EVERYTHING GOOD WILL COME

1

He came to your Facebook messenger and stirred up a conversation. You were reluctant to reply at first. His account was a catfish, with photos of semi-nude Black bodybuilders. He had typed “Hello” and you replied, “Hello. Good morning.” And you two began a correspondence.

If it were on a normal day, you would have ignored his messages, just like you had left over a hundred random “Hi” and “Hello” in your inbox unattended to. But you were hurting and he had the right words to soothe your soul. You told him about Daniel, your boyfriend of two years who had cheated on you with your best friend, Kanayo.

It had happened just once but it hurt so much. You had travelled to your hometown for your father’s funeral. Daniel and Kanayo had spent the night at your place, so they could catch the morning bus to your village on the day of the interment. You knew when you saw them that something about their behaviour around you had changed. That they were fighting so hard to hide a truth.

“People never appreciate what they have till they lose it,” your body-builder catfish told you.

You wanted to tell him that Daniel hadn’t entirely lost you, that you two still had a chance. You’d simply suggested for some time off, so you could clear your head. And you were almost about to forgive him. But something within you wanted an eye for an eye: a sexual rebound that would place you and Daniel on equal footing.

2

Ezra was his name, your body-builder catfish. When you moved the conversation to WhatsApp, you saw from the photos he sent that he was a man with a set of beautiful white teeth and perfectly curved face. And when he video-called you, you heard his squeaky laughter.

The day you two met, the custodians of Fate had left so many warning signs. You were a kind of person that read meaning into everything, so it was funny how you missed them all. First, the bike that drove you down to the Iyana Ipaja ran out of fuel, so you had to trek the rest of the way.

Then the bus you boarded to Ezra’s place at Lekki was playing Obesere’s Egungun in its transistor: “Egungun, be careful na express you dey go… Motor don jam am… E don happen, I don tell am… E don happen, I don tell am.”

The bus even developed a flat tyre along the way, and you came down with the rest of the passengers to push the vehicle to a mechanic.

Then came a torrential rain that seemed not to stop. You stood under a shade, violently shaking as cold winds swept past you. You were asthmatic and had forgotten your inhaler at home.

Ezra picked you up late in the evening. He was a sales representative at a popular cosmetic house in Lagos, and had had to work extra time to balance his records. He met you at a track road that led to his house. It was a few minutes to 8 PM and you had been standing there for over an hour. He apologized for having kept you waiting.

“You look more beautiful than in your pictures. Fine bobo,” he complimented when you entered his Salon car.

“Thanks,” you said, almost blushing.

You felt his eyes glance repeatedly at you, as though he couldn’t keep them off you. He wasn’t anything older than twenty-eight, but had managed to keep a body build that made him look younger than he was. His diction reminded you of a friend who schooled abroad.

“You must be cold,” he said when you got to his place and he saw you shiver in your damp clothes.

“Yes,” you said. “The place I took shelter from the rain wasn’t a very protective one.”

“Sorry.”

He turned on the light from the power source and switched off the air-conditioners. His apartment was beautifully furnished with gold stenciled wallpapers and black Italian tiles. An orange-lit chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling.

“We should bathe,” he said as he turned on the television, “then have supper.”

You were slightly alarmed by the pluralization “we”.

He pulled off his wristwatch, then his black trouser. You watched him unbutton his white long-sleeved shirt and throw it into a bin, and then he walked into the bathroom to turn on the shower. You were still standing by the couch when he returned.

“See who is shy,” he said with a laugh.

“I’m not shy. I’m just tired,” you said and began unbuckling your trousers.

He came over to help you. You let him pull off your polo, then your three-quarter length denim pants.

“You know, you are too quiet for someone who chats so naughty,” he said as he lowered your red cotton boxers to your ankles. He stood up and ran his hand over your slender body, leaving it to rest on your buttocks. He stopped to admire you for awhile. “You are very sexy, the sexiest person I have ever seen. Promise me you will stay with me.”

You nodded, even though you were sure you wouldn’t.

Your phone rang. You turned to the screen to see who was calling. The Caller ID read ‘Danny Love’.

“Who is that?” Ezra asked.

“My mum,” you replied. “She must be calling to know if I will be back today. I’ll return the call later.”

Ezra led you into the glass-chambered bathroom. He pressed a red knob to bake hot water and soaped your back while you two waited. He held you tight from behind, as droplets of seaming water fell from the nozzles of the shower and onto your bodies. You could feel his hard-on behind you and glimpsed it through the condensation on the mirror. It was huge and entwined with a thick network of veins.

He whispered into your ears, “I want to fuck you.”

You nodded in affirmation and he lowered you down to the sink, so that your elbows rested there and his hands were on your hip bones. But then, you started when you felt him try to slide inside you without protection.

“You have to use a condom.” You turned to face him.

“But I’m clean.” He held you on the shoulder. “Trust me, I’m clean. I tested negative a few weeks ago, and haven’t hooked up with anyone since then.”

