FIGURING OUT THIS THING CALLED LIFE

Jada Pinkett-Smith recently released a statement regarding the Oscar slap, during which she said: “The state of the world today, we need (Will and Chris). And we all actually need one another more than ever. Until then, Will and I are continuing to do what we have done for the last 28 years, and that’s keep figuring out this thing called life together.”

Sometimes, with every waking hour and every breathing moment, it can always feel like we are all just living by figuring out this thing called life.

And my love story with Victor was a part of life we had to figure out as we lived.

We’d always been in each other’s lives without being fully aware of it. In the days since we became friends, he’d always try to remind me of the first time we spoke in the Children’s Department of my church years ago, which weirdly I could never remember – weird because I hardly ever forget things. And I’d try to remind him of the time we briefly ran into each other at a church program years ago, and he couldn’t remember this – which was weird, because I was sure he was staring at me at that event. I guess a lot of weird stuff happens in life. Right after that particular program years ago, I happened on his profile on my Facebook Suggested list, and I remember seeing his profile picture and saying to myself, “Isn’t this that weird boy who was staring at me the other day?” Two weeks after that, he sent me a friend request. I accepted and sent him a wave inbox. He waved back. I didn’t respond. He didn’t follow up and we didn’t interact for a long time. This was in 2018.

On the 8th of December 2020, I was bored and was just going through my active contacts on Facebook, when I saw his profile picture in the small circle. He had changed it to a photo of him and some guy I knew. Acting on an impulse, I decided to slide back into his DM, to say hello, at least to ask him how he knew that other guy in his profile picture.

But I never got around to asking that question. From the first “hello” I sent him, chemistry was ignited and our conversation just took on a life of its own. He was such a great conversationalist, and my boredom vanished as I became wrapped up in our exchange. He had a charming frankness about him that was disarming; it wasn’t very long in our chats before I was coming out to him.

“I’m gay,” I told him.

“That’s cool, not a problem to me. But I’m straight,” he replied.

“That’s cool too,” I said.

The next day, I suggested we meet and hang out. He agreed. But we wouldn’t be able to meet until a camp meeting – a program our church organizes at the end of every year. He asked if I was coming; I don’t usually like attending that program, because it is often filled with people who know me that I don’t know. But he was asking, and I couldn’t possibly say no. I told him I’d be there.

During the program, our districts were grouped together, and so we were able to have fun getting acquainted in real life. With every function we attended, I found myself enjoying it all – because of him. I’d earlier told him not to leave my side, and he kept to that all through the three days we spent in camp.

After the camp, he invited me to his church harvest the following Sunday. I went. He was charming and attentive to me, never leaving my side. At some point, without my asking, he bought ice cream for me. When I expressed delight and asked him why he did that, he said because he’d noticed I was sweating and needed something to cool off with.

That was when I knew that him being straight regardless, this one was a keeper.

We carried on with our friendship, with me visiting him at his place, and he visiting me as well. During one of his visits, when it was late and I suggested he spend the night, he joked that he couldn’t because he wanted to protect his nyash. It was a bad joke, but I laughed and told him I had no interest in his ass. That was somewhat truthful; even though I was still struggling with my attraction for him, I’d grown to think of him as a friend.

My church routinely organizes a ten-day program to mark the entrance into the New Year, and during one of the services, we were asked to ask God for one thing we want from Him for the year 2021. And because I believe that Rainbow Jesus is seated up there at the right hand of the Father Almighty, I asked Him for a boyfriend. In fact, I said I needed a boyfriend before the end of that program. I know; cheesy, right? LOL! Anyway, I said that prayer and moved on. I mean, I had a number of prospects, as there were some guys asking me out in my DM.

During one of our chats, Victor told me that he hopes I get a boyfriend soon, so I would stop flirting with all these other boys online, before I get into trouble. Feeling a little devilish, I decided to play a prank and see how far it’d go. So I responded by telling him I was already in love with someone. He seemed gleeful and began pestering me to tell him who. I played coy for awhile, but he wouldn’t relent. So, I told him that I was chatting with to the person right now, telling the person that I love him. He didn’t seem to get it, because he asked why it was now that he and I are chatting that I’m also chatting with this other guy and telling him I love him. I was torn between amusement and exasperation at this response, and typed back: “It’s you, Victor. You are the one I’m telling I love.”

“Wow,” he said simply, clearly not expecting that.

“No one has ever told me that,” he added.

He began asking me more questions about how I came to be in love with him, and as I answered, I realised that I hadn’t been pranking anyone but myself.

All this time that I’d been telling myself one thing, and now I had to face the truth: I was in love with my straight friend.

“So what happens now?” he asked. “What’s the plan now?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

A few days after that conversation, he visited me where I was working then, and thereafter, we went home together. This time, I noticed that he was freer with me, that I could touch him without him flinching. It was almost as if he knowing my truth caused him to relax his boundaries with me.

That visit – and his behaviour around me – gave me hope, made me wonder if something may actually work out between us.

So when he hit me up later that night, after he’d gotten home, I told him, “I have a plan now.”

“What is it?”

“I want you to be more to me than just a friend.”

“What? What do you want me to be to you?”

“A boyfriend.”

“But I’m straight, Mike.”

“I know. And if you feel like you can’t do that, it’ll be cool. We will just go on being friends.” Even as I said this, I wondered if I could; if I could carry on being friends with him, now that I had become this vulnerable with him.

