Dumebi.Okonji

I know what you’re thinking; you feel there’s absolutely no justification for dating a married man. There’s probably nothing you can hear or see that makes that despicable deed even the least bit bearable. I know even if I tell my tale in the most persuasive way, it won’t make a difference but guess what? I’m going to tell it anyway. The usual profile of a mistress is mostly stereotypic and a tad bit annoying, people expect you to be an empty-headed, hourglass-shaped diva. One who is mostly interested in satisfying a man’s deepest erotic desires and is ready to do any damn thing the man wants… Basically all a man desired in a wife but is too embarrassed to present to the world as his better half. I Mosebolatan, would never be a man’s cum rag, and frankly, I never saw myself as a competition for Uche’s wife Onyinye. Beautiful, smart, elegant were never enough to describe Onyinye. She was every man’s dream and at some point, she was sincerely what Uche had dreamed of. The sad thing about their marriage wasn’t that Uche was cheating; it wasn’t even about the fact that Uche was even willing to pay her a huge sum if only she was willing to divorce him. The saddest thing about their marriage was that they were actually each other’s first love. Uche and Onyinye had been together for ten whole years before they decided to take a vow before their loved ones in the presence of God. They had been so in love that even their Catholic and Anglican parents put aside their differences to honour their love. Uche never looked at another woman twice for close to five years of being married to her. Onyi was his world, the only reason he lived and this was something everyone knew. This was even the more reason why when I met Uche at the bank after standing on the queue for hours while he strolled in to casually chat with the cashier with an air of arrogance I so detested, even in my anger as I screamed at him at the top of my lungs for jumping the queue, I knew this man would be my undoing. The way his lips twitched and relaxed into a smile when I said “why are Nigerians so damn irresponsible”, the way his shoulders relaxed from their hunch when he adjusted the stem of his glasses that sat smugly on the bridge of his nose. The way his fingers brushed my hands in a bid to calm me down and how he mouthed his apology or was it the way he waited for me at the parking lot and made sure I didn’t hail a taxi. No, I think it was the way he said “Can I take you to dinner sometime?” while he parked in front of my office in Ikeja or the way he smiled when I declined and said, “I can bring my wife along, you have nothing to worry about”. Nah, I remember now, it wasn’t all that. It was when he slipped his phone into my bag just so he could call me when I refused to give him my number. They say love makes people do crazy things, but Uche and I were beyond crazy, we were stark, raving mad and nobody could stop us… Although they tried. Something kept vibrating at the dinner table that night, it felt a bit strange because Wale and I both had our phones on silent and placed faced down on the table. This was our usual ritual every time we had dinner, which was every last Friday of the month. Wale was my fiancé of three years, I know you’re thinking I am the modern-day “Lord of the Rings”, but I promise that it sincerely wasn’t Wale’s fault. Left to Wale, we would have been married in a heartbeat. That evening Wale looked puzzled and a bit distracted. We took turns to host each other for dinner and we ate out when either of us couldn’t host. It was my turn to host this particular Friday. I couldn’t go to the market after my encounter with Uche at the bank. I just ordered for jollof rice, salads, and chicken. I took out my finest wine and dinner was served. “Mo, do you have a second phone?” Wale asked, “No babe, I don’t even know what has been vibrating this much”. Wale stood up and went over to the sofa and searched for my bag. I clutched my heart in terror, I told him I had never seen the phone in my life, luckily the phone was unlocked. The screen saver was a beautiful picture of Uche and Onyinye probably taken at an event and I was taken aback. I dismissed the situation by telling him a colleague probably forgot it with me and Wale bought it, unsuspecting Wale, so peaceful and unsuspecting. Wale was the proverbial “nice guy”, the one who stops by your house every Sunday morning to take you to church. The kind of man that lets you win every argument. The one who never bothers you, never stresses you. What they do not tell you about men like Wale is that if you’re the adventurous kind you should never end up with them. Just like your favourite childhood toy, you’ll wake up one morning and you’ll get over them… Almost like they never existed. Uche, on the other hand, was the kind of man who would never fuck you on a bed, the kind of man to pack up his bags and fly you out on a Tuesday afternoon when you are at work all because he just needed to walk on the beach with you and whisper sweet nothings to your ears, in another continent of course. I know you’re thinking that Uche could probably afford it and Wale couldn’t. Well, newsflash! Wale was at least five times richer than Uche. It wasn’t really about the money…It was about the spontaneity, the freedom, the need to live his very best life at any point in time and I was more than grateful that he chooses to live it with me. All they say is fair in love and war, being with Uche was purely love but decided to cheat on my fiance with a married man was war and subsequently; Wale and Onyinye were causalities of this war. Onyinye didn’t realize that her husband was no longer hers immediately, no woman