LOVE . . . Or Something Like It

January 5

THE HAIRCUT

So, Diary, you know how they say that every love story begins with a DM, right? Please, don’t argue with me; that’s what they say and I’m sticking with it…

…Because this love story began four years ago in my DM.

In 2017, I was writing a fictional series on Facebook, posting regular episodes on my timeline for the entertainment of my followers.

Then Kai sent me a message. He was someone I recognized as a Facebook friend who sometimes commented on my posts. I also knew him to be a writer.

He used the subject of my stories as an ice breaker, said he loved them, and complimented them for being dark and beautiful. I was very pleased by that, and warmed quickly up to him. We started chatting often, always about my stories. He’d give me pointers on what to write about, which I appreciated, seeing as he was a writer. He also began sending me graphics, beautiful posters which he encouraged me to post along with each episode of the story.

For three months, we chatted, getting really close, becoming friends. It got to a point where I couldn’t post any episode without sending it to him first to go through.

It was in Christmas of 2017 that he asked for my number. I gave it to him, mildly surprised that he hadn’t asked sooner.

When he called, I didn’t think it’d be him.

“How far?” said the person on the other end by way of greeting. The voice was thick, the tone really razz. And “How far” – I mean, in this modern age of phuneé English, who starts a phone conversation with “How far”?

“Who is this?” I said with my best baby boy disdain.

“Na me dey call you,” he said. “Na Kai be this.”

I don’t know what it was – whether it was the way he spoke those words or the unexpectedness of hearing this lovely guy I’d been chatting with all this while address me in coarse pidgin – but I started laughing.

Note this, Diary: he makes me laugh a lot.

So, we talked on the phone. He said he’d be travelling home for his father’s funeral and that he would let me know when he was back in Lagos. I said okay.

Now, at the time, I was a baby boy looking for a sugar daddy. I was on a mission to land a rich Island boyfriend, because this baby boy desperately needed to simply relass and be taken kiaroff. I’d set my sights on landing either a Lagos big man or an oyibo boyfriend. And I was making small, small moves to realize what I was sure was my destiny.

You don’t have to say it. I can hear you thinking it: Such yeye! To think you know your destiny.

Anyway, in January, Kai called me, wanting to know if I wanted to have drinks with him. That was a first for me, the first time someone from my DM was asking me out on a date of any sort. Usually, the guys who slide into my DM just want to fuck. So, I found myself thinking: Cool, cool… Drinks then… So, this is definitely a friendship then…

Besides, I’d checked out his Facebook credentials. He really wasn’t my type. Remember: Lagos big man or oyibo boyfriend.

The day of our date was soon upon me – Tuesday, a week after the call. It was going to be at a karaoke bar. I set out, dressed to kill. Only three buttons done to reveal my pecs, ripped jeans – the category was Sexy Bad Boy, and I was out to sell that market hard!

Not to Kai, of course.

We were meeting at a karaoke bar. Hello? My sugar daddy may be there.

I got there first, and when I called him, he said he was almost there. When he showed up a few minutes later, I could not believe this was who I was about to have drinks with. He was wearing shorts and a V-neck shirt with shoes that didn’t match the attire. His hair looked like it hadn’t been properly groomed in months and his beards were shaggy. He had that writer’s look of a hermit who scarcely leaves his house.

I was turned off – and a bit comforted by the fact that there was no sexual attraction here. It was all just a big no-no. Even as we were entering the bar, I’d already started working on a plan to escape early from the date.

A server came to our table and we ordered our drinks. When the server walked away, we made small talk. I’d intended to play it cool during this date, but music was blasting away, and when James Arthur came on, I couldn’t keep my cool any longer. I love that guy, and it was one of my absolute faves of his songs, Say You Won’t Let Go, that came on. I got up to my feet and began swaying to and singing along with the music. And all through, I noticed Kai watching me with a smile on his face.

Because I wanted to get away from the date as fast as it was decently possible, I lied to him that I had to leave before 9 PM, as that was the time the security locks my estate gate. As the date wore on, I reminded him a few times of this; I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, just in case he’d hoped for more from the date.

