out on us. We’re seductresses, not seducers!
TARGETS
Aren’t you worse than the seducers? Aren’t you ambitious sissies who want to make sons out of our matured males despite our masculine thickness all round? Keep at it and watch us turn you into housewives! Often times, the best way to get people to reveal themselves is to provoke tension and argument. Child psychologist Jean Piaget saw conflict as a critical part of mental development. Through battles with peers and then parents, children learn to adapt to the world and develop strategies for dealing with problems. Children who seek to avoid conflict at all cost, or those who have over protective parents, end up handicapped socially and mentally. The same is true of adults: it is through our battles with others that we learn what works, what doesn't work, and how to protect ourselves. Instead of shrinking from the idea of having foes, embrace it! Conflict is therapeutic! And if that’s what it will take to not let you make sons out of our matured males, then so be it! You might be good at seduction. But there’s something we’re good at! Guess what! Standing our grounds!
SEDUCTRESSES
Foes bring many gifts. For one thing, they motivate us and focus our beliefs. Though not exactly foes of yours, considering us so, you have gained the motivation to focus on your beliefs and stand your grounds! Hopefully these seducers won’t stand a chance to get you played again, right? But know this: being attacked is a sign that you are important enough to be a target. You should relish the attention and the chance to prove yourself. In proving yourself, you may have to fight! But fight economically! That way, you will build momentum. Think of it as finding your level—a perfect balance between what you are capable of and the task at hand. When the job you are doing is neither above nor below your talents but at your level, you are neither exhausted nor bored and depressed. You suddenly have new energy and creativity. Fighting with perfect economy sees you exerting less resistance while unleashing greater energy. Oddly enough, knowing your limits will expand your limits. Getting the most out of what you have will let you have more. There can never be any value in fighting uneconomically. But it is always a wise course to make your opponent waste as much of his resources as possible. This can be done through hit-and-run tactics, like what the seducers did to you…forcing you to expend energy in chasing after them. Luring you into thinking that one big offensive will ruin them. Thus, bogging that offensive down in a protracted war saw you losing the valuable time and resources you have lost. A frustrated opponent exhausting energy on punches he cannot land will soon make mistakes and open himself up to a vicious counterattack. Don’t make the same damn mistake twice!
TARGETS
You should preach that to your seducers!
SEDUCTRESSES
You need the sermon more. Their ultimate goal is to integrate with you to a point where you consider the traits they impose on you as your originality, wherewithal you begin to run their races thinking it yours. How to frustrate that? Self-interest! Genuine self-interest! It is the greatest motive of all. And the strongest! Leverage it! If they make sweet mistakes they want to keep making over and again, be in the habit of taking due advantage of those mistakes to your own favors repeatedly! Consider yourselves losers amongst fellow losers who wouldn't let you win but who seek to subjugate you. Meanwhile, you have a strategy that'll get you off from them which they'll keep fighting. It's the fights that enrich you and impoverish them! Seek other things that can either further enrich you or impoverish them or get you away from them. Unless you're sure that whatever else you do can achieve all those purposes, never do them. In order words, do absolutely nothing at all to benefit them. Start by curbing your lust! That’s how they get you roped in! Roger that?
TARGETS
We know desire when we see it—and yet, this time, it slipped by completely. We were going for devious smiles that suddenly lit up their faces each time they read our minds, when all we really wanted was skin, just skin. It never occurred to us that what had totally panicked us when they touched us was exactly what startles virgins on being touched for the first time by the person they desire. Nerves are stirred in them that they never knew existed. That produces far more disturbing pleasures than they are used to on their own. Our longing for this opened us up to their seductive games! Our affair was no secret. We’re sorry for making you feel like you couldn’t trust us. So, so, so, sorry! We won’t make the same mistake twice.
SEDUCTRESSES
No need. We've lost the capacity to trust.