ever does, forget what they say. No women expect her husband who courted her for ten years to cheat. Someone she believed could never betray her to suddenly be a stranger. Uche sent Onyi flowers and cupcakes every Tuesday afternoon of their married life with a special card that read a new message every time, one which signified a greater seal for their “heavenly made marriage”. What Onyi didn’t actually know was that while her coworkers “oohed and ahhed” at a different package every Tuesday afternoon at her Ikoyi office, I also oohed and aahed at her husband’s consistent strokes and thrusts as I leaned against his office wall, on the leather seat of his car parked at a disclosed location or pressed against the cold tiles of the restroom in our favourite restaurant. She most definitely didn’t know that her husband’s high pitched voice when she called to say thank you wasn’t as a result of the terrible network in the new wing he was transferred to, it was actually a ploy to sound like he was really straining to hear her so she could let him gasp in peace while receiving a blowjob, from me of course. There were so many things Onyinye didn’t know, some many things. Our people say what you don’t know wouldn’t hurt you but they probably never thought of us… This was more than a fling, it was way more than an affair, what Uche and I shared was a madness. It had been one whole month of sneaking around with Uche when I first saw her, I was going to surprise him for lunch that Afternoon when I saw her walk past me, something about her was so striking. Onyi was breathtakingly beautiful, she had long black braids on, they brushed her back as she sashayed away, holding a beautiful Chanel bag on one hand. I can never forget the clear cut diamond on her finger, the seal and promise of the love she shared with Uche, my Uche. I swallowed hard and paused for several seconds staring blindly at her, if only she wasn’t so much in a hurry she would have spared me a thought or perhaps wondered what was so captivating about her. After she had driven off, I heard someone call me in a faint whisper “Mo”, I wasn’t surprised that Uche had been watching me, I was just surprised that he didn’t have the slightest remorse, instead, he looked more than excited to see me. I silently stood, walked into his office and told him we couldn’t do this anymore. I was honestly done with it, I had had enough of the sneaking around. The other day, Wale walked into my office a few minutes after Uche left, there had been countless times when I had to switch off my phone in Wale’s presence. I couldn’t possibly continue like this… It was baseless but then again it was still too early. Moving to Lagos was one of the bravest decisions of my life, I had never lived in Lagos for more than three months at a stretch, but someway somehow I decided to come work for my aunt who owned a luxury fashion studio in Lagos. Aunty Lara, my father’s younger sister was the black sheep of our family. She was everything my mother despised in a woman but also everything my mother would never be. She had gold-tinted natural dreadlocks which were swinging carelessly just a little over her ample butt, oh! what a magnificent butt Aunty Lara had, it was so conspicuously bigger than her waist that her waist beads sat so comfortably on then which earned her the moniker “Idi-ileke”. We had so much in common because we were both radicals and so different from other prim and proper members of our family who would rather die in the UK than settle in Nigeria; a less functional society. I had lunch with Aunty Lara every Friday. On this particular day, she was oh so happy to see me as she happily puffed on her Cuban cigar, barefoot on her plush carpet. “Mosebolatan!!! Ola o tan, Olakuseyin jaburata!!!” (“I thought the wealth was exhausted but alas! It wasn’t, it's still abundant), Aunty Lara loved to sing my name in full rendition of its Yoruba splendor, unlike my mother who would rather call me Mo, Aunty Lara was a typical Yoruba woman in flesh and blood. Shina Peter’s “Afro-juju” was playing softly in the background as I knelt to greet my Aunty and she hugged me, we exchanged pleasantries and she told me of the beautiful work she heard I have been doing with the business. Part of me wanted to talk to Aunty Lara about Uche, maybe she would have a few things to say. On second thought Aunty Lara a third-time divorcee probably wouldn’t have much to say to me or she would certainly ask me if I really wanted to marry Wale which she always calls “Suganmu” meaning fool. Right from when Wale decided to move back to Nigeria with me, Aunty Lara had always termed him a “fool” and I decided to refrain from discussing him with her. After lunch with Aunty Lara, I headed back to my office. I noticed my assistant was acting really fidgety when I entered the reception but I was in no mood to talk. I opened my office and Alas, I could swear I locked it before leaving. I didn’t think much about it until my gaze met Uche’s. I went livid, It had been three days since I ignored his calls. Three days of ignoring but stalking him on social media. “What the hell are you doing here Uche?!” I yelled, he stood up and walked across the room with that same calm gait and reassurance that loved to hate so much. “Mo, you haven’t been picking my calls or even returning them, I had to come to see if you were fine”. “I’m fine Uche, now can you leave before I call security?” I felt his warm hands touch the tip of my fingers and although it sent jitters through my skin, I wasn’t going to be this person. I decided to think about Wale, my faithful fiancé who would do anything to be with me, even if it took starting a life in another continent