HE TRIED IT

The chat on Grindr lacked chemistry. It was enough reason for me not to further our interaction beyond an online space. But sometimes, you never know.

He was consistent in his chat and persistent in his wanting to see me.

I wasn’t doing anything at the time, seeing as I had just graduated and was waiting to be called up for youth service. According to him, he was working. I never bothered to ask what it was he did.

One afternoon, after he accused me of not wanting to see him, I acquiesced and told him he could come over. I’d thought about the situation that day: no one was home, I was horny and he was willing. So, why not?

But he couldn’t make it. And for some reason, the fact that he didn’t show up eased some anxiety from me. That showed that he was legit, as desperation to meet is something I consider to be a red flag with potential hookups.

However, he remained an insufferable person to chat with. Sometimes, he would demand for me to send him a nude picture, and when I say no, he would rave and rant, and then go offline, only to come back online immediately after to apologize – and then, send a nude of himself to me. Not like I ever asked for his nudes, but I wouldn’t complain because those pictures showed a sexually-appealing penis. And so, I didn’t pay much attention to his behavior. I figured it was one of those things that was mild enough for me to be able to deal with.

I thought wrong.

***

Nearly two weeks after we started chatting, on one late afternoon, he buzzed to tell me that he was in my area for an errand and would love to stop by. I wasn’t particularly excited at the thought of entertaining an unplanned visit, but then I didn’t want to come off rude. If he wanted to come over, it was fine. I wasn’t in the mood for sex, but at the very least, we could gist and finally establish a connection beyond Grindr.

About fifteen minutes after I told him he could come over, there was a knock on the door. I opened it and met him standing there with a bag in his left hand. I supposed that was the delivery he came to my area to make.

His looks reminded me of the Nollywood actor, Emeka Ike; he was hairy and tall. He grinned a lot, but unlike many, smiling didn’t enhance his physical appeal. In fact, I much preferred him not smiling so much.

For some reason I couldn’t tell, he creeped me out. He hadn’t done anything or said anything, and yet, I already felt very uncomfortable in his presence.

“You’re so fine,” he said as soon as he sat on one of the settees in the living room.

I smiled in response and then sat across from him, and we began to make small talk.

During our chitchat, he got up and came to sit by me. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want him in my space.

He wasn’t ugly-looking. He was quite attractive actually, but I didn’t want the body contact. But for all the discomfort I felt, I tried to keep on with the positive energy.

Then he tried to kiss me.

Without warning or asking, he simply swooped down and tried to claim my lips. Startled, I jerked backward. Then I stood up and went to sit on the couch he vacated.

“Listen, Emeka,” I said in what I hoped was a firm voice, “I’m not up for what you have in mind.”

He looked up at me uncomprehendingly, as if I’d just told him that Jesus and Lucifer are lovers.

“What do you mean?” he burst out. “So why am I here?”

I bristled inwardly at the nerve of his question. But I was too invested in being a good host and said calmly, “You said you were around and wanted to come see me. That’s why you’re here.”

He got up and came to where I was seated. There was something quite predatory about his movements that unnerved me, and I found myself wanting to leave.

But this was my house. Was I to run out and leave a stranger in it?

He touched my shoulder and said in a deceptively calm voice, “I want to touch you. I want to wrap my arms around you and feel you. Allow me.”

I stood up, and despite the unease I was feeling, I told him with as much sternness in my voice as I could muster that I wasn’t interested and he had better get going if he was going to be insistent on being intimate with me.

This guy’s response to my chastisement was to chuck his trousers down. His erection was firm and angry. I swallowed hard, not with desire but with mounting alarm.

Then he came up to me and crowded me against the wall. I felt the instinctive need to shout, but I quelled it, wanting to de-escalate the situation before it got out of hand. I placed a resisting hand on his chest and told him to stop.

“Seriously,” I said, “I’m not in the mood for this.”

He looked surprised, as though he was starting to realize that I hadn’t been playing hard-to-get earlier. “Why na? Why will you deny me your body? Okay, let me just kiss you.”

What is wrong with this guy? I thought angrily.

“No!” I burst out.

And then, I moved to get out from his crowded space. But he grabbed me and forced me back against the wall. Then he began trying to force his mouth on mine.

I wanted to die.

That was when I realised that many a time, during sexual assault, the victim doesn’t do anything not because they can’t, but because in that moment, the struggle your brain is having with reconciling yourself with what is happening is zapping all the strength in your body. While I battled mentally with the reality that someone was trying to make me do something I really, really didn’t want to do, I struggled and pushed against him.

But he was stronger, bigger and maniacal with his need.

I was not going to beg. I wasn’t going to plead with this animal to let me go in my own house. I also wasn’t going to succumb to the rationalization going on in my head to simply give in and get it over with. So while he pressed down on me, his hands pinning me to the wall, his breath hot and heavy on my face and he fought to kiss me, I resisted with all my might, my lips clamped into a tight line and my face turning this way and that.

Then suddenly I stopped and I said coldly, “If you do this, Emeka, be rest assured that you won’t walk out of here the same. I will shout for the neighbours, who already know I am gay, to come and see my boyfriend. You think this is a joke, try me.”

The conviction in words must have cut through the manic fever of his desire, because he stopped and his hold on me slackened. I quickly slipped out from under him and made straight for the front door. I opened it and stepped out, leaving it ajar for him to walk through.

He looked baffled as he eventually stepped out, his trousers back up. I wondered why. I mean, did he not see what he’d tried to do? Did he not see how wrong he was? Was he so entitled to sex that he couldn’t possibly see anything wrong with forcing it on someone else?

As he emerged from my house, wordlessly, while looking at me like I was the meanest creature on earth, I went back inside and banged the door shut.

And that was one of the many places he became permanently shut out of.

Written by Delle