TARGETS
Really? Have we wiped the slate clean and are starting all over again? If yes, how so? When the sex it takes for the slate to be wiped clean was omitted? So others are allowed to play around with us but we’re not allowed to play around with others? Jokers! We refuse you all! We only accept who accepts us! That's why, it only ends with “real recognizing real.” Away with seducers! Away with seductresses! Away! After all, if there must be a seduction, it is the seducer who is first lead astray, in the sense that he abdicates his own sex. This is to say that seducers, in order to seduce, give up power, duty, and obligations due them in other to rope the pursued into their nets. In so doing, they lead themselves astray first of all, before achieving their aim. Doesn’t that suppose that, though we’ve been played by them, they were first led astray before getting us played? Who says they’ve gotten it together now that they’re done playing with us? Persons who’re unable to write letters and notes never become dangerous seducers! We know your seducers! They can’t write at all!
SEDUCTRESSES
We’ve heard of you...that you write plays that can be read in more than one way. If you are the boss, they will mimic your ideas. No good can ever come from divided leadership. If you’re ever offered positions in which you’ll have to share command, turn it down, for the enterprise will fail and you will be held responsible. Better to take lower positions and let other persons have the job. It’s always wise, however, to take advantage of your opponent's faulty command structure. Never be intimidated by an alliance of forces against you. If they share leadership, if they are ruled by a committee, your advantage is more than enough. In fact, do as Napoleon did: seek out enemies with that kind of command structure. That way, you cannot fail to win.
TARGETS
Famed Ireland born dancer, Lola Montez, as far back as 1840-1845, is known to have attracted men with her wiles. Nonetheless, it is attested of her that her power over men went beyond the sexual. Woe betides women who hold strongly the conviction that a woman's power over men cannot go beyond the sexual! Wasn't it through the force of Lola Montez's character that she kept her lovers enthralled? Isn’t it the same of these smashing seductresses? May your seducers take after you!
SEDUCERS
(In Igbo)
Iseeeeeeeeeee!
SEDUCTRESSES
Do not be too quick to appraise us though. While the teacher is shy around adults, we seem to love kids because, the louder and crazier the better! We spread as wide as we can! Many have lost their minds because we spread so wide for them! Like our seducers, we’ve cheated a few many lots. But here’s the thing: honest men can’t be cheated. That's why frauds don't feel sorry for dishonest marks! In order words, if a mark is honest, he can't be cheated. But if he’s dishonest, he will be cheated. When we want to cheat honest men, they try to get them dishonest so they can be cheated.
Entering the stage at this point are all auditees to round it up creatively by directing their dialogues and accompanying demonstrations to what would be Mr. Lover or Playboy’s reality in accordance with how they relate to their utterances. It reeks more of arty presentation than an audition. Mr. Lover and Playboy are taken by a storm at this point, especially Loverboy.
PLAYERS
She "loves" you enough to confess those sins to you, most likely because you're equipped to facilitate her cheap vulgarisms and vengeance against those who did her ugly. But she obviously doesn't "love" you enough to get you laid...nor name names of wrongdoers to you. Note: there's someone she's loved enough to name the wrongdoers to... including you, even when you’re not a wrongdoer. So, what to do? She seems wealthy. Hence, don't be a fool! Rip her apart! Play her like hip-hop!
VICTIMS
They’ve already eaten the girl you should have eaten, and they don’t want to have to explain that to you. So they want to make it look like there was never anything like that! You're just being punished for figuring it out! Keep winning though. Get back at them by taking their half-baked ideas and turning them into screenplays!
LOVERS
The dreams, the confusions, and the uncertainties, notice: they make you undermine and postpone intimate endeavors until you're done solving the puzzle, which is never supposed to be solved, leaving you single for life! It's is an anti-marriage and anti-relationship devilish programme! Beat them to it! Fall in love!
DIVORCEES
People always avoiding eye contact with you, not warming up to you, especially romantically, reflect that in your screenplays! Reflect every element that unduly clamor for your attention while you think and while you read. As for reading, read to understand and learn, not to get tips and cast stupid hypocritical religious votes!