without even processing it. Wale who had reminded me several that he would marry me in a heartbeat any day in Ikoyi Registry if I just said the word. I also told Wale I didn’t want a church wedding, we both were from wealthy backgrounds but Wale was from a more powerful and wealthy political family that I didn’t want at my wedding. Not his father who wanted to bribe me with an Aston Martin to have a wedding or his mother who keeps reminding my mother that women start having fewer quality eggs when they turn 30. I was turning 30 in two weeks. These were all I was pondering about before Uche’s lips met mine and in a twinkle of an eye, I was lost in that zone where I couldn’t even think. I could hardly process what it was I was going through. Uche and I kissed and made up, he promised me that he had a mind-blowing surprise for me on the day I turn 30. ***** It was a beautiful Tuesday evening in Onyinye’s office. Unlike other Tuesdays, she hadn’t gotten flowers, a cake or chocolates in two weeks. Onyinye was beautiful but certainly not stupid. When her nosey coworker Obumnenyenwa said “Onyi baby, didn’t Oga send us something this week again?” She had to swallow the tirade of curses that were at the tip of her tongue waiting to be blurted out but instead, she smiled and said “Obum! I’m getting older, do you want me to have diabetes!” They both laughed. That evening, Uche texted her saying he wouldn’t be home for dinner and she shouldn’t wait up. It wasn’t just a Tuesday night, it wasn’t even about the flowers, it was their wedding anniversary and Uche had never forgotten it in the five years they were married. Onyi didn’t go to sleep that night, she stayed up and waited in the dark till Onyi came back home. She hugged him, expecting to catch the whim of the sweet-smelling floral scent of the woman she knew very well he had been seeing. She didn’t know if she should be grateful that it was a sophisticated woman who knew her way around designer perfumes because to her surprise she still couldn’t tell the exact one but she knew it had to be the same woman. Onyi kissed her husband full on the lips, took his jacket and asked about his day. She didn’t miss the quick shock in his face when he saw the fine bottle of wine they had bought in Venice three years ago to be opened on their fifth wedding anniversary. Onyi returned with two glasses and he opened the wine, he started to apologize as Onyi shook her head and reassured him that their love was to be celebrated today and not debated. Uche danced with his wife to the beautiful rendition of 2face’s “African Queen”, he was visibly exhausted after which he decided to work on his computer for a bit and within minutes he was fast asleep on the couch, wine or exhaustion Onyi wasn’t concerned. She picked up his laptop and the first thing she saw caught her attention, it was a thread of emails between him and a lawyer, but this wasn’t their lawyer’s email address, a quick google search revealed that it was, in fact, a divorce attorney. Onyi didn’t know if she should be shocked or not. She read through all the messages and apparently her husband was going to get a divorce settlement in which he would give her 75% of his property and wealth home and abroad. He would rather have it be quiet and peaceful. The attorney was to serve her the papers in a week, apparently, he planned to go away on a trip that very day. That attorney had advised him to make sure he wasn’t leaving on grounds of infidelity on his path as this could ruin him. Onyi quietly went to bed and woke up next to her loving husband the next morning. He had somehow managed to decorate the room with petals as he gave her breakfast in bed on a Wednesday morning, he had called in sick and advised her to do the same as they were going to spend the rest of the day doing whatever she wanted, a creative way to get her to forget that he hadn’t remembered their anniversary and had also forgotten their Tuesday ritual. They spent most of the day making love and sleeping, or let’s just say Uche slept while Onyi plotted away. She kept thinking of her life with Uche, finding it so difficult to believe that he could leave her. She decided to do away with emotions and handle it the way she could. She stared at the butter knife beside on the tray that held her breakfast hours ago and wondered how it will feel against his throat slicing it away, except of course it will be a messy job because it wasn’t sharp enough. Onyi smiled, she gently tucked Uche’s blanket around him properly. He probably never really knew who she was and how wild she could be. She remembered her father strangling one of his “boys” with his bare hands in his magnificent Onitsha home, who had been stupid enough to tell her father that he couldn’t be involved in the drug trafficking business because his father told him he would move to Onitsha to learn how to trade electronics. His name was Obinna, and she still remembered one of the toughest looking thugs she had ever seen in her life taking his body away to dump in a faraway river or dumpsite. Some times they would burn the bodies, other times the would chop them into smaller pieces and dump them in the bush. Now she had left Onitsha all these years, her father’s drug business aged well and she finally decided to put the whole goriness behind her, but there was something about that email that made Onyi remember Obinna’s screams as her father strangled him to death in the Boy’s quarters of their Onitsha home. Obinna wasn’t like the other boys, he had learned to speak English and he could even read and write, he would sneak into her room at night to eat some of the leftovers she reserved for him for dinner. They would watch