“But your boyfriend though…” he hesitated, as though he was testing out, in his mind, the idea of dating a boy. Then he said, “I mean, that could happen…God knows I like you… But…I don’t even have a stable income to afford taking care of you. Could you be with a guy who doesn’t have financial stability?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

There was another pause. Then he said, “Can I have some minutes to think about it?”

I said okay, and changed the topic. After a few minutes of talking about other things, he just blurted out, “Okay. About what you asked earlier, my answer is yes. Let’s date.”

I felt my heart jump with absolute glee.

“I’ve been thinking, and I’ve always believed I am 100 percent straight. But when I’m with you, I don’t feel so straight. So maybe I’m just…I don’t know…70 percent straight now?” He laughed at this.

I laughed too.

We talked some more about this, and decided that during our next meet, we would make it official.

We met two days after that, on Wednesday 13th of January, 2021. It was a date, but the rain that suddenly began falling that day made us move our date to my place. Ensconced inside, I tried to kiss him, and he pulled his head back. I tried again some minutes later, and he pulled his head away again, giving an awkward chuckle and saying it was weird.

So I told him to close his eyes and forget that I am a guy. He hesitated and then closed his eyes. I waited a few moments, and then inched closer to him. This time, when I placed my lips on his, he didn’t recoil. Immediately I kissed him, he kissed me back. We locked lips for a few minutes, and when I tried to break the kiss, he grasped my head and pulled me back to it. We kept kissing for some time, taking breaks only to start kissing again, until he decided it was time for him to go home.

By the time he left my house, it was official: he was my boyfriend.

The first time we had sex was a struggle. It was going to be my first time going all the way (Yes, before Victor, I’d never gone all the way to penetrative sex with any boy before), and it was his first time having anal sex. So we were both quite clueless. After making out for the longest of time, he asked me if we could try having sex.

“Are you sure?” I asked, because me, I no get strength.

“Yes,” he said.

After applying lube, penetration became a problem. We tried several positions, but it wasn’t just working. He would push his dick inward, and it would land anywhere but my asshole; the dick would slip in between my thighs and he would ask me if he was in. It didn’t help that I was anxious about how painful this first-time penetration would be, and kept trying to stop myself from recoiling from his dick’s intrusion in my anal area.

It was all so exasperating, and at some point, I asked him to simply fuck me in between my laps. He refused. We eventually got it, and he thrust in, scoring a touchdown in my bussy. The pain that exploded all over my body was unbelievable. Nothing I’d read or imagined prepared me for it. And the fact that that thrust was forceful when he pushed his way in made it worse. Gasping, I pushed him quickly away from me, feeling the throb of pain pulsate through my anal muscles. We waited a few minutes, before I was brave enough to let us try again. This time, I let him go all the way in, even though I kept wincing through it all. It took a few moments, but he eventually got his rhythm as he began thrusting in and out. And that was when, to my surprise, the pleasure started spreading through me to offset the pain. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad at all. By the time he orgasmed, followed by me, I was replete with the joy of consummating my love for this man.

We took our bath, and as we dressed up and padded into the kitchen to make something to eat, I was feeling like we were a married couple. The house was empty that day; thinking about it now, it felt like every member of my family left the house for us that day. While I prepared our food, he came up behind me and held me, turning me around so that we started kissing again. It felt perfect. It felt blissful. He was my man and I was his.

Victor and I have been together for a year and then some. And we are still very much in love with each other. Of course, it hasn’t been smooth-sailing, as we have our fights, but we try to come to an understanding after every disagreement. We have our different beliefs and value systems, but we look for a way to compromise and respect and accommodate each other’s standpoints. There was the time we had an issue with identification; he was refusing to identify with the queer community, saying he loved only me and didn’t find other guys attractive. It was an issue for which I reached out to Pink Panther for help, and he helped me find a way to resolve things with Victor. And so, he identifies as pansexual now. Then, there was the other time when the issue of him bottoming for me came up, and he refused. I needed to fuck him, desperately so in fact. But he wouldn’t have it. We fought about this for days, but he eventually came around to it and let me pop his cherry.

I can say we now have a healthy relationship and sex life. My family knows about us; I told them when he got comfortable with them knowing. Telling my family about my relationship brought back memories about when I came out to them (a story I wrote here). I think my coming out was made easier for me because I wasn’t anybody’s favorite in my family. I just told them. I wasn’t looking for validation or acceptance, just respect. And they took it in stride. When I told them about Victor, nobody reacted with any negativity; it was as though they knew I wasn’t asking for their validation, just for them to respect what I had with this man.

And so, I get to live my truth with myself and my boyfriend. Sometimes, my boyfriend forgets how homophobic the country is and makes these public displays of affection that sometimes get me mad; I think his obliviousness is the byproduct of not growing up queer and ever-aware of how “abnormal” you are. One day, he was straight, and the next, he was queer. That said, I am learning to be comfortable with how publicly affectionate he can get. I know it is risky, but I like how it feels that, with stolen kiss or a knowing hand-holding, we are cheating the homophobes around us of their opportunity to be outraged. The biggest trial to our relationship came when I left for my NYSC in the North, but with each day we have survived being long-distance lovers, I believe anew in our love. And when I eventually pass out this month, I cannot wait to return home to the arms of the man I love.

Written by Mikey