Beyond beauty.

OMG! What am I seeing?!" ***coughs** My name is Anene, and I'm twenty-nine years old. *chuckles* "You've been twenty-nine for three years now." just as my friend Monica would say. I guess this makes me twenty-nine and a half years old then. I'm a project consultant, and I work for one of the biggest consultancy firms in Lagos. I'm what some people might call a "boss lady". I don't like to toot my horn, but I'm very smart. I mean, what would have gotten me to the pinnacle of my career if not for my smartness? Thank God for brains. Maybe I'm not society's paradigm of a pretty girl: I mean, all the guys I've been with have said it took something more than beauty for them to be with me; about two touts, or three, or maybe four, in Lagos have told me that I have a face analogous to "spoilt beans." My boss has even said that I have "inner beauty". You might be wondering who Monica is. Monica is my best friend, or maybe she isn't since she's the only friend I have. I mean, how do you know a particular food is your best when you haven'+ tasted others? But we're pretty close. I don't know how we became friends because we are a whole lot different from each other. Monica is beautiful in every sense of the word. Her complexion is just about the shade of deep brown toffee, and her face is a delight to stare at. People's gazes are always fixated on her anytime we go out, the same way one has their eyes glued to a TV when their favourite show is on. Her well-rounded hips enclose both sides of her thighs in a pulchritudinous manner like I've never seen, this adds a copious amount of elegance to her overall appearance. Anytime she comes to my workplace to visit me, my boss throws lewd glances at her. Monica doesn't work; she makes a living from the largesse of wealthy admirers and boyfriends or sometimes comes running to me due to the contingent nature of her source of livelihood. She does everything possible to post beautiful pictures on social media and is always happier than a wife whose husband has just returned from the warfront after ten years when the likes on her recent post exceed the ones on the former. She called me one Saturday morning to come to her house urgently.