I began to work for my Madam through a sister, more or less a cousin but we call ourselves brother and sister. At the beginning, I was Madam’s houseboy/sales boy. At that time, her husband was stationed in Abuja and he sometimes came to Lagos for public holidays. You know he would be home during Easter or Sallah or Christmas, all the long holidays, even Democracy day, any public holiday that required more than two days, Oga would be home. That is because my Madam is his third wife.
At that time, I was almost 17 years old. I wanted to go to school but if I did then my younger ones would not be able to go to school. Since I finished WAEC, I decided to work so that my two younger ones could at least see the four walls of a classroom and finish school cert. That is the reason why I was looking for a job and told my cousin who now told Madam and I was hired.
I was initially working in her shop. I was a sales boy. Madam sold textiles; she used to take me to Cotonou to buy textiles. Well, the reason she hired me was because my mother is Togolese, though my father is a Nigerian. So through my mother, I speak Togolese very well and so Madam thought I could help her interpret whenever we needed to do business in Cotonou.
After like two years, she began to send me there on her behalf and many times, I went and came back with the correct materials and I never cheated her or had any trouble except when we have Customs problems.
Then her husband became sick. Oga was very sick. I didn’t know what the disease was called but when I followed Madam to visit, I was never allowed into the ward. I waited at the reception.
The man was in the hospital here in Lagos for a long time. In that period, we didn’t travel to buy new materials or even opened shop. At that time, things were bad. Madam sold all the things in her shop and did not replace them. That period, she was not even paying us regularly and we knew it was because of her sick husband. There was me, the driver and one small girl Victoria, who was the house help.
We stayed on because the woman was good to us.
It was Tunde, her driver who told me one day that Oga had cancer. I know that when someone has cancer, the person will die. I have never heard of anyone who had cancer in this country and survived it. So we knew that Oga would die one day and because Madam had spent so much money on her husband, I am not even sure the other wives dropped shinshin.
But Oga did not die, o. I asked Tunde why Oga was like that, Tunde said the cancer turned into a stroke. So Oga had a stroke. That’s what he told me.
I don’t know what happened to him but he did not die. Instead, he came home. He was very lean, very sick-looking. They had good friends and family who helped them too. Some brought money, some brought foodstuffs. I got to know all of these things through Tunde, Madam’s driver. We had become close during all this period.
Then something happened last year. Madam fired Tunde!
When I found out why from Tunde, he said it was Oga who had him fired. How can a man who can’t even talk well fire you?
Anyway, Madam began to send me to help her carry Oga; this used to be Tunde’s job before they fired him. So sometimes I was called to help him from his wheelchair to use the toilet or to put him on a wheelchair or even assist the new driver to go to the hospital with him and Madam.
Ok, so that is how I began to enter their bedroom and bathroom even when Madam was there. Sometimes, she would call me to help her with her husband but she would not be properly dressed.
She is my Madam and I could not be seen staring at her half-naked body and especially as her husband was always nearby either in bed or in the bathroom while I waited for him to finish and knock on the door for me to go and get him.
The man was not able to walk or talk normally. I did my best for them.
Then as time went by, many times, when I got called upstairs, Madam would not even be wearing anything under her nightie. You can see everything and when I go there on those days, her husband would just be looking at me with one side of his eye. Like, “Shey you are looking at my wife’s nakedness,” or something like that.
This made me afraid because I never came to their bedroom area on my own. If Madam didn’t call, what would I be doing there?
But you know, I also knew that the way Oga was, and because he had been sick for many months before they even discharged him from the hospital, there couldn’t have been anything intimate between them. Madam is the third wife that oga married and if you have a wife that is much younger than you and you leave her alone in another place…and you now become sick and she is doing all the trouble to care for you…she will need a man’s touch. Is that not right?
Anyway, it was clear that Oga was not going to be able to do anything with Madam but I was also not going to be the boy that will be doing his Madam!
I am not a small boy. I know when a woman is loosening her wrapper and showing herself what it all means.
Even though as for Oga, I am not even close to him and I do not know him like I know Madam, still my mind did not allow me when Madam began to ask me to rub cream on her back or help her with tightening her bra…
I will not lie, I was tempted. That sort of thing is not new to me.
But I couldn’t run away because of the small salary I was earning that was helping me. I also knew that if I did not play along, I would still lose the job because Oga would recover one day, and fire me like they did to Tunde.
I was still trying to decide what to do when my mother called me one night. She said she had a bad dream about me. She said I was like Joseph in Potiphar’s house and his wife was trying to lure me to her bed!
I was shaking when my mother said that to me. That very night, I made up my mind to leave Madam’s job and find work elsewhere.
And so I did.
Did I regret it?
I don’t regret it. What good would have come from it? The man would be well one day and kill me or Madam herself would be tired of me and fire me. So you see, when I spoke to my legs, it was my mother praying for me.
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)