The Many Faces of Coercion

“Was I watching a stage play in my favourite theatre? Why was there so much light and noise around me? Hang on, seems the spotlight is on me.”

These I thought as I slowly opened my eyes, only to see that I am lying in a corner of a busy street where street children frolic happily with the promise the mountain of uncollected rubbish before them brings.

The problem is not that I could not remember what happened, but rather that I could not forget it.

Before the stench of the rubbish and the honking of public transport, there was a huge bed in a fancy, cold room. In that bed, there was me, lying helplessly, naked and summoning death. My heart was bellowing and my body was stiffening involuntarily. In my head, I was trying hard to stop the inevitable with my bare hands. Physical weakness conquered me; that, and the heavy weight on top of me paralysed me like an old tree whose roots were so deep into the earth.

I called upon all the saints whose names didn’t escape me despite years of agnosticism. I was begging them to kill me so I wouldn’t have to endure the torment. But there was I- alive, stoic, and actively doing my best to deny this ogre the pleasure from coercion.

The painful reality trampled my hope like an overwhelming scourge of misery. The naked animal has started thrusting ferociously, delaying orgasm by gratifying himself with periodic masturbation. Soon, my fate was completed. I was helpless. I was at his mercy and no amount of faith in an antediluvian belief could have removed me from that moment.

Then it was dawn. I feel that I lived again to witness not just the rising of the sun but more importantly the state of the poor children competing with flies as they scavenge for food in the dump. Dizzy and trembling just thinking about the amount of semen deposited in my body the night before, I noticed for the first time the malnourished children gathered around me. They helped me get back to my feet.

Since then, I have been standing up for street children, young girls most especially that are coerced by economic circumstances to prostitute themselves at a very young age. The streets have claimed me and to a great extent have brought me back to life.