Everyone says I am a bad person, ok, mo ti gbo, what else is new?
I won’t be the first man and I am not going to be the last man that has fathered children with their helps but before you open your mouth to judge me, hear me first. You women like to talk and talk but you never talk to yourselves.
Ok, me and my wife had been having problems and most of the problems were about bedroom matters. Ok? Before we got married, I told this woman that I didn’t like women who tied wrapper around their chests in the house, it is actually ‘off putting’ for me; I also told her I didn’t like all these nets you women put on your heads; it makes you look old. No man wants to be sleeping with his mother!
Ok, so, that was before marriage o. After marriage and with our marriage not even up to 10 years, right after our first born, a boy, my wife just forgot about me; her main concern was her son, it was, “My son, my son, my son, my son this, my son that….” me nko? Am I not somebody’s son?
This her son sef, is he not also my son? See, I tried to understand that a lot of us men go through this stage but this woman’s own was too much! She would hang one breast in the boys mouth from night till the following day, so much that the breast became unattractive to me after a while and yes, the boy slept on our bed right from infancy till he turned two!
You know, I warned my wife that she was indulging the boy too much, that he would not want to go and sleep in his own bed because he would be too used to being with us all the time but…for where? Did she listen? My mouth was smelling now, so she didn’t listen!
In those two years, to have sex with my own wife was wahala. It is always… “Ha, my son will wake up, haa, he is crying…” that is not encouraging to keep standing at all…. I got tired, so…it went on for more than 6months and that was before we got to the stage of “my son is sleeping, my son will wake up, o.” So we were always quarrelling, I swear, if it wasn’t that she couldn’t deny that I was the father of the boy, she would have said I was jealous of him.
Me? Jealous of my own son? How can? I just thought the attention was too much; if that is how our mothers raised us, then we would not marry, we would still be living with our mothers!
Then we got a nanny, you know these Togo girls that say they are 18 but in actual fact are 27…we got the girl because my wife had to resume work after 6 months…yes, she took an extended leave after the birth of the baby.
To be quite honest, I didn’t see much of this nanny; I came and went on my own in the house, if there was food, I would eat, whenever I could get some ….you know from madam, if her son would allow, ok but I stayed faithful, I promise you. It was frustrating for me but I stayed faithful l and I tried as much as possible not to keep quarrelling with the woman!
This Togo girl was with us for one year and at the end of the year, she said she was going to her village…she didn’t come back!
We now had to be looking for another househelp; my wife of course handles these matters, she tells me how things are going from time to time. I told her to tell the agent that brought the first girl to find her, I wanted some kind of stability. The girl was good and my son took to her. I didn’t like the idea of having strangers in the house. But I was later told that the agent said the girl had gone elsewhere. Ok
We got one that was a born thief!
After two of my wristwatches got missing, I told my wife to fire her! But she was pleading, saying she didn’t want to take her son to crèche, he was too young, he was this and that…the boy was almost two, o! Again, these are matters for women. I told her to warn the househelp, if anything gets missing, I would have her arrested.
A thief is a thief is a thief, the house help stole again, we caught her again and I sent her packing! It took a while to get anther help…that one was, according to my wife, a spirit, a witchcraft spirit, she didn’t even stay up to two weeks before she left! Then we finally got one, who was manageable.
So one day, I was at a joint when one of their sales girls served me peppersoup and stout, she greeted me well, asked after madam and mentioned my son’s name. I was just looking at her and wondering about her familiarity. I was even thinking to myself, “Ol boy, it’s time to change joints o, if they can be greeting you like landlord…”
The girl had all these lashes, was really looking like…you know how sales girls look, right? Well spruced up!
Me, I was just staring at her, when she said, “I am the Cynthia…”
I was still staring at her…she said, “I used to work with you, sir, I was nanny to….”
“Oh, oh, oh, Cynthia! You were Florence when you worked with us, how come you are Cynthia now?”
“Florence is also my name but I prefer Cynthia…”
Hummn. I asked her why she didn’t return to us for over a year now, she said the joint paid her better than what we paid her. So I said, “Why didn’t you tell us? We were looking for you to come back.” Long story short, she said she would come back to us the following year as she must complete her service with the owner of the joint and go home for Christmas. She said she would come back but without her agent. According to her, the agent was shortchanging her.
I wanted someone we could trust with our son, that’s how Cynthia/Florence came to live with us again. I liked the Cynthia, the Florence was bush, Cynthia knew how to handle men.
While my wife would be busy tying wrapper and wearing her stinky hairnet on her head, Cynthia had my attention in everyway. She dressed well, no matter the time I come home, she was waiting to open the door, she was well presented with see through nightie but no hairnet…aunty, I allowed myself to be handled.
Before then, my wife had almost completely forgot she owed me the right to her body. Yes, tell it to all your feminist friends. We vowed to give each other our bodies; I mean, what man would enjoy making love to a woman who just lies there and grunts as if saying, just do and go? And she would just decide that she won’t do me, if I ask why, she would say ‘church fasting.’
So if you have to fast, you won’t agree first with your husband? You will just be fasting like that and what am I supposed to do in the days you are fasting…because I don’t have to fast when you are or is it by force?
Sooooo, Cynthia saw my pain and I let her soothe me; any day anyhow, omo yen buru! that girl is wicked! I began to enjoy being at home again!
My wife was going to church and having bible meetings…which is good, I like it that she is spiritual but she didn’t even see what was happening under her nose until Cynthia became pregnant! And I took responsibility for it!
Wo mo bo w un fun! I told her genuinely, you can’t perform the way this girl is performing. my wife said I had been bewitched, yes, yes, I am enjoying the entrapment! This is the kind of witchcraft a man needs from time to time!
I told the woman, this bewitchment came from ‘My son, my son, my son.’ Now the boy is a little grown, it is ‘church meeting, fasting…am I Satan’s child? Don’t I also know I should be close to God? But you aren’t even close to me! Shouldn’t we agree on these things first?
Wo, that is long story. She sent Cynthia packing and I got the girl a small place. I visit regularly and that’s how come we have a second child now…I keep the two homes and the four children we have today are all mine! Two from each of the women, four is an ok number, I have hung my boots! I am still under the trap of Cynthia, her witchcraft is the best kind!
Call me useless, but you see, I won’t be the first and I will not be the last.
(series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)