The next morning, I woke up to a beautiful poem in my DM from Kai.

Maybe being alive

Is when you for once

Feel your heart

Beat for someone else.

Sometimes his words

Come out very cold

Then it hits me

And melts

There are stars

Trapped in his eyes

Stars and white fog

He smells like cinnamon

Cinnamon and African honey

Yes, he’s irresistibly sweet.

He unlocks within me

The purest forms of life

Love in its rawness.

I was stunned. I was blown away. I didn’t know what to say. How was my takeaway from last night that he was someone I could never be attracted to – and his was that I HAD STARS TRAPPED IN MY EYES? What do you say to someone who says these words to you?

You respond with “Sup”. That’s what you do. I know, because that was what I did. Please, don’t judge me, Diary. You were not there. You don’t know how stressful the situation was.

He quickly replied, said he was fine, that he enjoyed himself last night, that he thinks I’m a beautiful soul.

That’s the thing I soon realized about Kai. He used such deep words like that, not complimenting my outside but my inside – my soul, my spirit, my energy. It was as though the half-buttoned-pecs-showing-shirt-and-ripped-jeans projection of the sexy bad boy image simply bounced off him, because he was focused on something less visible to the naked eye.

Weird.

This kind of chyking was very alien to me.

He’d say such deeply meaningful things to me that made me think he was the psycho type who’d watch you sleep, and if he didn’t like the way you were snoring, he would stab you in your sleep.

However, this was when our chats took a more romantic turn.

He was sweet. He was deeply passionate about me. He was full of things to say to me. Soon, in fact, the beautiful poems in my inbox became a tradition: every morning and every night. So much so, that I began to anticipate them. I couldn’t respond with anything that remotely read as good as what he wrote me, but I looked forward to his every word, every line, written into bits of passion.

By the next month, we’d been on a couple of more dates. One of them was a hangout with a few of his heterosexual friends. While we were having a good time, one of them – a lady – came over to me and asked if we were together.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, Kai says you two are together. Is that true?”

I was immediately pissed. No, we weren’t together, but I didn’t owe this nosy woman that answer. I waited until that date was over, and then, when we were alone, I let Kai have it. Why would he tell his friends we were together when we weren’t? I knew what he wanted from me, but I hadn’t convinced myself that I wanted the same thing. So why was he out here spoiling my market in this Lagos? What if his friends gossiped this around and a potential sugar daddy, in his corner eyeing me, heard that?

And besides, I was too focused on the aesthetics. Physically, we didn’t match. I mean, I was (still am) a baby boy. And he…Well, he still looked like the hermit who never leaves his house.

On Valentine’s Day, I went to visit him. And he gave me something he’d made for me: it was a handmade card, with (of course) a beautiful note written inside. This was the first Valentine gift I would ever get. (Diary, you notice how Kai gave me a lot of firsts?)

I was touched by the gesture. And for the first time, I made full physical contact with him. I hugged him. It was a sweet, intimate moment, and I began to seriously consider the possibility of dating him.

During that visit, I made a joke about his hair, how it lacked any grooming, and how bushy his beard was. We laughed. And later that day, I left.

Days later, I visited him again. I was bored at home and I wanted to see him. When I got to his house, I knocked.

And a man I’d never seen before opened the door.

It was Kai.

And yet, it wasn’t.

He’d had a haircut, one that radically redefined his handsomeness. He had also trimmed his beard. I couldn’t believe I was looking at the same person I’d been out on dates with. With one haircut, he’d gone from the boring-looking hermit to a hot zaddy you’d want to be with.

And fuck!

Yes, Diary, sexual attraction was now humming through my veins. I was wowed, the words “You look amazing” coming out of my mouth in a stutter.

It was the haircut.

It was the haircut that knocked me out.

Call me superficial all you want – but that haircut and the groomed look laid bare his sex appeal which pulled me in.

That was when I finally made up my mind that, yes, I could be with Kai.

That was how we started.

I mean, sugar daddy who?

Written by Kennedy