DON’T CALL ME BIGGIE (Episode 6)

Me: Ebenezer!!! What have I ever done to you for you to cause me this much stress and problem?

Him: Nothing, but you think you can break my heart and be free, eh?

Me: Haba! Break your heart how?

Him: Yes, you made me fall for you and you left me hanging. You led me on. You knew exactly what you were doing when you talked to me every day, calling me pet names. You didn’t know I was human, abi?

Me: But what about Pastor?

Him: He is my soul mate, but I fell in love with you…

It was at this point that I knew that I was dealing with a mad man.

But let me first take you through the events that led to this altercation.

*

After I cut off my interactions with Ebenezer and focused on my new relationship with Dayo, it wasn’t very long before I noticed that whenever I said hello to Pastor, he would either not respond or he’d murmur something back at me before hurrying on his way. This odd behaviour went on for up to three months, and each time I mentioned it to Dayo, he would assure me that Pastor didn’t have any problem with me. Then three months later, I noticed that my church friends had started avoiding me; they would either not want to talk to me or they’d be extremely formal whenever I approached or cornered any one of them. This was when I knew that something was truly going on.

One day, Dayo asked me, “Why does Kyrian no longer join us home?”

Kyrian was a church friend. We got acquainted when we realized that we always headed the same way after service. And so, when I started dating Dayo, he would join us in the car and we’d drop him at his stop. Even though our friendship didn’t go beyond that (I’m not one to keep heterosexual friends closer than necessary), we were a lot closer than I was with the other church friends, because he and I often had deep, meaningful conversations during choir rehearsals, after service and at church events.

So, Dayo had noticed that he’d stopped joining us on the ride home after service and commented on it. That was when I told him that I wasn’t joking when I told him these guys were ignoring me for whatever reason. He didn’t want to believe me, but after a few Sundays of observation, he too saw that I was right. I was being coolly and codedly ostracised from my former cliques.

Something was clearly wrong somewhere.

*

That day, when Dayo came home, he was visibly pissed, not responding to my greeting and rejecting the meal I made, even asking to sleep in the parlour. It wasn’t like we had started living together. He still had his place and I had mine, but we were often together either at his or mine. Thoughts and questions of moving in together had come up, but because we had family members visiting every now and then, we decided to keep our separate spaces but be together as much as possible.

That night, we were at my place and he was rejecting my loving, my food and his spot beside me on my bed. This Dayo that doesn’t like to sleep alone, that would always want to cuddle and touch nearly all night long whenever we were in bed together – he is the one now choosing a sofa over our bed?!

I was not about to take this nonsense.

I went out to him in the parlour and sat beside him on the sofa, waiting for him to speak on what was on his mind. And sure enough, a few minutes later, he said with some despondence, “Babe, why?”

“Why what?” I queried.

“What have you needed that I haven’t gotten you?” he asked. “Sometimes, you even turn down the gifts I get for you – only for you to turn around and beg outsiders for money. Why? Why would you do that? I’m confused.”

I was already flailing my hands, like, Hollup! What is you talking about, oga!

“Me, beg outsiders for money? Dayo, if anybody is confused now, it’s me. What the hell are you talking about?”

He brought out his phone, swiped at the screen and then turned it to me. I was looking at a Facebook page.

“Who is this?” he asked.

It was me!

Except that wasn’t my Facebook profile. I grabbed his phone and began to swipe. It was an account that had my pictures on it. But it wasn’t mine. My identity was being used on a catfish account!

“This isn’t me, Dayo!” I turned an accusing stare to him. “You already know my Facebook account. If I had another, I would have told you! What is going on here?”

He sat up, as though suddenly realizing that what he had figured out may not be so, and began telling me what was going on.

