HERE AND AWAY

I have been in this on-again, off-again relationship and it is getting up to seven years now. Ivy and I started out as a committed couple when we were both in year one in the university. I studied a five-year course and graduated in August, 2019. We started living together in 2015 up to 2019. We studied the same course and also graduated together.

Ivy is a lovely young woman: intelligent, beautiful and well articulated. And to crown it all, she complements me physically. I am of average height and she is tall. I am not blessed with ample breasts and she is. Her legs go on for days and mine are regular. And on and on, we appear to match, physically and personality-wise.

Seeing as I am a one-woman person, it was no problem for me to agree to keep our relationship exclusive. Besides, I loved Ivy and could totally see us being together for a lifetime.

Then, in our fourth year, Ivy started seeing a guy. She told me about this guy who’d asked her out and who she was considering saying yes to for the sake of appearances. Even though she appeared to be asking for my permission, I could see that she’d made up her mind on this and that saying no would only result in the two of us having problems.

So I okayed it, but with so much pain within. I didn’t want to be the selfish, unreasonable lover who didn’t want what she figured was the best thing for her. I kept my hurt buried within me and accepted that the woman I loved was going to start being with a man.

That night, I could barely sleep. I was beside myself with tortured thoughts about this unfamiliar new territory we were about to proceed into as a couple. It didn’t matter that this guy was not around and that the relationship was basically going to be a long distance one. I just couldn’t stand the thought of my girlfriend being a man’s girlfriend, and worse still, in a union that’d be more recognised than anything I could be to her.

At the end of that semester, I traveled home, and that was when she invited the guy over. They had their fun, sexcapades which she told me about. I couldn’t stand it, but I couldn’t tell her not to tell me. I was being the bigger person.

When I returned to school, I couldn’t erase the images of her being with that guy, which her story created in my head. Knowing that they’d been together in our house caused me to be irritated by everything in that house; even Ivy irritated me.

We carried on with our relationship, but it simply wasn’t the same for me. The awareness that my girlfriend was being sexual with this man made me to start pulling back on some of the things I used to feel comfortable doing with Ivy.

At some point, as though I wanted to hurt her somehow for the way she was hurting me, I started having flings with guys. And I told her about each sexual encounter. However, instead of making her sad or jealous, my stories turned her on.

Fast forward to the present: we are still together, but not, like, together. She is still here but I don’t have her like before. I keep needing some form of commitment, which she is not giving, what with her focus on dating men.

And so, I started entertaining the resolve to find someone else, another girl to replace Ivy.

That was when I met Janet. Janet was this busty, beautiful girl with whom I kicked off things with really fast. We started talking when we were both in different states, then I came back home and we were together. needed a form of commitment and she isn’t giving to me so I ventured  into searching for her replacement.

I met a busty beautiful girl. She is a cute dame and we kicked off right fast. But Janet seemed unsteady, often playing with my emotions. She would only talk to me when she wanted to and even then, she never stayed on the phone long enough to satisfy my need for her. Other times, she’d switch off her phone for a week, leaving mad with worry and anxiety over what she was up to. She could just go offline for days and then casually resurface as though nothing happened.

However, the harder she toyed with me, the harder I wanted her.

Then came the day we were supposed to hang out. I withdrew enough cash to flex her. On our way inside the joint, this guy approached us and started talking to Janet. He was obviously into her and was chyking her. But Janet quickly – and politely – shut that down. Her disinterest filled me with joy; Ivy would have probably flirted back at the guy and soaked in his attention.

We stayed out late that till about 9 PM. When we were ready to leave, we couldn’t get an uber to take us home. So, we decided to trek to a nearby bus stop to try commercial transport.

As we approached the bus stop, a bike bearing two people – the rider and the passenger – swerved a stop before us, and the two men jumped off with guns pointed at us. The guy who’d tried to chyke Janet was one of them.

He hit Janet with the butt of his gun and threatened to shoot me. It was a terrible experience. Mercifully, all they did was rob us, and even then, I lost so much: my phone (and the very important work I was doing in it), the money in my wallet, ID cards, everything of monetary value that I had on me. What I lost that night was worth more than 500 grand.

I took this to be a red flag and bounced from Janet. She wasn’t worth the effort anyway.

The second girl I met was Rita; another lovely woman who I found myself smitten with. We’d been talking for awhile, and then the day we met, I went out with my cousin all the way to Umuahia where she lived, ready to impress her with a lavish outing. It was a really fun day, and it wasn’t until 8 PM that we started heading home. However, we’d forgotten about the curfew that was in effect in my place, and as we drove into the state, we were apprehended by the members of Rapid Response Squad (the new SARS). We were detained and passed the night in their office. In the morning, I bailed us out with 50 thousand naira.

All these new girls appeared to be costing me so much risk and unwanted excitement.

So, I won’t be trying to replace Ivy anymore. I think I’ll just go back to loving her, this woman who I don’t even have anymore.

Written by Deviant