THE DEVIL'S MISTRESS
PART 1
The stench of rotting garbage and sweat clung to the air like a curse. In the heart of Lagos' worst slump, where hope went to die, a little girl with too-big eyes and ribs poking through her skin crouched in the dirt, counting grains of rice like they were gold. Jessica was eight years old the first time she understood what hunger truly was—not just the gnawing emptiness in her belly, but the kind that made her mother weep silently at night, the kind that made her father’s hands shake when he couldn’t afford medicine for her baby brother’s fever.
Nine people. One room. A single mattress stained with years of suffering, shared between her parents and seven children. The walls were thin, and the sounds of the slum never slept—drunken shouts, the cries of hungry babies, the scuttling of rats that were bolder than the people. Jessica learned early that life wasn’t fair. While other children played, she scavenged. While others dreamed, she fought—for food, for space, for a single moment of silence.
But there was something different about Jessica. Even as a child, her eyes burned with a fire that poverty couldn’t extinguish. At ten, she taught herself to read using tattered newspapers she found in the trash. At twelve, she sold boiled groundnuts under the scorching sun, saving every coin in a rusted tin she buried beneath their floor. At fifteen, she watched her eldest sister, Ada, disappear into the night with a man who promised her "work"—Ada never came back. That was the day Jessica swore she would never let the slum swallow her whole.
By some miracle—or sheer stubbornness—she finished secondary school. Then came the university admission letter, a flimsy piece of paper that felt like a ticket to heaven. But heaven came with a price. Her parents cried—not tears of joy, but of shame, because they couldn’t afford it. So Jessica did what she had always done: she fought.
She sold pure water under the rain, braved the leering eyes of market men who "tipped" her extra for bending low, took cleaning jobs in rich neighborhoods where women looked at her like she was dirt. Still, it wasn’t enough. Then one evening, a woman in a sleek car rolled down her window and said the words that would change everything: "A girl like you could make a month’s salary in one night."
Jessica knew what it meant. She wasn’t ******. But as she stared at the woman’s manicured nails and perfumed wrists, she thought of her siblings’ hollow cheeks, her father’s cough that never went away, her mother’s broken back from carrying other people’s loads. That night, she made a choice—not because she wanted to, but because the slum had given her no other options.
She became an escort. Not the kind draped in shame, but the kind who wore her pain like armor. She studied men the way she had once studied textbooks—learning their weaknesses, their desires, the way power curled around them like smoke. She was careful. She was smart. And most importantly, she had a plan.
This life wouldn’t break her. It would fuel her.
Because Jessica had one rule: no matter how far she sank, she would never stop climbing.
TO BE CONTINUED....
THE DEVIL'S MISTRESS
PART 1
The stench of rotting garbage and sweat clung to the air like a curse. In the heart of Lagos' worst slump, where hope went to die, a little girl with too-big eyes and ribs poking through her skin crouched in the dirt, counting grains of rice like they were gold. Jessica was eight years old the first time she understood what hunger truly was—not just the gnawing emptiness in her belly, but the kind that made her mother weep silently at night, the kind that made her father’s hands shake when he couldn’t afford medicine for her baby brother’s fever.
Nine people. One room. A single mattress stained with years of suffering, shared between her parents and seven children. The walls were thin, and the sounds of the slum never slept—drunken shouts, the cries of hungry babies, the scuttling of rats that were bolder than the people. Jessica learned early that life wasn’t fair. While other children played, she scavenged. While others dreamed, she fought—for food, for space, for a single moment of silence.
But there was something different about Jessica. Even as a child, her eyes burned with a fire that poverty couldn’t extinguish. At ten, she taught herself to read using tattered newspapers she found in the trash. At twelve, she sold boiled groundnuts under the scorching sun, saving every coin in a rusted tin she buried beneath their floor. At fifteen, she watched her eldest sister, Ada, disappear into the night with a man who promised her "work"—Ada never came back. That was the day Jessica swore she would never let the slum swallow her whole.
By some miracle—or sheer stubbornness—she finished secondary school. Then came the university admission letter, a flimsy piece of paper that felt like a ticket to heaven. But heaven came with a price. Her parents cried—not tears of joy, but of shame, because they couldn’t afford it. So Jessica did what she had always done: she fought.
She sold pure water under the rain, braved the leering eyes of market men who "tipped" her extra for bending low, took cleaning jobs in rich neighborhoods where women looked at her like she was dirt. Still, it wasn’t enough. Then one evening, a woman in a sleek car rolled down her window and said the words that would change everything: "A girl like you could make a month’s salary in one night."
Jessica knew what it meant. She wasn’t stupid. But as she stared at the woman’s manicured nails and perfumed wrists, she thought of her siblings’ hollow cheeks, her father’s cough that never went away, her mother’s broken back from carrying other people’s loads. That night, she made a choice—not because she wanted to, but because the slum had given her no other options.
She became an escort. Not the kind draped in shame, but the kind who wore her pain like armor. She studied men the way she had once studied textbooks—learning their weaknesses, their desires, the way power curled around them like smoke. She was careful. She was smart. And most importantly, she had a plan.
This life wouldn’t break her. It would fuel her.
Because Jessica had one rule: no matter how far she sank, she would never stop climbing.
TO BE CONTINUED....
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