You looked at the broad shoulders, at the abs beautifully lined on his torso, at his curved muscled thighs – and you became reassured that he was clean. You turned around and bent over again, letting him slide smoothly inside you. His thrusts made slap-slap sounds as he went in and out of you. Asa’s Fire on the Mountain was playing from the stereo sets in his living room, the melody floating all the way into the bathroom – perhaps the last warning sign that the custodians of Fate were leaving for you.

Soon, he made moanful epileptic jerks as he came, his dick pumping inside you. Then you felt his body fluid drip out of you and down your thighs.

3

You found Daniel seated on the stairs of your house when you returned the next day. It was almost noon. Ezra had been gracious enough to drop you at the gate of your estate.

“I have been calling you since yesterday.” He sprang up the moment he saw you. “Why haven’t you been picking up my calls?”

“I was busy.” You dropped the groceries Ezra purchased for you at Shoprite on the porch, and opened the door. Daniel followed you into the living room.

“I guess you were too busy to return the call,” he shouted at you. “I was so worried that I had to call your mom. She said you weren’t picking her calls either.”

You turned on your phone and went to your call logs. Ezra had switched off the device sometime last night, to let it charge faster.

Your mom had left a message: Nna, call me when you see this. I hope everything is fine.

“Where were you?” Daniel drew closer to you.

“With a friend I met on Facebook. His name is Ezra,” you said simply.

Daniel heaved a sigh of relief. “I totally understand if you want some time off to be with your friends. But I still care for you. I would be hurt if anything happened to you. I was so damn worried.”

He spread his arms apart and hugged you. His broad hands encircled your tiny self into him, and you smelt his pineapple cologne. He reached for your face and kissed you. You didn’t stop him. But you didn’t kiss him back.

Instead, when he broke the kiss, you looked into his eyes and let the words slip loosely from your mouth.

“I fucked Ezra.”

He recoiled from you. “What did you just say?”

“I fucked Ezra and it was so good.” Then you turned away from him, walked to the window and stayed there. “I fucked him, not just once or twice. We did it in the shower, on his bed and then this morning. And I wish I’d do it again.”

Daniel staggered back till he hit a wall, and then, as though his feet had failed him, he slid to the floor. He was crying. He kept asking, through his sobs, why you were punishing him for a mistake he had apologised for over and over again. You didn’t answer. You just stood there and watched him sob like a child.

4

The signs came later in the following weeks, weeks in which you’d visited Ezra and had more sex with him. Weeks in which Daniel pleaded with you for you to come back to him. Weeks that you knew deep within you that something about your health had changed.

You thought it was typhoid at first. You had a long history with the ailment. So you rushed off to a pharmacist to get some meds. But that didn’t stop the chesty coughs you had, neither did it help with the flu or burning temperature at night. When it got worse, you told yourself that it was probably a bad case of drug resistance.

You might not have even gotten tested early if you weren’t a member of the Nigerian Red Cross and a valued blood donor at your local hospital. Your donor routine was scheduled once every quarter of the year, and four times per annum. You were two weeks overdue, from your donation calendar. So when you came that early Thursday morning, you thought it would be the usual procedure.

You dropped your blood sample at the hematology department, filled the donor’s register and sat in the reception as you waited for the result of the pre-donation screening.

It usually doesn’t take this long, you thought, when they kept you waiting for over an hour. You had timed your donation for thirty minutes, so you could go on visit your family at Ikorodu.

Your heartbeat quickened when the nurse called your name. “The doctor is ready for you now,” she said as she stood by the door of the reception.

“The doctor?” You stood up and walked up to her. You hadn’t ever seen a doctor throughout your donation history. You were only attended to by a nurse who took your blood in a pint, and afterwards gave you a can of Malt or an energy drink.

“Sorry about the delay,” the nurse said and then walked down the corridor, leaving you to follow after her. “The resident doctor would like to have some words with you.”

You could already feel your body running a temperature. Your legs were shaky and you couldn’t breathe, what with the furious beating of your heart. You reached for the inhaler in your pocket and took quick puffs in your mouth. The nurse stopped at a door, knocked on it and stepped into the room beyond. You followed behind.

The doctor seated inside was a thick-boned bespectacled woman, whose table name-tray read “Dr Cookey D. Nnodim”. She showed you to a chair opposite hers and dismissed the nurse.

“How long have you been a donor?” she asked as she lowered the glasses to the bridge of her nose.

“About three years. Almost three years.”

She took down some notes and then looked up to face you. “When was the last time you had sex?”

You adjusted yourself on the chair. Your chest was tightening now. You silently prayed that this better not be what you were thinking.

“About two weeks ago,” you replied.

“Did you use any protection like a condom or PrEP?”

“Yes–no…no,” you stuttered.

The doctor removed her eye glasses and drew closer to you. You knew before she said it. Her eyes told tales of something bad to come.

“The result of the donor screening from your blood sample shows that you are HIV positive.”

You sat bolt-upright in the chair. You couldn’t be HIV Positive. Ezra had assured you that he was clean. He had to be clean. Or the HIV test strips and reagents they used had to be expired. The doctor was already counselling you on what next to do. But all you could think of was what your local dialect called HIV: Obiri n’aja ocha.

It ends six feet below the red earth.

Now, that made sense.

TO BE CONTINUED

Written by David Kamdili