The Scent Of Shame

HOW I DATED A MARRIED MAN Episode 1 My name is Kola Adeyemi. I did not come back alone. When the kidnappers released me that early morning, my body walked out of the forest, but something else followed me home, silently, stubbornly. Fear, Shame, and a strange kind of attention. For three weeks, the forest was my world. Cold nights, hot whips, ropes biting into my skin. Men shouting my name while beating me, as if my name itself was the offence. And then, something happened that changed my life forever. Whenever I was too weak to stand or cry, the kidnappers would strip me completely and take pictures of my naked body. Then, without warning, they sent these photos to everyone in my contact list, w******p, f*******:, you name it, threatening to kill me if my friends or colleagues didn’t pay my ransom. I didn’t understand at the time. Later, I realised: these pictures had gone far beyond just my friends. Suddenly, the entire market, the neighbourhood, and even women who never noticed me before had seen me. And not just me, they had seen the extra-big size of what I privately owned. The one thing I had kept hidden, carefully wrapped, discreet. Now, it was out in the open. When I returned to Mile 12 Market, Lagos, the world looked the same, but people’s eyes were not. Some men avoided me. Some women stared, smiled, whispered. I stayed indoors for almost one month, ashamed to face anyone. Even walking past familiar shops felt like stepping naked in the sun. I told myself:“Kola, survive first. Everything else… later.”Then the visits started. Men came officially, market leaders, elders, colleagues. They shook my hand, asked how I was healing, and offered advice. Women came differently. Quietly, subtly with an attention I had never received before. They said, “So sorry.” They said, “God saved you.”But their eyes were saying: “We want more.”Some were women who barely greeted me before. Women married to men richer, older, and more respected than me. Yet suddenly, my unwanted exposure had made me irresistible, in a way I never expected. What could have been my shame, is turning into attention “big anaconda in my waist”.Calls came daily “Kola, are you free this afternoon? ” I just want to see you.”“Is now a good time?” Some came with gifts, some with cash. Some with quiet words that made my chest tighten. Within two weeks, I had received double the money that freed me from the forest. It was clear that what the kidnappers did to humiliate me had opened doors I never asked for. And some married women, beautiful, confident, and curvy, were now subtly, dangerously, wooing me for private affairs, using the secret knowledge of my body they had gained. I avoided the market. I avoided mirrors. I avoided questions. But temptation does not knock loudly. It whispers. And the first whisper came from the wife of a very powerful man in our trade association. When she said to me softly:“Kola… some things cannot be unseen.” My heart sank. That was the day I understood the forest didn’t just take something from me, it gave the world access to a part of me I had always guarded. And suddenly, life became more complicated than I could imagine. The air around me thickened withuncertainty. What had been a tale of my suffering at the hands of kidnappers, of violence and shame, was now evolving into something darker, something I couldn’t control. That day in the market, when Mrs Olamide whispered her voice low and dangerous, "Kola… some things cannot be unseen," I realised the full weight of my new reality. The woman was powerful, not just because of her marriage to a trader’s leader, but because she carried herself with a grace that cloaked her true intentions. There was nothing innocent about the way she looked at me. I walked away, my legs shaky beneath me. Her words echoed in my mind, and I felt the chains of my past, my shame, growing heavier. I didn’t want this, I didn’t ask for this attention. But it had come, unbidden, like a storm on the horizon, and now I had to ride it out. The visits became more frequent, and the tension between the married women of the market increased. They came in waves, subtle, seductive, their words soft and sweet, like honey laced with poison. They knew my pain, my weakness, and they saw the opportunity. I had been humiliated. I had been broken. But now, they saw a different kind of power in me, a power I didn’t even understand. One afternoon, as the sun dipped low, I found myself face-to-face with Mrs Olamide again. This time, there were no soft words. No whispering. Just the rawness of her intent. She sat down beside me at the corner table in the small cafe I started frequenting to escape the chaos of the market. The room was empty except for a few older traders sipping palm wine, their eyes glazed over with drunken apathy. Mrs Olamide wasn’t drunk. She was in control. "You don’t need to keep running, Kola," she said, her voice smooth, deliberate. "You’ve already been seen. The world knows you now. And you know what they want." I gripped my cup of tea tighter, my knuckles white with tension. Her gaze lingered on me, assessing, appraising. "But I’m not like the others. I’m not asking for something cheap or fleeting. You don’t have to hide anymore. What you’re running from doesn’t matter anymore." I stood up suddenly, the chair scraping loudly against the tiled floor. My heart raced in my chest, but I couldn’t show fear. Not now. Not with her. "I’m not your plaything, Mrs Olamide," I shot back, my voice barely concealing the rage bubbling inside me. "I’m not anyone’s toy." She didn’t flinch. Instead, she smiled, a knowing, calculated smile. "I never said you were," she replied, standing slowly, her movement graceful like a predator. "But you should know something, Kola. You’ve got something men dream of and women… crave. And in this world, that kind of power comes at a cost. You can’t just walk away from it." Before I could respond, she turned and walked out, leaving me alone in the dimly lit café. Her words gnawed at me, digging deep into the core of my consciousness. I left the café and walked the streets aimlessly. My mind was a whirlwind of confusion. I had been through so much already, but the pull of temptation was relentless. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to resist it. The calls didn’t stop. Every day, a new message, a new voice. Some of the women, more brazen now, began to show up at my door, offering gifts, money, favours, things I never thought I’d be offered. It felt like an addiction, an overpowering force I couldn’t escape. Episode 2 And then, the unthinkable happened. One evening, as I walked home from the market, I noticed a car parked near my house. The engine was running, and the tinted windows hid the occupant’s face. But I knew who it was. I walked closer, my pulse quickening. The door of the car opened slowly, and there, sitting in the front seat, was Mrs Olamide, she wasn’t alone beside her was a man, his face unfamiliar to me but his presence unmistakable. He was older, silver-haired, dressed in a suit that screamed power. The kind of man who could silence a room with a single glance. I didn’t need to know who he was to understand that he was someone not to be trifled with. "Kola," Mrs Olamide said, her voice soft, like silk over steel. "Meet my husband." I froze. My world tilted. This man was the husband of the woman who had been pursuing me for weeks. The man whose name I heard whispered in hushed tones around the market. The man who was more powerful than I could have ever imagined. But there was no escape now. Mrs Olamide was no longer just a woman seeking forbidden pleasure. She had entangled me in a web of lies, of power, and of danger. I had no idea what game she was playing, but I knew one thing for sure: I was a pawn, and I had just been moved. Her husband’s eyes locked onto mine, cold and calculating. "I know what you’ve been doing, Kola," he said, his voice low and menacing. "And I don’t like to share." I swallowed hard, the weight of his words pressing down on me. My body was trembling, but I refused to show it. I had been broken once, but I wasn’t going to let anyone break me again. I didn’t know what the future held. I didn’t know if I could escape the web of temptation that had ensnared me. But one thing was certain: I was no longer the man I was before the forest. I had been changed, reshaped by the events of the past few weeks. And whether I liked it or not, I was now part of a game far more dangerous than I could have ever imagined. Kola’s journey concludes not with the freedom he hoped for, but with a descent into a high-stakes "game" of power. By introducing him to her husband, Mrs Olamide effectively trapped Kola between two fires: a woman using him as a trophy and a powerful man who views him as a threat to be managed. ​The "extra-big size" that brought him unwanted fame became a curse, proving that the kidnappers' violation of his privacy never truly ended; it simply moved from the forest to the marketplace. Kola’s story ends on a chilling note of survival: he is no longer a victim of the bush, but a pawn in a social chess match where the rules are written by those with more money and less mercy......