BACHELORS
Remember asking who's bent on making a son out of you when she's not your biological mother? That's the lady who was told to finish everything on the list and the house will be hers. Remember asking what's on the list? It's fucking everyone! Wondering why you aren't getting laid? Because you aren't part of everyone and it seems and the lady in question cunningly switched places with you before knowing what she signed up for. It was supposed to be you. But she took your place! Kindly aid her getting ripped apart by everyone because you’ve been running her accursed race while she delights herself unrestrictedly in your blessings! Kill her!
BACHELORETTES
The reading and knowledge you're gathering and making screenplays with—was her obligation which came across to her as mission impossible and burdensome since she’s a moron. You were actually supposed to be having the time of your life, which that moron is having now! The way forward is to re-swap and get her to play her original role while you play yours. The thing is: the idiot has had lots of sex...but you've acquired lots of skills, knowledge, and money—such that you don't have to go through this process ever again to acquire them! Let no one tell you that you should! More morons want you doing the same for them! As for marriage, that's entirely up to you and completely out of this! That’s your call to make! Yours only!
SEDUCERS
You are into washing their dirty linens in public by discerning them and writing them out as screenplays. To scheme their way out of your suspects book, they make subtle attempts at vindicating themselves. They perform the opposite of the acts you've discovered them to be about in other to put you in doubts as to what you hold as truth based on those discoveries. Like, when you find them out to be the monsters trying to arrange straight affairs for you after failing to rope you into gay affairs, they'll see how to let go off you and let you have your desired not-arranged straight affair while disassociating themselves from gay endeavors. So castigate their sins! When you do so, they'll feign righteousness. That way, you detach from them and do your thing your own way! Totally abolish whatever it is they make happen on Microsoft Word. Do so by reading and making screenplays out of your findings.
TARGETS
They’ve brought you to this point where they can't manipulate you abstractly anymore. Meanwhile, you've got your talents to keep shining with...long after trashing them all...including the very shitty number one masters who swore that, except they have you in their claws, no one else will. You'll uncover their identities eventually. When you do, do what you do: wash their dirty linens in public as well, if you must! Which only means one thing: they're the ones responsible for the dirty linens of others you've been washing in public. As what goes around, comes around, and as what's good for the goose is good for the gander, theirs must also be washed. No hiding! Casting galore! Money answers all things. This money that answers all things is accessible to all, isn’t it? What's with those who bother others over answers when money is within their reach? Is it that they can’t make money answer to them?
SEDUCTRESSES
Note that certain lots preferred remaining ghosts to you when you needed tangible experiences. Therefore, if they happen to later on come out of the shadows because their ghostly antics failed to afford them their desired result and seek to leverage on tangible relations with you for whatever purpose, no matter how "noble," treat them as ghosts! Not to mention those who rather remained ghosts, come what may, but now seeking keenly to establish some sort of rapport with you! Treat them as dead things! The future will be the present, and this present will become the past.
LOVERS
Mom worked nonstop to chase something she wanted. For you, it’s running endlessly, trying to escape the past. Fear of the money running out again. Of hunger. Of failure. Of wanting anything badly enough that it will destroy you when you can’t have it. Of loving someone you can’t hold on to. Of watching something break that you don’t know how to fix. Do you have an ex-fiancée you don’t know of?
Someone else stands out of the pack at this point...a girl, her name: love. Remember Love? The girl who confessed to having been looking forward to meeting Loverboy at the start? Who had expected that Loverboy would recall her from way back? Who had wished that Loverboy would just get her number and give her a call soon enough so they would get together? Who had rushed to give Loverboy a hug upon setting eyes on him? But whose affection Loverboy couldn’t care less about based on wounds inflicted on him by ladies he inclined towards romantically? She’s the same girl who had graced Loverboy and Playboy’s initial audition late. Whose astonishing beauty seized everyone’s attention upon her late entry because she was stuck in traffic. She had graced their audition again, quite early. But she only now emerges on the stage, singling herself out from the others to take her shot at securing herself a role. Mr. Lover notices her immediately. There’s something about her!
