My husband Timi and I used to make love on a daily basis but that changed after I gave birth to our second child. I followed him home after our first date and it was akin to magic in his bedroom in Lekki Phase 2. A mutual friend had introduced us and the next thing you know, I wanted to spend every minute of the life with him.
“This is not healthy, Janet. Don’t forget you had friends before you met Timi. I introduced you to him for god sake. You can’t let him take over your life. It is not healthy,” said Ify when she finally caught up with me after I kept rescheduling for a whole week
“Who says he is taking over me life. I just love to spend time with Timi. But you still hold a very special place in my life. You are my best friend remember?” I tried to reassure her.
“It doesn’t look like that anymore. We used to be like five and six but clearly, Timi has taken my place,” she accused.
“It’s not like that. You are overreacting. You know you are overreacting. If this was the case, would we be having this conversation?”
I knew there were gems in the sand she was hauling at me. I knew I had gone in real deep with Timi but as every day went by, I was loving what I had found.
If someone had told me this would ever happen, I would never have believed it. I love to get in the sack perhaps just slightly more than my husband but he was the first guy I completely fell in love with because of the way he made love. As a matter of fact, the moment I got into bed with him, I knew he was the one. With him, it is a ritual, with warm baths, candles, exotic oils and whatnot. I know what you are thinking but you must realise that people get into a relationship or even marriage for countless different reasons. I have never wanted to be in a relationship or marriage for that matter where the lovemaking would be nothing.
“Me too,” was what he told me when I let him know after the magical experience of our very first time together in bed. “I also like that you want to talk about this. Wherever this relationship takes us, please let’s agree to always put things on the table, talk about everything,” he added that rainy afternoon.
That worked for us for all the three years we dated and the seven we have been together as husband and wife. We have always talked about things and I can tell you that communicating has been the greatest asset the two of us have had as a couple.
It is because he is so easy to talk with that is why I approached him when my younger sister finished school at the Bayero University Kano and was posted to Lagos for her NYSC to let her stay with us until she was able to sort her accommodation problem. You will agree with me that travelling all the way from Kano to Lagos for the service year is huge trouble on its own, not to talk of adding the trouble of getting accommodation into the mix.
“It’s all right. You know I will not refuse you anything, besides, we have got a third bedroom that is totally empty. We just need to equip it so she can move in there,” he said.
“Wow, I’ll let Philomena know then. Like I said before, she is already in camp at Iyana Ipaja. I will call to let her know,” I said, happy he raised no objections. For some reason I thought he would say no.
“Maybe we should go see her in camp then so that you can tell her face to face?”
“Why not. We can go on Saturday then,” I said.
We did a bit of provision shopping and off we went to camp to visit my sister. At that point, I had not seen her for at least four years and the picture I had in my head was very different from the one I saw. Her NYSC uniform was a bit tight and accentuated her curves in the way that only a few men will fail to take note. In hindsight, I believe even Timi took note but I was too bathed in the excitement to see this even when on our way back from Iyana Ipaja, he had been rather quiet.
It turned out that Phina, as we all call her, got assigned to a company near our house. She got home before me and didn’t just help out with the cooking, she was a blessing sent from heaven as she also helped with the kids.
Timi, being the online worker type, worked mostly from home. What that means is that he was there most if not all the time Phina was home. Of course, it would have been paranoid of me to start thinking that something hideous was going on behind my back.
Even when Timi never tired of praising Phina for her skills in the kitchen and her tender way with the kids, I never suspected a thing.
Don’t forget that at this time we were having a serious downturn in our lovemaking all because of me. Timi, being someone who was never happy about the situation and had accompanied me to countless doctors who found nothing wrong with me and advised patience, was no longer taking it easy. He would throw his arms in frustration whenever I said no to his sex advances and utter some unprintable words. In spite of the pain it was causing me, I would let him have a go at it but he would always complain that it was not the same as before, when we first met and subsequently up until our second child came.
At this point, my sister had completed her service year and got retained by the company but was still living with us. We just didn’t update our arrangement. Timi was still spending a lot of time with Phina but the kids were always there or next door so it didn’t enter my head that they could have been making a connection that could lead them to cross the boundaries that kept in-laws apart. I didn’t suspect anything until one evening I let myself into the house with my key after a long day from work and saw Timi and Phina having dinner and looking into each other’s eyes like lovers. The room was a bit dark, just like the first time he and I had dinner in there. I don’t know what they had been talking about because they went silent when I got in.
I wasted no time in sending her off. She, after all, has enough money to rent her own place. Ify has said it was the right thing to do. Timi says I was overreacting. Strangely enough, for the first time in many years, I feel like making love to him even if what I want to do is punish him instead.
