I did it, yes, even though now, I am now regretting it a little bit but I was pushed to do it.
No man with red blood running in his veins will allow it.
That woman you are seeing, she is my third wife. I neglected my two other wives for this woman even though she had a child for another man before I met her. She was selling food to traders at the market where I have a shop that I run with my brother; we sell second hand clothes. She used to come and sell food to us and with one little girl on her back.
One day, I saw her with bruises all over her body and the baby she was carrying. I asked and she said her husband beat her. I told her to run away because the man that did this to her and her child will kill her one day.
Just ordinary advice. I later found out she sleeps in the market, in some stalls. When I asked, she said she left the man and that she had nowhere to go.
You know, she is quite young, so I said, “This girl, you can’t be sleeping here, if area boys find you here, they will rape you and rape your baby even.” That was when I decided to help her.
At that time, I didn’t say, “Ha, see fine girl I want to be sleeping with her,” no. I just saw Stella as my little sister that needed help. That’s why I found a place for her, one room, not too far from the market.
Ok, after sometime, I became interested in her, even though I had one wife at home who was a trouble maker. My other wife is in our village, the first one. She doesn’t like wahala and so she went to the village to live there.
Stella also comes from the same place with me but not the same village. She looked like a good woman just unlucky with men. I began to give her money to take care of herself and her baby and even add to her business of selling food. I am not rich myself but I am doing well.
Once in a while I would sleep at her place…you know, so that I can be checking on her and to let people around know that she has a man.
Ok, when this thing started with the landlord, I did not immediately know; the landlord is just in charge of three rooms in that house, the house that their mother left to him and his brothers and sisters, that whole house has about three or four landlords…so this our own, the one I got for Stella, I later found out he had been sleeping with her without my knowledge. Maybe like one year after she started living there, I am not sure. You know, I still have my own house and I couldn’t bring Stella there because my second wife is there.
How did I know about Stella and landlord?
People talk, now.
There’s one guy that also lives in the house, he too has a shop at our market place, he was the one that asked me if Stella was my wife. I said, yes she was. He said somebody else was eyeing her.
I asked Stella, who is coming to meet you when I am not here?
She denied it, she said she didn’t know what I was saying.
Ok.
I decided I would be going there more often to sleep, let me get to the bottom of this nonsense.
So in that house, they share bathroom and toilet with some other neighbours. At night when we get back from market, Stella would go to the bathroom and not comeback on time…you know the bathroom is at the back of the house. I didn’t suspect anything because women take a long time in the bathroom.
One evening, it was a Sunday, she went to the bathroom as usual. I ate something that was turning my stomach, so I wanted her to come back quickly and watch her small daughter so I could go to the toilet.
I went to the back to check on her…it was deserted, as I moved closer to the door, I heard one funny sound inside the bathroom.
Like huummn, hummmn. I said “Shuo! Who is doing this in the bathroom?”
I tiptoed and put my ears on the door, it was sound of moaning and you know when bodies are slamming against one another? Pa! pa! pa! pa!
I am not a child; I know what sound that is.
I called her name, Stella!
She didn’t answer, I said “I know you are there, what are you doing there?”
No answer.
She didn’t say anything. That’s when everything made sense to me, there was someone there with her! At this time, my stomach was very upset but I summoned courage and got a nail and stone and nailed it to the ground while they were still having sex.
I nailed them and I waited for them to come out!
I said, “Stella come out o. Come and carry your baby.”
Haaa!
You don’t know what it is to knock nail into the ground?
Go and ask your elders.
They couldn’t come out, they kept quiet for a long time but because they had been glued together, they couldn’t come out. The landlord’s manhood was stuck inside Stella. That’s what the nail did to them. I wanted to shame both of them.
I went to bang on the door for her to come out. Soon, all our neighbours came. They forced them to come out, they did, eventually, stark naked, both of them!
Can you imagine the shame?
They were stuck together.
I didn’t know when I rushed the landlord and beat him up; people held me after a while and began to beg me to release them. They said did I do magun? I said no but I would not release them.
Anyway, after a long while, when everybody had seen them and I was satisfied they were shamed, I went to remove the nail in the ground, that’s when they were now separated but by then, everyone had seen Stella’s nakedness with the landlord, who by the way is not an old man, he is like in his 50s…can you imagine? Having sex with another man’s wife in the bathroom!
After that day, I was done with Stella.
That’s how I left her, I don’t want to have anything to do with her again. What will I do with a woman who’s nakedness has been seen by everyone?
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on trues stories)