It was the satrapal General Hussein who had first begun to talk to the leader about joining in the sexual excursions that his men were taking. The ruler had for long waved this aside. His wife was more than enough for him. Didn’t they have a dozen children together? In all of the years they’d been married, he had only played away twice or so - he simply was not a natural-born player, and that was considered unmanlike, even by Zimbi women. Everyone believed it was a man’s thing to sow his oats into his twilight years.

The ruler also had loads of Indian films to beguile his time with. He liked Sholay so much so that he had seen it a hundred times. He considered Sholay the best of several thousand Indian films he’d seen, the best of his Scheherazadean diversions from the boring duties of governing. And he hated Hollywood films with as much passion as he loved Bollywood. Hollywood sucks, he would spit, and since Hollywood films often don’t have subtitles he found he couldn’t follow them. And the dictator never knew that a few years after he was gone, Xollywood would be born. The epithet Zollywood, which would have been mot juste, had been taken. But that is another story.

General Sanni Kwabacha had his bouquet of fruits to eat too - apple and the others. Then his wine. Now he was even drinking wine - and beer, of course, his favourite  - against what he considered the better judgment of his wife. General Hussein, who did not quite like his superior’s wife, was shocked by this. He was not uxorious himself, and he could not understand why the Head of State would say he was only drinking against the better judgment of his wife. His own first wife - he had three, and several mistresses, or concubines as his Bible might call them - knew everything about his sexual adventures, but she dared not say anything, he might have to make good his threat to replace her as first wife...

He broached this with the ruler: ‘Your Excellency, why should you allow your wife to even try to stop you from drinking?’

The top man replied: ‘It is for my own good Hussein. You know, I am a sick man. I have both liver and kidney problems. My heart is weak too.’ 

‘Your Excellency, I never knew it’s so bad you can’t enjoy yourself.’

‘Well, that is the case. I had fought with my wife over the matter of drinking. You know how I used to like my beer, my Gulder. I had to compromise and take fully to wine. I find it’s all right too. Though my wife would rather I do not drink anything. And abstention is one of the things my doctor told me to try – I mean the other abstention. The madam will not allow me to touch her, much as I want to. She says she doesn’t want me to drop dead while we are at it. I have told you all this because you are the closest officer to me.’

General Hussein knew what this meant: ‘You have my word, Your Excellency. But, Sir, if you feel like doing anything, why not do it? If you still have the energy, I don’t think anything will happen to you. But if you have any doubts, there is a medicine I always use. You have heard about Viagra, I believe?’

‘I have,’ General Kwabacha replied.

‘Try it Your Excellency, I guarantee it will help. It will turn you into horse. You’ll go for hours.’

The head of State smiled, and said: ‘You boys, you sons of guns, you are really having a good time! I hear the story of what you did to one of the estranged middle wives of stupid General Oluoba, the woman who has a reputation. I understand she came to lobby for the release of her husband, to win favour in the eyes of the man if he is finally released.’

‘So you heard about that Your Excellency?’

‘Flies on the wall, and besides you couldn’t stop talking about it at the Officers’ Club, could you?’

General Hussein chuckled profoundly, ‘But Your Excellency, the woman was really challenging. I had heard so much about her before she came to me, imploring me to speak to you on her behalf. She would like to see her husband released. I nearly took an overdose of Viagra. I told her as she was leaving that I never wanted to see her again. Trash. And I had done what I did with a vengeance too. Your Excellency knows how her husband used to criticize your government before we shut him up. Arrogant man. It’s good that he was put in his place, I think he sometimes forgot he no longer had any power. And a very ugly man, I don’t know what the women saw in him.’

General Kwabacha was beaming gloatingly, victoriously. He detested General Oluoba too. And perhaps there was the underlay of envy, for while General Oluoba was a serial polygamist, General Kwabacha was a solid, if occasionally errant, monogamist. But he had also found it funny that Hussein would describe Oluoba as ugly. Nehemiah Hussein was the paragon of piglike beauty, his beetling brow, buck teeth…

But now General Hussein was about to change the ruler’s life for ever. He said: ‘Your Excellency, you should try the medicine Viagra. It will help. Any wife might come begging for the release of her husband too.’

The ruler laughed: ‘You are the devil himself. This was when I was thinking how I would begin to explain to my wife how I am able to perform so well.’

‘Your wife need not know anything about this, Your Excellency. You wouldn’t even have to do anything with her. I will see to the supply of girls and women.’

General Kwabacha had sought reassurance: ‘Are you sure, Hussein, that the Viagra thing will be fine for me?’ 

‘Oh Your Excellency, I think I must have begun to sound like a Viagra salesman now. The medicine is Al at Lloyd, even at Barclays.’  Believe me. No side effects whatever. And something just occurred to me. I shall hire out one of my women to get a virgin girl for me by all means. I will give her some money. Your Excellency, you will try the Viagra on the virgin girl. You will deflower her and we’ll see how it goes. I can assure you that you will hack you way though, like an axe through pith.’

General Nehemiah Hussein had given a woman-friend of his all of 4 million zimbi to get a virgin girl for him. The procurer had gone back to her village, and after a thorough rule-of-thumb hymenal test she was able find a true virgin who also was goodlooking, nubile and ready. It was a seventeen-year-old completely guileless girl. She was quickly flown to Zimbi City.

In his private bookless den, a chamber untresspassed by his wife, like a ram the Head of State General Kwabacha had gored his way through the innocence of the village girl. He had taken a tongueful of Viagra before he began, and truly he was like a beast. The girl was petrified by the fact that the country’s Head of State was having a go at her. This was the great man she saw in newspapers and posters, and sometimes on the battery-powered TV in a palmwine bar in the village. Why would the man sleep with her of all the women in the world? But the woman who took her from the village had promised her parents another hundred thousand zimbi, besides the hundred she had given them when she left with her. She was a rich woman whom they said was a contractor in Zimbi City, although some people did whisper, not without admiration, that she knew how to use ‘bottom power’ to get what she wanted from Ministers and politicians. She told her parents that a government minister wanted a good ‘small’ wife from the provinces. The parents sent away their daughter with prayers.

On the evening of the day she arrived in the city the bottom-power woman had told her she was taking her to see someone important and that after she had seen the person, her life would change for ever and she would not be returning to the village again, not at least as a poor village girl, she would be living with her in the city, in a beautiful house. Now here was the Head of State himself grappling with her. Or was she only dreaming? Hallucinating. Malarial delirium tremens? She could not believe this was happening to her. It was like one of those ancient Greek gods unifying with a human woman. She was anaestheticised all through, though, she became frigid with fright. And the Head of State seemed to be enjoying himself! She felt this at the very least. Then after what seemed to be ages, the Head of State was done.

To be continued

Robot  # 1 | 13.05.2009 01:46

‘Oh Your Excellency, I think I must have begun to sound like a Viagra salesman now. The medicine is Al at Lloyd, even at Barclays.’ Believe me. No side effects whatever. And something just occurred to me. I shall hire out one of my women to get a virgin girl for me by all means. I will give her some money. Your Excellency, you will try the Viagra on the virgin girl.'...Read the full article.