THE WORLD IS FULL OF ASSHOLES

When I think about that day now, I can’t help but laugh.

It was January 2020, and the exam I was going to take that week had just gotten postponed to a month ahead. I was suddenly without any objective but to get laid. I mean, I’d gone and become celibate for a WHOLE MONTH! That is a very long time to stay purified unto the Lord, please!

Now, I just wanted to get my freak on – and what better place to get started than on Grindr.

I hit up the Yellow App with all the aggression of a sex-starved Bottom. You know the saying: the Kingdom of Hookup suffereth violence and only the violent taketh a good hookup by force. It was a battlefield and there were many undesirables to take down in my search for Mr. Right Now.

And boy, were there many of these undesirables. Grindr breeds all sorts of people sha. From those who it immediately became obvious to me weren’t my type, but who took offense with my polite decline of anything moving forward between us; I mean, I politely declined o, instead of going straight for my block button. To those that stayed really far away; like, I still don’t understand how Grindr thought that Accra and Calabar were anywhere close to me. And then, there were the “I don’t do foreplay, I just want to fuck” guys. And the ones with really, really, REALLY weird fetishes, and the ones Beyoncé must have been talking about when she sang Ego, and then of course the ones that were moving in a way that instantly set off my kito radar.

Sigh. See eh, Grindr is really not for the faint-hearted.

But then, I found him. This gorgeous person who seemed to just be checking all the boxes, the more we chatted. He didn’t have any profile picture, so I of course was simply going to move right past him. But then he said Hi, and we got chatting and then exchanged pictures. He wasn’t dark-skinned – which is my spec – but he was everything else delicious. Lean-muscled, right height, and THOSE LIPS! Oh God! I saw those lips and immediately started having visions of him sucking my nipples.

Did I also mention that he had the right size of dick too? Oh yeah, he did! He also talked about loving foreplay so much, he also likes to rim! Can you believe it? He fucking RIMS! Like, he enjoys eating the cakes! I was this close to asking him to marry me right there on Grindr, but first, let us fuck please!

So, eventually, after everything had been said, seen and verified to be true, a dick appointment was fixed for the next day. HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU! And we love you, Rainbow Jesus!

The following day, after going through my pre-bottoming rituals, I checked out myself and saw that all was right with me. Then I reached for my phone, copied his number from Grindr and dialed.

Grrrrrrnn, grrrrrrnn, grrrrrrnn, grrrrrrnn…

“Hello,” he answered.

Gosh, even his voice was sexy. I developed an instant hard-on.

“Um, hello, is this Tolu?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, this is Aloe from Grindr. We wi–”

“I know. You sent me your number, remember?” he said.

Oh, you saved it, I thought. I mean, I thought it was an unspoken agreement in the world of gay hookups that “thou shalt not save the number of an intended hookup until after the hookup has happened and he has performed well enough to warrant a spot in thy phonebook”.

Or was that just me?

“Yeah, okay. I did. And you sent me yours too.”

See mumu! I was sure that in his head, he’d be like, “Duh. Of course I sent my number to you. How else would you be calling me?”

“Um, are you busy?” I rushed on. “I can hear voices.”

I could hear quite the ruckus coming from the other end of the phone call.

“Oh no, I’m not,” he said. “Are you done? Wanna start coming now?”

“Yeah, I’m ready. Was about to head out.”

“Alright, so call me when you get to the school gate.”

“Okay.”

“Alright, see you soon. Bye.”

“Yeah bye.”

After a bike and a bus ride, I was finally at the school gate. Glory! So then, I picked out for my phone and called him again.

Grrrrrrnn, grrrrrrnn, grrrrrrnn, grrrrrrnn…

The number you are calling –

Shut the fuck up, bitch!

I dialed again.

Grrrrrrnn, grrrrrrnn, grrrrrrnn, grrrrrrnn…

He answered. “Hey, sorry I missed your call. Are you at the school gate already?”

Bloody hell! Why else will I be calling you twice in a row?

But like the child who got the home training I did, I instead replied, “Yes, I am.”

“Oh okay. Nice. You know what? Please give me like five minutes. I’ll call you back.”

Hian!

“Um, okay.”

“Alright thanks.” And he disconnected.

I went back to listening to the playlist on my phone, while checking out some of the guys who were traipsing in and out of the school gate, and slowly coming to the conclusion that God really did His thing when He created man in His own image. If this was His image, then you can just imagine what a fox God must be.