TV together and he would tell her stories about his papa back in Obosi. Watching Obinna die had killed something in Onyi, she hadn’t been the same after that episode. She still saw him sometimes when are eyes were shut, her long visits to the therapists in London didn’t change anything. She still heard him knock on her door for the leftovers every night. His voice was still what she heard before she went to sleep. Onyi had vowed never to call her father’s thugs or speak to them or even step into the Boy’s quarters in Onitsha ever again but as she kissed her husband and kids goodbye the next morning with the reassurance that she would be back the next day, she finally felt at home as her driver drove through the Niger bridge. ***** It was exactly three days to Mo’s birthday, Wale was staring at the beautiful sapphire crusted diamond wedding ring he had purchased two years ago in Milan. It had the most beautiful shape and it perfectly described Mo; vibrant, exotic and fearless. The woman he was going to make his wife, the woman of his dreams. Wale was no fool, he knew her Aunty Lara hated him so much, although other members of both families were more than pleased with their union. Frankly, who wouldn’t be. He knew the right moment would come if only Aunty Lara wasn’t such a damn role model and favourite aunty of Mo, she most likely would have considered him. Mo was cheating on him, he saw how her face lit up when a message came in, how sneaky she became these days and how much more disappointed she looked after having sex with him and how reluctant she was towards their sex life these days. It made him happier, he would take up any slip up and emotionally blackmail her into a wedding, since getting her pregnant hasn’t worked in the last two years. Wale wasn’t taking no for an answer, he was going to marry this woman. ****** Uche’s phone woke them up with a start, it was Onyi calling, she had arrived Lagos safely and wanted to know when he would be home, he mumbled something to her, took a quick shower and kissed Mo on her cheeks. Carefully placing their tickets to Cape Town on her beside and before she could ask more questions he rushed out. Mo sat upright, adjusted her blanket and smiled, they were going away on her birthday the next morning to Cape Town, they were going to spend the weekend there and she would know about her “surprise”, she honestly couldn’t wait as she turned on her phone to reply Wale’s messages. ***** Uche walked into his house at exactly 9 pm, he was furious that the security guard had left his post and he had to open the gate himself, he had tried calling his wife Onyi but her phone kept ringing, he assumed she turned in early, probably exhausted from her trip. He went upstairs and saw Onyi watching TV, she smiled and told him about her trip, he honestly wasn’t listening because he didn’t know how to tell her that he would be leaving town tomorrow, she chased him off to go and have a shower and while he was doing that, she came in with his laptop he was about to talk when he saw the shadow of someone else, he screamed “Onyi! who are these men? What are they doing here”. “They are your in-laws Uche, greet them. They followed me here”. Uche was about to step out of the tub when one of the men gave him a deafening slap. He blacked out and calmly sat naked, this time Onyi had brought in a stool and placed the laptop on it. His emails were displayed on the screen. Oh, shoot, she had seen the emails, she knew everything and she didn’t even say anything. He wanted to beg but he knew it was pointless. This time Onyi was smiling as she asked him why he would think he could leave her. He didn’t get the chance to answer as the two men had joined him in the tub and strangled him to death in no time…. ****** Thank God it’s Friday, it was Mo’s birthday. In the midst of all the incessant voice calls, video calls and messages everywhere Mosebolatan was worried. Uche hadn’t been picking and still hadn’t called her. She called his office and his secretary said she hadn’t heard from him. They were to leave for Cape Town by 1 pm and it was 11 am and still nothing. She had told Wale she was going on a business trip and won't be available. Aunty Lara had spent the night in her house and helped her pack her luggage all the while giving her a knowing smile as if to say “this doesn’t seem like a business dress code”. At exactly 11:30 am a text came in from Uche apologizing for being AWOL and asking her to pick the first surprise he left in her trunk last night and drive to the airport. She freshened up and went downstairs to open her trunk before hailing a taxi to the airport to check her surprise, to her surprise it was a great surprise! In there laid the cold murdered body of the only man she had ever been able to love, Uche. With a loving note written with beautiful handwriting and signed “O”. She shivered and looked around Aunty Lara ran to the gutter to puke, wipe her lips and muttered the words “call Wale”. ****** Wale arrived at Mo’s house at about 12:45 pm, he met her crying on the dinning and Aunty Lara smoking beside her. Mo made an attempt to explain but Aunty Lara hushed her and explained everything to Wale. He was from a politically influential home and disposing bodies was something he knew from birth. He looked at both of them in disbelief and told Aunty Lara he was only going to take care of it if Mosebolatan would wed him in Ikoyi Registry in the next hour. ****** As Mo smiled and signed her marriage certificate she couldn’t imagine who she had become, Wale’s joy was unspeakable as he kissed her amongst cheers and Aunty Lara’s warm embrace. At that moment, she knew that he would be her undoing. The end.