HOW CHRISTMAS MENDED MY BROKEN HEART

2016 was an eventful year, to say the least. After five years of being in a loving relationship, twenty days after my thirty-fifth birthday, it ended. My boyfriend called a time-out. It felt like my heart had been ripped out and stomped on. I tried to mend what I thought could be fixed, but he’d look at me and say, “Zeb, I am forty and I don’t have children. You know how African families are.”

My boyfriend – let’s call him Kofi – is originally from Ghana, although he’s British. Me, I am British too, of Jamaican descent. We’d lived and made a life in the UK and I thought we were going to keep living our lives together till the end, without any interference from traditional families. Kofi apparently felt differently. He had gotten to forty and was suddenly self-conscious about being childless and “single”.

However, I understood but I didn’t care. I mean, he could have told me he’d have this change of heart at the start of our relationship. Why wait five years? And what had I been all this time – some sort of experiment? I had many things to scream at him, so many questions to ask, but every time I brought up my need for us to talk, he’d rebuff me. He had made up his mind and nothing was going to change that.

Our breakup happened in April, and when I realised we were really through, I began trying to work on myself. To move on. Even though carrying on with life on my own was so strange and new.

By June, I was still in my feelings, checking his Instagram and Facebook for updates on his life. Then out of the blue, I got a call. When I saw his name flashing across my phone screen, my heart stopped and then picked up a fast beat. My stomach was churning as I answered. “Hi, what’s up?”

“Hi bro.”

Bro? Really? That was where we were at now?

He was still talking, “I’m just calling to see how you are coping.”

“Coping?” I replied. “What is that supposed to mean? Why wouldn’t I be coping?”

“OK, perhaps that was a wrong choice of word,” he said apologetically. “How are you doing?”

“I’m great,” I bit out. Even though I wanted to scream: You broke my heart, you piece of shit! I hope your penis falls off! But I stayed classy and waited for him to state the real reason for his call.

He did. “So, I was thinking about going to Ghana sometime this year. And I wanted to know if you’d like to come. We may have broken up, Zeb, but I’d still like to maintain a friendship with you. Perhaps with this trip, we can work on being friends.”

I was hesitant. It was ridiculous, really. Nobody breaks up a five-year relationship and expects to stay friends with his ex – at least not barely two months after the breakup. A year, two years perhaps. But visiting his homeland was something he knew I’d always wanted, and it seemed sweet that he’d thought to ask me even though we were exes and he had no obligation to do so.

I deliberated on it for a while, and then agreed. I told him and he sounded ecstatic. The plan was for us to go during the Christmas period till the New Year.

We touched down in Ghana on the 25th of December. Despite the circumstances surrounding this visit, even though I was here not as one half of a pair, I was elated about being there. You hear a lot about the wonders of African men, and I was determined to enjoy myself during this trip. We were in Accra and soon got to Kofi’s family house, which was a compound with two big houses inside. I’d wondered out loud to Kofi if it’d be possible for me to entertain any possible guests of mine while we were here, and he’d shot it down, pointing out that it was his family house. Of course, we couldn’t risk his family being exposed to anything about his life as a gay man – never mind that he was forty and unmarried. (OK, that was me being snarky. Lol)

I settled into my holiday, even though it was increasingly becoming obvious that this wasn’t about building a friendship between us, and more about showing me that our relationship was definitely over. We’d be walking down the road and Kofi would constantly be asking of the guys we walked past: “What do you think of this guy… That guy is cute, look at his body… Damn! I could tap that ass…”

It got to a point where I asked him to keep his comments to himself because it was seriously pissing me off. I mean, he’d only just ended our relationship in April, and already, he was checking out guys. In front of me! With no regard for how I may still be feeling about him. Was this his idea of us being friends? To jump from boyfriends to each other’s wing men, checking guys out for hookups? I felt betrayed afresh, because it began to seem like he hadn’t even ended things between us because he wanted to focus on getting married and having children. No. It would seem as though my ex had simply wanted to reclaim the freedom to screw around.

I became determined to enjoy Ghana on my own. I’d wake up early in the morning and go for long walks. During one particular walk, I located a bar at the end of the road. I went in and after one drink, I was promptly a customer. The bar was run by a woman who hovered over me like a protective mother hen, cussing and shooing off the local guys whenever they tried to approach me. When I asked her why she was discouraging them from coming over to me, she said they just wanted to get money from me and that they were not to be trusted.

By the time I was done and left the bar, I decided I would be a regular there. I began visiting the bar a lot, sometimes just to get away from my ex.

My second week in Ghana, I was in the bar when a guy approached me. My mother hen was not around, so he was able to get to me and say, “Hi, chale, can I sit with you?”

I wasn’t in a jovial mood but didn’t want to seem rude. I said sure. And he promptly sat down. We began talking. He introduced himself as Kojo and I soon got to know that he played football in Ivory Coast and could speak French. I loved this about him, because I love the French language; I excelled at it in college. Our conversation at this point proceeded with a mix of Twi French and English. And in the following days, we became very friendly with each other.