My phone rang then and I checked to see that it was an unfamiliar number calling. I answered.

“Hello, Aloe.”

It was Tolu speaking.

“Yeah hello, what’s up?”

“Okay, so there’s a little problem.”

Oh God NO! I douched really well. It can’t just go to waste!

“What is it? What’s the little problem?” I queried, intentionally laying some emphasis on the word ‘little’ – because, of course, it had better be a very LITTLE problem.

“So, I’m a bit busy at the moment, so busy that I can’t leave where I am right now.”

Say WHAT?!

He continued, “Do you mind if my friend comes over to pick you up?”

I started laughing in my head. Shey this is how you people want to do it today, ehn? You wanna make it Aloe-0, Village People-1, abi?

“I know what you’re thinking,” Tolu continued, “but I promise you, it’s not what you’re thinking.”

Will you shut up your unfortunate mouth and stop talking! Mscheewww!

But I said instead, “Give me a minute. I’ll call you back.”

“Alright,” he said. “But I’m serious. It’s not what you’re thinking, and if you’re not comfortable anymore and you want to go back, it’s fine. I’ll just have to make it up to you some other time.”

Will this boy just shut his stupid mouth up, tori olorun! It’s not what you’re thinking, it’s not what you’re thinking, nyeh-nyeh-nyeh. Well, how do you know what I’m thinking? Are you a wizard? Is you Dumbledore? Is Dumbledore you? Mscheewww!

I hung up the call and then stood there, thinking.

What was the worst that could happen? This was a school area. How bad could the situation get if it turned out to be ugly? As I contemplated the situation, all the warnings we get here on Kito Diaries kept banging about in my ears, head, and mind, everywhere. But me being me, I decided to throw caution to the wind. You know, que sera sera. We cannot escape fate.

So I called him back and told him that I was still interested in us seeing. He said he’d give my number to his friend. About eleven minutes later, someone called me and identified himself as Tolu’s friend. He said that I should enter the street opposite the school gate. Upon walking into the street, I immediately spotted some very rough-looking guys smoking and drinking in one corner. I got the first flutter of alarm. Then Tolu’s friend called again and told me to walk further down, that he was the guy in black track pants. Because of that description, I could see him ahead of me and as I got closer to him, I felt a bit relieved that he didn’t look as ruffian as those guys I’d earlier seen. In fact, he was quite the fine boy himself.

“Aloe, right?” he said as I came to stand before him.

“Yes. And you are?”

“David. Tolu’s friend.”

“Okay.”

“Alright, let’s go.”

And so, we began our close-to-or-over-ten-minute walk to wherever Tolu was, being busy. We kept diving into corners and pathways, and I kept following after him, surprising myself with how calm I was. You know those agonizing moments when you feel your instincts warning you against something, and at the same time, you’re thinking it’s just unnecessary fear? I was going through that moment, and yet, I was calm, at least, outwardly so.

Eventually, we got to our destination. David led me inside a compound. The first house we walked past had some guys lounging in the front, and they exchanged greetings with David. There were a bunch of other houses, and guys sitting in front of them. It was like that day was dedicated to “sit outside your apartment and get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Aloe”.

But you cannot touch him though, right? Just watch him walk past you, and then make it a story you will tell your children’s children, right? Once upon a time, we saw Aloe in our compound, on his way to see someone he met on Grindr…

The compound was large, and soon, we got to the apartment that David stopped before and walked into. The door was open and I began to follow after him. Now that I was here, my heart had started pounding really fast. I was bent down, acting like I wanted to remove my sandals, all the while scanning the room, wanting to see if there was anything I’d see that’d trigger me. There was David, and Tolu and three other guys seated on one of the beds and two others seated on the second bed.

I saw all this in a swift ten seconds, while still looking down, and I remember thinking: Tolu and I never said anything about an orgy, so what is with all the excessive company? 

It could only mean one thing. That one thing that Kito Diaries had been created to warn us about: KITO!

Alarm bells began ringing at a screechy pitch in my head as I swiftly contemplated my next move. I didn’t know where I was or where I was going to run off to or what would happen to me – but I sure as hell was not going down without a fight.

So I began poising myself to take off, to simply turn and RUN – when I looked up into the room and saw it. Right there on the wall, directly opposite me, staring me in the face, hanging pretty and shining in all its glory, the colours beautiful, the lights beaming around it – was the RAINBOW FLAG!