Apparently, after observing the distance the church guys were placing between themselves and me, he had gone on to do some investigating. It turned out that there was a Facebook account of me who was adding up people – including my church friends – and asking them for money, saying I desperately need their help and suggesting a POS agent’s account they should send the money to. As if that wasn’t enough, this account holder was also making sexual advances on a few of the church members, mostly the males, never mind that they weren’t queer, and top on the list of those on the receiving end of his propositions was – you guessed it – Kyrian.

I was stunned, mortified and furious all at once. I sat there, frozen in place, as Dayo told me these bizarre things.

“Babe, you mean to tell me this isn’t you?” he finally asked.

My fury turned on him.

“Are you kidding me?” I snapped. “In all this time you’ve known me, when have you ever known me to act this shamelessly? You said it yourself, I am often too proud to accept gifts from you – but sure, you have quickly believed that I can go online to beg people for money! We’ve been together for months, and yet you don’t have a hard time believing that I can recklessly slide into people’s DMs to hit on them?!”

I got madder as I raged at him. Like, what kind of boyfriend was he sef?!

He was immediately apologetic and placated me, until I was calm enough for us to ponder on the almighty question: WHO THE FUCK WAS CATFISHING PEOPLE WITH MY IDENTITY?!

It was too late to do anything about it that night. Dayo came back to bed and cuddled his remorse all over me.

The next day, we were able to get the POS account information from one of those the catfish Facebook account had targeted. And then, we called the bank and reported the scam. With some persuasion, we were given the information we needed to track the POS agent. I was a bit startled to realize that the address was the same street as Pastor Seun’s and Ebenezer’s.

Okay, that couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?

We located the POS agent and confronted him with threats until he confessed that the person who’d been directing people’s money transfers to his account was none other than Ebenezer.

We went on to the couple’s shared home and confronted Ebenezer. After his initial surprise that he’d been found out, he didn’t even try to deny anything. He looked me in the face and told me he wanted to make me pay for leading him on.

“Leading you on?” I raged. “How?”

“Just what will possess you to do something like this to Rex?” Dayo interjected, equally furious.

He glared at both of us, not saying a word.

“Ebenezer!!!” I wailed. “What have I ever done to you for you to cause me this much stress and problem?”

His eyes flashed at me. “Nothing, but you think you can break my heart and be free, eh?” he snarled.

I was taken aback. “Haba! Break your heart how?”

“Yes, you made me fall for you and you left me hanging. You led me on. You knew exactly what you were doing when you talked to me every day, calling me pet names. You didn’t know I was human, abi?”

I stared at this maniac who was in a whole-ass 8-year relationship with another man.

“But what about Pastor?” I blurted out.

He shrugged. “He is my soul mate, but I fell in love with you…”

Jeezuz!

He went on to admit to us that Pastor was aware that he’d always had a crush on me, even before I got with Dayo, but he didn’t know he’d made his move on me. By this time, Dayo had called Pastor to come home.

When he got in and we told him everything that had happened, he was as shocked by his boyfriend’s madness as we were, and began begging us – begging me – to forgive Ebenezer. The bastard just stood there, not saying anything, simply staring at us, at me, like the psycho that he is. I just wanted to get out of there and never have anything more to do with him.

Before we left, Dayo demanded for the login details of the catfish Facebook account, which Ebenezer supplied. We logged on, and Dayo began trying out some damage control, reaching out to all those Ebenezer had messaged, especially those who were church members, and explaining how this wasn’t me but someone catfishing them. Much to my relief, we also discovered that it was only Kyrian that Ebenezer had made sexual advances on. (Looks like the bastard also had a crush on Kyrian and used my identity as a gateway to chase after him). Dayo also messaged Kyrian and tried to do as much damage control there, without giving up Ebenezer, for Pastor’s sake.

Whatever became of their relationship was not known to me, because soon after that day, I left that church and found another place of worship, taking my boyfriend along with me.

My relationship with Dayo became better and more amazing as it seemed he followed up that whole fiasco by doing his best to atone for his sin of not trusting me enough. Lol.

But things between us was tested again –

When his mother came to visit; but that is a story for another episode.

Written by Rex