One day, he asked if he could come to where I was staying so he could see my room. That sounded odd to me, but I acted like I hadn’t heard the request. Especially since Kofi had been clear that we couldn’t entertain houseguests at his family house.

On my last day in Ghana, I was at the bar again. This time, Kofi and a few friends of his were with me. We wanted to have a few drinks and proceed to a club. Kojo was present in the bar and came over to me as usual. After some talk, he asked me again if he could see my room.

“Chale, you will be leaving soon,” he said. “Can’t I just see your room?”

I felt some consternation as I replied him this time. “Why though, chale? The only thing you will see in my room are two suitcases, a bed, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. There is nothing fancy there.”

He maintained that he wanted to see my room, and when I persisted for a reason why, he said something about how he maybe just wanted to see my trainer collection. I’m a trainer fiend and took 16 pairs to Ghana, something I’d mentioned in our previous conversation.

Our conversation got weirder. I’m a generous person, a character trait I’d exhibited in the past with him; and so, he said I should give him 30 cedis to fix his phone. Feeling relieved that we’d gotten off the subject of visiting my room, I immediately reached for my wallet for the money. But he declined, saying I should give him the money when he has seen my room. And I was there thinking when I agreed for him to see my room. It was all so weird.

Soon, me and my party left the bar and headed to the club. At the club, Kofi and his friends got drunker and drunker. Because I don’t take alcohol, I was sober. Kojo was too. And he wouldn’t still let up about seeing my room.

“Bro, you will soon leave and you still haven’t shown me your room,” he said.

I looked at the dance floor and I could see my ex having fun. And I thought: Whaddaheck! Of course, he would bitch about it if I left the club without letting him know, but he was too drunk to care anyway.

So I turned to Kojo and said, “OK. Let’s go show you my room.”

We left the club and caught a taxi to the house. I led him to my room. When we were inside, remembering his other request for money to fix his phone, I got the 30 cedis and made to hand it over to him. But he shook his head and asked why I was moving so fast. I was frankly very confused at this time. Moving so fast for what? I shrugged, put away the money and spread my hands about. “Chale, you see? I told you. Suitcase, wardrobe, there’s nothing to see here.”

But he wasn’t even looking at the room. He had his eyes placed intently on me. And he asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

And for the first time, I felt a jolt of awareness as I looked back at him and felt his question strike a subtle chord in me. Contemplation raged in my head. Could he be…? I mean, he had persisted in seeing my room and was now asking me this. Maybe he was…? Nah! Maybe I was overthinking all this. Maybe it was just an innocent question. But what if it wasn’t? Should I…? Why shouldn’t I?

Then I was like: Fuck it!

“Take off your clothes,” I said to him.

Without hesitation, he undressed and was soon standing before me, gloriously naked. He had a beautifully-chiseled body with a thick, veined dick to match. I stared at him, unable to believe this. This was a guy who’d been with me practically every day since I came to Ghana, and now, here he was, naked in my room.

Because I was yet to say anything, he asked if I was OK. I said yes, that I was just a little shocked. He laughed and said, “Is it only seeing me naked that you want? Nothing else?”

Feeling encouraged, I said, “Will you suck my dick?”

With a nod, he pushed me gently back on the bed and got into position between my legs. He unzipped my trousers and tugged my hardening dick from the confines of my underpants. He took it into his mouth and was sucking me like it was his calling on earth. He was good – boy, was he good! I held his head in place and ground my hips up against his mouth as pleasurable sensations shot up from my moist-enclosed dick to the rest of my body.

Then he pulled away and looked at me. He asked, “Can we do that thing?”

My brain cells were still feeling scrambled by the pleasure of his blow job, and I was panting as I asked, “What thing?”

“Sex now,” he said. “I want that thing.”

To be honest, the way he spoke was a huge turn-on. I was dropping my clothes fast and getting into bed with him before I knew what I was doing. The sex was amazing. He was well-built, and the firm ass he offered up to me felt very blissful as I smashed him. We started with him on his back, missionary. Then he wanted me on my back and he got on my dick, riding me to delirium. Then we switched positions to doggy. At one point, as I took my time thrusting into him, he looked behind and said, “Why are you fucking me like I’m a woman? I am a man! Fuck me like I am a man!” Lol. It was wild. We were all over the room, drenched with passion and perspiration as we fucked.

And for the first time since April, I truly spared no thought for my ex-boyfriend, Kofi.

When we were done, we laid in the bed for bit, resting in the afterglow of sex. Then I suggested for us to freshen up and return to the club. He said OK. So, we got out of bed and took a shower together. We were dressed and were about leaving when he stopped and said, “Chale, to be frank, I want that thing again.”

And just like that, the plan to return to the club went right out the window as we got undressed again and tumbled once more into the bed.

Written by Zeb