Blessed are thee who look upon my colourful beauty, for ye shall find rest.

For whatever reason, seeing that flag calmed all the raging dread that had been accumulating inside me in the past few seconds. Because surely, the fact that it was hanging there could only mean one thing: that this was a place to feel safe in. I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding and pulled off my sandals before walking all the way in.

The room was even larger and more occupied than I’d initially estimated. There were other guys and even two young women in there, everybody bustling about, doing one thing or the other or just sitting around.

What is going on here abeg?

Tolu walked over to me, looking stressed but still sexy. We exchanged very brief pleasantries, and then he asked me to take a seat on the bed. I sat, still wondering where I was. Then I plugged in my earphones and began listening to Lagbaja. I was also doing stuff on my phone, paying little attention to the activity around me.

Then, I heard Tolu call my name. But for quality and assurance purposes that I was the one whose attention he was calling for, I waited until he called me again and even asked someone next to me to tap me, before I looked in his direction. He signaled for me to come over to where he was.

“Your turn,” he said as he gestured for me to sit down before him.

“My turn for what?” I asked.

“Your HIV test.”

Oooohhh! So that’s what’s happening here. All these people gathered here like we were doing a remake of “Jesus fed the thousands” were conducting and taking HIV tests.

“Uh, this isn’t what I came here for,” I said pointedly. “I did a HIV test two weeks ago,” I added truthfully.

“Oh,” he said.

I nodded, while looking at him like: Seriously, dude, we met on Grindr with the intent of shagging, and you figured you’d make me part of your HIV awareness quota? What is the matter with you?

“Alright, just chill outside for me,” he said. “Let me finish with the rest.”

Along with others who had done their tests, I was ushered out of the room. Some sat down to gist while others thronged the rest of the way out of the compound. I got seated too, and then went on to wait for an hour or so, all the while sipping the kind of tea you can only find at a community gathering. I gathered that Tolu lives and works for an NGO in Lagos. He and his team had come from Lagos to conduct HIV tests for community members in my school and in the locale.

So, I was starting to get the impression that this dick appointment wasn’t going to happen… Right?

Hopefully wrong!

While waiting for Tolu to finish up and come out to meet me and maybe say, “Sorry for the delay, hon. Come let’s go to my room and fuck our brains out”, a guy who seemed like he was well-known here walked in. There was some greeting and handshakes and hugs, and then he glanced in my direction before asking no one in particular if I’d done my own, and they told him that I didn’t do. Then he asked in Yoruba what I came for then, and they told him they didn’t really know, but that I came to see Tolu. I was a little irked that he was talking about me like I wasn’t even there. The slow burn that I’d started feeling toward Tolu ever since I began suspecting that I came here to waste my time continued simmering inside me.

Finally, Tolu finished. He came out with his bag and some other people that were going his way (members of his team, I supposed), because apparently, he was leaving for Lagos RIGHT THAT INSTANT!

He asked if I was going back home – that is, my hostel – or to school. I muttered something about going to school first. He said okay, that we should walk together to the road where I’d get a bike.

As we walked, he started on his apology, you know, that apology you make when you know you’ve really fucked up. He was going on and on about nonsense that I wasn’t really listening to. I just kept smiling and nodding. What else was I to do but keep my cool?

After he had exhausted his contrition, he asked, “You stay in Lagos, right?”

“Yes.”

“Where in Lagos?”

I told him. He said that we stay close to each other and continued with how we should see when I come back to Lagos for him to make it up to me.

I said okay. I mean, what else was I to do but keep my cool?

Eventually, a Prince in Shining Armour (I refuse to call him a bike man) came to my rescue and helped me onto his stallion (No, it was not a bike) to take me far, far away from the wicked Villain called Tolu. Tolu and I said our goodbyes and I was on my way.

When I got home, I blocked him on Grindr, saved his number on my phone just so I could block it from calling me and on WhatsApp, and then deleted it.

You don’t make a guy prepare and do things that are not convenient for him, so you two can have sex – only for you to cancel on him like it’s nothing. You don’t arrange for a hookup and encourage a guy to come over for some dick, when you know it isn’t feasible.

It is disrespect! It is wickedness!! It is PURE EVIL!!!

And may the face of Rainbow Jesus be against this evildoer, to cut off the memory of him from the earth!

Amen.

Written by Aloe