Hello From The Other Side

It happened after that afternoon at Tobi’s place. He had earlier called, wanting me to come over for a mini-orgy. And since I was horny, bored and wanted to get out of my house, I acquiesced.

The plan was supposed to be five of us in the orgy, but we were three who showed up at Tobi’s place. At the end of everything, I was the last man standing and I didn’t get my orgasm. No one was willing to help with that because they had outdone themselves. So I took a shower, got dressed, bade them goodbye and left.

Situations like that often made me feel like crap, and in that moment, I felt like I had done the worst thing in the world, even if it wasn’t my first time participating in such sexual debauchery. But this feeling I had, this moroseness I was feeling, was coming from a place where I didn’t want to just sleep around with random folks anymore.

But what to do? However much you want a steady love life, you don’t exactly pick up a man from the streets of Lagos and make him your boyfriend. Plus there’s the little saying that men are trash, and you have to cherry-pick and work with the one that messes up the least.

I rode home on the bus, thinking about what to do.

So, I sent a text to my ex. We broke up a few years ago because of his betrayal. He had been about to return home to get married, an arrangement put together by his mother which I didn’t get to find out until two days before his travel. Men are really trash, you know. That was the most painful heartbreak I’d ever had to go through, but after a few months, we started talking again. The relationship was done, so there was no talk about getting back together. But we stayed really good friends. It’d been almost two years since then, and right then, while I was in the bus home-bound, I just wanted to interact with someone familiar.

He responded, and soon, we were texting back and forth. About work, about family, gist that we wanted each other to catch up on –

When suddenly, someone trying to get comfortable next to me bumped into me, and my phone fell from my hands. The anger that immediately blossomed inside me, combined with the frustration I’d been feeling from the afternoon I had, turned me speechless with inexplicable rage. I shot the person a fulminating look and I think he recognized that I was royally pissed, because he quickly apologized and moved to pick up the phone.

“I’m so sorry,” he said as he handed me the phone.

I snatched it from his hand, unwilling to let go of my ire.

Another passenger, on the other side of him, had noticed the brief kerfuffle and added his own condolence. “Sorry, bro.”

I calmed down somewhat after this, and muttered an “It’s fine.”

I didn’t feel like to returning to my conversation with my ex, so I swiped to my music library, plugged my earphones into my ears, and just stared out the window.

A few moments later, I felt someone nudge me and I came back into the bus.

It was him again. What did he want?

I carefully put my phone in my pocket this time and removed the earphones I had on.

He smiled as he watched my movements and said, “I apologized already.”

“I didn’t say I was still angry,” I replied. “I just wouldn’t like my phone to hit the floor again.”

He chuckled. “I deserved that, I guess. But for the sake of all of this, I’m sorry again.”

“Yeah, that’s okay. Is everything alright? Did you want to say something?”

In response, he moved a little closer to my ear, causing me to reflexively jerk my head backward. And I hit my head hard against the frame of the window. The pain was instant and shot through my head, causing me to wince.

And then, I heard his low laugh. He was laughing and saying, “Oh sorry, I’m so sorry.”

But irritation had sparked to life once again inside me. Who the hell was this guy and why was he doing his best to lengthen the sour day I was having?

“Listen,” I snapped at him, “could you just back off and leave me alone? What is it you want? Me, dead? Could you not talk to me like until we get off this bus, because today has not been the best for me and I really do not want to talk to you?”

I saw the hurt creep into his eyes even before I finished. He seemed like a nice guy and probably didn’t deserve my attitude. That injured expression got to me, and for a moment, I wanted to apologize. But I was not in a good mood, and I didn’t want any more of him, so I turned away from him and re-plugged my earphones.

It was pretty amazing that he didn’t give up though.

After a little while again, I felt him tap me. A silent groan worked its way up my throat as I turned to him yet again. This time, he handed me his phone; on the screen was the notes app. He had written something on it.

The words I read made me gasp. They were most likely what he wanted to tell me earlier.

He’d written: “I recognize you from Grindr, Cole. My name is Man Eater on the app.”

Written by Cole