Before she fell too deep though, she had better go and see her boyfriend, she thought to herself. Her outfit had been to kill two birds with one stone. The first bird, Fiyin Arowolo and the second, David Bamidele. And although Fiyin hadn’t begged yet, David would.
When she got to his house, a miniflat BQ in Oshodi, she knocked and waited with bated breath for David’s reaction when he saw her. He shouted come in and she went in. She found him sitting in his tiny sitting room, watching a football match.
“Hey dear”, she greeted him.
“Hi” he answered, not taking his eyes off the screen. She sat on the arm of the chair he sat and wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to remember if she had missed him the past week.
“Stop, go, go” he said as he unwrapped her arms from his neck and pushed her aside. “You’ll distract me from my game for nothing. If I leave the game now, you’ll tell me you are not ready for sex” He said, disgruntled, still without removing his eyes from the screen.
“Is it sex that is always on your mind?” She asked as she stood up, rather angry and disappointed.
“What else? Am I not a man?” He asked as he finally took his eyes off the screen and looked at her.
She preened a little even though she wasn’t happy with him. “Ki lo ko si?” He shouted and started laughing, dropping the remote he was holding.
“What do you mean what am I wearing? Can’t you see?” She asked, upset.
“Sorry, you just look so funny in it.” He continued laughing. “Don’t wear it again abeg, or if you wear it, stock it up. Your breas.t looks so tiny in it, like agbalumo seeds.” He laughed at his cleverness.
Femi was so insulted, for a minute, she didn’t know what to say to him. “I think I will go home” she finally said as she picked up her bag.
“Haha,” David complained grabbing her hands. “Don’t go….” he smiled cutely, “…please, I’m joking.” She dropped her bag again and went to seat on the other chair.
“Please, cook something, I beg, I’m hungry.”
“What does that mean?” She asked, angry again
“I said go and cook something for us to eat.”
“I’m not hungry, you’re the one who is hungry, go and cook.”
“Ha! Why will you be here and I’ll be cooking?”
“That’s a sin, abi?” She asked with disdain. “If I didn’t come, nko?”
“But you told me you were coming, that’s why I was waiting for you. If you aren’t coming, I know where to get food from but I cannot be cooking for myself when I have a wife.”
“No, David, you don’t have a wife, you have a girlfriend.”
“What’s the difference, you just like complaining all the time as if you don’t know the duties of a wife. Your aunt is a woman, why don’t you ask her to teach you? Come here, cook, you’ll say no, see my clothes, wash, you’ll say you are tired. Let’s play in the bedroom, you’ll say no, what’s your usefulness, why do you bother coming at all?!” He shouted aggrieved.
“You are right, I don’t know why I bothered.”
Femi said even as she promised herself she would not cry. “Did you once ask me how my trip went? What I went to do? Who I stayed with? You never give me one word of appreciation, ever. Imagine you asking me about my usefulness, me, David? Let me leave you for your conscience. You want a footstool, a traditional woman abi? I wish you all the best.
Me, I am too tired of this relationship, it’s not equal, all you want is a slave and a complaint loader and I have spent enough of my life with other people judging me, no more! I won’t come back here again, goodbye.”
She grabbed her bag and left his house even as he shouted her name. When she got to the gate of the compound, she turned around and wasn’t surprised to see he hadn’t followed her.
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That night as Fiyin slept, he wasn’t surprised when his dreams were of over 100 Femis dressed in different attires and chasing him about. Femis in bikini, Femis in Ankara, Femis in skirts, Femis in undies, Femis in suits and Femis in wedding gowns. At the end of the dream, he saw the Femi that could save him from all the other Femis. The Femi in orange lipstick and cornrows, wearing a purple shapeless gown. As they ran from the other Femis, her sandals cut and he had to carry her and keep running.
He woke up from his dream, sweating, his heart beating too fast and he acknowledged that he was in trouble.
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That night as Femi lay on her bed, she tried hard to reawaken the feelings of happiness and pleasure that had taken her through the day but she couldn’t. She realised David had completely eclipsed the entire day with a few short words and she had let him.
She tried to remember a time David had been a worthwhile boyfriend but she couldn’t. She realised that in their 15 months long relationship, he had always been shallow, selfish, demeaning and lazy. She couldn’t remember him saying a good word to her, just complaining all the time. She wanted to be really angry with him but she couldn’t because in her own way, like with Tiwa, she had empowered him to think he could always trample on her feelings.
She knew when she met David at Ronke and Ben’s wedding that he wasn’t her spec. Usually, she liked competent men who knew how to handle themselves but David had been a whiner almost from the beginning. She had agreed to date him because she knew his family, he was Ronke’s cousin and because she was scared of being alone. She had wanted badly to have someone else around when Ronke went to Abuja but David had never filled that role. It seemed like it was when she needed a friend that he needed to rant.
He was always complaining about work, about being broke, about how unfairly he was treated by others because he was short. She realised now that with her low self-esteem, the last person she should have chosen to be with was someone with a chip on his shoulders.
At the beginning though, she refused to count it against him. She had been with someone who she thought was everything she needed a man to be. Strong. Capable. Independent. In the end though, Lanre Balogun had left her at the proverbial altar. Not an altar exactly, he had waited until after their introduction to pull a disappearing act on her.
She had dated Lanre for two years, a civil engineer with a huge construction firm, he had seemed perfectly content to be with her. She lost her virginity to him and hadn’t even regretted the decision, he had made her feel special which was what she had needed. Until he dumped her. Even his family had been stunned by his insistence that he couldn’t continue with the marriage proceedings because they knew how much he loved Femi.
He had never come to talk to her, he had only sent a note through his brother and left her to face the taunts alone. The betrayal had hurt her so badly, it had taken her a while to get herself together and she hadn’t opened herself up to any other relationship until she had met David 2 years later. At the time, his biggest attraction was his difference to Lanre.
Where Lanre was tall, he was short, Lanre had been dark, he was much fairer than she was, Lanre wore glasses, he didn’t, Lanre had been deep and quiet, he was noisy and belligerent. She realised now how stupid it was to pick a man on those basis.
She promised herself after Lanre that she wouldn’t try too hard anymore so all the effort she had put into dressing and looking good, she diminished and started dressing comfortably. When David asked her for money, something Lanre never did, she gave it, she washed and cooked and cleaned because she did not want him to be able to leave her without a backward glance, as Lanre had done.
It hadn’t worked out quite that way though because even though she had walked out, he hadn’t glanced back, not even to call her after she got home. And everything else she had sacrificed in their relationship, her money, time, energy, the clothes she washed, the food she cooked from her own pocket hadn’t mattered because of the one thing she had refused to offer, her body.
And now, she was done with making sacrifices. She was done with managing a man. From tomorrow, she was going to go all out and find herself the kind of MAN she wanted. Lanre or David, none would matter anymore. What she wanted now was a good man who was competent, capable and caring and by God that is what she would get. That was what she deserved.
Question: Do you think Femi will ever find this perfect man she want to search for?
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Click 18 below to read episode 9
