EX AND HOE

She

swore it would never happen again the last time it happened. And the time before that and

the time before that. And then she would see him, all stout and cute. A full head of hair carefully trimmed and faded by expert hands, well-tailored custom made suit, hand-made shoes topped with a cocky demeanour. Just what she needed after the frustrations of the day. At that moment, it wouldn’t matter that she had vowed never to lose guard again. It wouldn’t matter that they were both in relationships with other people. No, all that mattered was his beautiful pinkish lips, and his roving

short limbs. And the hardness of his penis. This was her weakness. The only one known to her.

Adeoluwa had not been her first love, but he was her greatest love. Theirs was a love that was

built and nurtured and enjoyed. That kind of love was hard to rid of. Everyone had thought they

would get married, they had thought they would get married but they didn’t. He got tired of

having her. According to him, there was no vibe anymore and with that singular reason, a love of

three years, four months, thirteen days was abandoned. But like weed, it resurfaced every now and then.

In the weeks immediately after their breakup, she tried to ice him out. She blocked him on all

social media platforms. She refused to take his guilty calls and texts. All his ‘I’m sorry for hurting you” went unreplied but she was losing it. She was cooking elaborate meals every day and taking pictures in different outfits and paying to get her nails and hair done just to prove that she was fine. But her trying to prove that she was fine was evidence that she was not fine. Abike was not a woman to prove anything to anyone. She had a devil-may-care attitude that was both endearing and repulsing in almost equal measures. So she started talking to him again. She tried to be friends with the ex and that hasn’t worked out fine either. She found herself responding to his booty calls every now and then. She found herself flashing tits over video calls with him. She found herself willing to have him back yet not really wanting him back because she knew she couldn’t bend the way he wanted her to. was a love that was hard to keep and even harder to rid. Abike thought she would be able to let go after she received his wedding invite. She thought she would be able to let go after buying a hideously expensive aso-ebi and meeting his wife and dancing at his wedding party. But she couldn’t. Abike hated herself for this. She prided herself on being logical and intelligent. She was not the kind of woman to sleep with another woman’s husband. She was not the kind of woman who texted another woman’s husband at 11pm. She wasn’t the kind of woman who cheated. But for him, she was.

It didn’t matter that she was the youngest, black female vice president at the multinational

that she worked, it didn’t matter that she ran a charity that put hundreds of less privileged kids

through school and trained hundreds more in various vocations. It didn’t matter that she ran the biggest shoe repair company on the continent. It didn’t matter that she had revolutionized the entire industry. In the end she was the woman who slept with another woman’s husband. last time it happened, the last time she would sleep with him had by some twisted fate been the best sex they ever had. They had met at a different rendezvous, in another continent. Perhaps this was why they had been so careless. They had acted like they were some newlyweds on some exotic vacation. Forgetting that there were Nigerians everywhere. That they would find the kind

of Nigerians that would know them at the places they went to.

They had both participated. Again. Yet, their worries were different. He worried about giving the impression that he still loved her. She worried about people finding out which was funny because her fear was simply people finding out she had sexual urges and maybe no manners. had started kissing in the hotel lobby. And by the time they made it to their room, she was dripping wet and he was rock hard. She took him in her mouth first and sucked and deep throated

till he came all over her chest. Then she lay down to let him eat her out. He fumbled around for the condom but when he couldn’t find it, he went into her. Bare, raw and she let him in, receiving him with equal wanting.

They woke up the next day spent from pleasure, cuddled up until the notifications started coming in.

’'639 people mentioned you in a post” ‘‘100 people liked a post you were mentioned in”. The

pictures of them kissing in the hotel lobby were all over the internet. The picture of Abike at a

charity fundraiser was placed next to it. And the memes were there too. “Abike empowers 1000

teenagers with husband snatching toolkits”. Her boss was calling non-stop. Her life had toppled

over like an empty bucket. She was scared. Too scared to remember to take a morning after pill

and that would be her real undoing nine months later.

She didn’t just sleep with another woman’s husband but she had gotten pregnant for him and even dared to have his child and make a Duduke video on tiktok. The guts. She was cancelled.And that’s how this story unfolds. It wasn’t until it happened that she realised it. She had actually wanted this to happen. She had wanted for people to see her as a person too. A human being with the ability to feel. An irrational being. She had wanted people to know this and know peace; Great women make mistakes too.