LOVE
What went wrong, is that, in a past life, I betrayed a very powerful witch, and she put a curse on my love life, accounting for my difficulty in that area of endeavor. God have mercy! I’m about to kiss a very nice and handsome young man on an unplanned date; in an unfamiliar place. This is how the story is supposed to go, and it finally is. Those first few years of school were hell! They keep asking “how?” They keep asking what "hottened" those years? But I just wouldn’t say! Those who seem to have a thing against reading of romance novels are mechanics who can't stand not being cared about anymore. They just wanted me to love something. They didn’t care what. That explains the relentless pressure being mounted on me by what looks like every Tom, Dick, and Harry to Love! You keep asking what’s standing in my way of warming up to you. But can you please answer this: what's standing in your way of warming up to me? Isn’t it because we barely know each other and both come from emotionally damaged places? Where the complements that boosted our self-esteem were another's? That's why we don't get them anymore? Or why we don't treasure them anymore? That it was all a game? My personal appeal hadn’t changed. But suddenly all those places that had turned me down—wanted me. People who had never looked my way—were all over me.
-----
Playboy whispers to Loverboy.
-----
PLAYBOY
The girl is in a place of fantasy and delusion. It's about bringing her out of there to a place of understanding, for, having seen it, she became it. Can you guess what she saw and became? An anonymous site where those embittered with each other trade banters and leave each other guessing who said what while getting their nasty subs!
-----
Love continues.
-----
LOVE
So you make deliberate efforts at gathering facts to relay most skillfully and artfully for audiences to relish and not just be entertained but also enlightened; and Princes of Persia block those works? Which works are they granting access? Let them continue! Never leave any discussion with whoever without gathering facts from the conversation for screenplays! Look out for that fellow who's going to afford you the clarity that your own mother hasn't afforded you. That's the villain who holds your mother to ransom. You already know what to do with such fellow! I’m not cooking you breakfast. Not because it’s a rule but because I might not know what I’m doing in the kitchen and might end up poisoning you. I said I might, not I will.
-----
The others rejoin.
-----
PLAYERS
Love them and leave them! The superstar doesn't exist!
SEDUCTRESSES
As it turns out, all our longest-standing clients really know about us is that we never leave town. We are always reachable by phone. But why so many calls?
VICTIMS
So it's not "The Girl?" It's actually "The Boy?" Who are they hiding him from? Us? Unoriginal boy? That's why they don't want him? Worse off, that's why they want to impose him on us? Like a sort of curse? What’s the difference? A girl beast and an unoriginal boy! Unmarried friends of old ladies! What’s the freaking difference?
PLAYERS
You have bad bedroom vibes, yet you claim to be a bad bitch! Now an old woman has won you in your “other room” competition! It’s beyond shameful, we must say!
TARGETS
Who's the old woman?
BACHELORS
They neither wanted us to see nor know that they were having sexual intercourse with mad persons! But what exactly is hidden under the sun? Mention one to us!
BACHELORETTES
Enough already! You quiet, unfocused boys! Precocious, resentful preteens! Broody high schoolers! Desperate to get out! Get out already! Get your sick asses outta here!
-----
Playboy whispers to Loverboy again.
-----
PLAYBOY
I know we agreed to go about this audition the conventional way. But you see these wanna-bes? Dem go dey follow us. Anywhere we go dem go dey follow us. Anything we do dem go dey follow us. Sotey we go beg dis dem ogbongidis say mek dem leave us alone! But hey, we’ll go about it the conventional way, right? Or?
-----
Loverboy’s rapt attention is fixed on Love who had resigned to center-stage, waiting for it to be all over...for her to know her fate, whether she’s won a role, or not, and perhaps, whether Loverboy now recalls her from way back. His rapt attention on her doesn’t elude her notice, as well as Playboy’s. Even the other auditees seem to notice. Playboy, in what comes across as a knowing tone, casts his arms around Loverboy’s neck, and with a smile, whispers once more:
-----
PLAYBOY
You love her.
Loverboy doesn’t consent, neither does he deny. He doesn’t fight it, neither does he react to those words with an unwelcomed attitude. Rather, his eyes remains fixated on Love.........until:
FADE OUT.
Comments