BE MINE EVEN AFTER DEATH

*EPISODE ONE* Mr. Tunde was shocked by the fact that his beautiful wife, Damilola, was Mr. Kalu’s former lover. He didn’t know what to make of it because of the type of man Kalu had become. For several minutes, he stood paralyzed in his kitchen, contemplating on what to make of the whole situation. Finally, he decided that he would handle the whole thing later. For now, he had to behave normally and continue with the dinner for which he had invited his friend to his house. He left the kitchen and walked back to the living room, followed by his wife. “I thought you would never return.” Mr. Kalu remarked. “I had a small issue to handle with my wife. By the way, from the look of things, you both do not need any introductions because it seems you already know each other.” Tunde replied. “You are right.” Kalu spoke. “Damilola, it is a pleasure meeting you again. It is a greater pleasure knowing that you are now married to my good friend, Tunde.” “Mr. Kalu, welcome to my home. Please, you both enjoy your meal. I will be going upstairs with the kids. Please let me know when you are finished.” She took her two youngest kids and went upstairs to her bedroom. Her eldest son was a teenager and could take care of himself. When she got upstairs, she sent her children to their rooms and then came back to her own room and flung herself on her bed. Mr. Kalu was the last person she had expected to meet again. Worst of all, he was a colleague of her husband. That was not a good thing, and she had to look for a means to remedy the situation. But what options did she have? Back in the living room, Tunde and Kalu had just finished eating. His eldest son cleared the dinner table, and after some forty minutes more of sipping wine, Kalu was escorted out of the house to go meet his own family. Tunde rushed upstairs to go meet his wife. As he was changing his clothes, they began talking. “So, Kalu was the same Kalu you told me was your fiancé when we just met?” Tunde asked. “Yes, honey.” “He seemed excited, almost orgasmic to see you again. Looks like he is still very much in love with you.” “Maybe, but as for me, I am still very much in hate with him.” “Hmm! Those are very strong words. By the way, you never got to tell me what happened between you both. Please, tell me. What really happened to you two?” He was now on the bed, beside her. “You really want to hear?” “But of course.” “Alright, Kalu and I were childhood lovers. In fact, we were inseparable even as kids. Our families lived in the same neighbourhood, and we went to the same school and church. When we became teenagers and went to secondary school, we fell in love. It was very easy to fall in love with him because it seemed like we had already been in love all our lives. “In school, we were inseparable, and everyone talked and gossiped about us, but we didn’t care. We were happy with each other. I even lost my virginity to him. Then, one day, his family decided to move to another neighbourhood. That was how the first cracks of our relationship began. His school was also changed to another one that had a closer proximity to his new home. “We could no longer see and be with each other as often and regular as we had been used to. It affected us so very much because we hadn’t been used to staying away from each other for days on end. In spite of everything, we still did our very best to try to see each other whenever the opportunity presented itself. Since we were family friends, he could still freely visit my home freely, and I, his. “Then one day, our relationship problem rose to a new high. My parents found out that we were dating. They were very furious and scolded me seriously. They warned me to avoid him henceforth and end any relationship I had with him. Because I was scared of my parents, I accepted that I would end the relationship. However, in my heart, I knew that I was just trying to please my parents. Nothing was ever going to make me leave my Kalu. My parents, as if they knew I was deceiving them, escalated the issue. They took the matter to Kalu’s parents. “Kalu’s parents, on the other hand, didn’t seem to see anything wrong in the relationship. They were instead happy because, to them, it was an opportunity for the long-standing friendship existing between the two families to survive to the next generation. My parents were very disappointed with them and told them their minds in no uncertain terms. A huge quarrel erupted, and my parents left their house in anger. The friendship between Kalu’s family and mine had just come to an end. The cause? Kalu and me. “He and I regretted bitterly the fact that we had brought animosity to our family friendship. But we soon brushed that aside and continued our relationship in full swing. Only that this time around, we had to go underground. We began doing things in secret because we knew that all hell would be let loose if we were caught. My dad, especially, was a great disciplinarian. “Because we were now operating underground, we could no longer see regularly. In fact, sometimes we went for weeks without seeing each other. We could only text on the phone, and my parents were checking my phones regularly. We were miserable. So, one day, we decided to take a huge risk. Kalu’s parents travelled out of town. So, because we had not seen each other in a long while and were both missing s*x, I decided to sneak Kalu into our house to spend the night. It was a great risk. The risk was so great that if we were caught, it would be disastrous. At the same time, we believed it was a risk worth taking. “That night, he sneaked in through the backdoor when my parents were out, my younger sister, the only sibling I had at that time was already asleep. As soon as he got in, we had the first round of s*x immediately. You could not imagine our joy. It was so good and so relieving. It was like having a drink of cold water after many hours out in the desert heat. If we had some sense, he would have left after that since the coast was still clear. Instead, he stayed back and stuck to our original plan of him staying the night. “Unfortunately for us, that night, when Kalu entered through the backdoor, I forgot to lock the door. That night, a thief entered our house through the backdoor. Not an armed robber, just a normal desperate thief. Unfortunately for him, my father realized that his house had been violated. He pulled out his gun and fired twice, barely missing the thief. He managed to escape. “In the heat of things, my father decided to search all the rooms of the house. He suspected that the thief might not have come alone, and some of his friends might still be hiding inside. You could imagine the shock and then, the anger when my father found Kalu in my room. In fact, up until my meeting with Kalu again today, that was the most unsavoury thing that had ever happened to me. My father seriously manhandled him, and then, he called the police, and they took him and locked him up. “My father didn’t even inform his parents. It was only after three days of starvation and misery that my dad called Kalu’s father and told him everything. He cut his trip short, and he and his wife came back to town and released their son. They were very furious with my dad, and the animosity that was already existing hit a new high.” “So, what happened to you? What did your parents do to you?” Tunde, her husband, asked. “Ha! It was terrible. In fact, my parents practised WWE tag team matches on my body. It was a joint beating from my mum and dad. They even threatened to put pepper in my punani. Finally, they changed their minds and decided to shave my hair instead. They believed that it was thanks to my long hair that reached right on my shoulders, which made me think I was a big girl whereas I was just sixteen. Two days later, they sent me to boarding school.” “Good decision.” Tunde laughed. “You may say so, husband, but life in boarding school was hell for me. It would have been tolerable if my Kalu had been there with me. However, he wasn’t, and he wasn’t going to come because it was a single s*x school. Luckily for me, that was my last year in secondary school. The next year, I wrote JAMB, passed, and went to the university. I can still remember the conversation between my parents, now with a little humour, as they decided to send me to university.” “Really, tell me.” Tunde urged. “Hmm! It wasn’t easy. My mum was like, you are sending your daughter to UNICAL where she would be living all alone? And my dad was like, what is wrong with that? Is she not already an ashawo? Is it not this same one who brought a man right into this home and slept with him, or have you forgotten so soon? Let her go to the university and learn some sense. It is better to have an educated runs girl than one who isn’t.” Tunde laughed until his stomachache. Then, he asked. “So, what happened at the university? Did you meet the famous Kalu again?” “Quite spectacularly, husband. I met him. He, too, had come to university. What a great joy it was. Now, there were now restrictions. Our parents were thousands of miles away. So, we had all the time to do whatever we wanted to. Though we lived in two different hostels, we were practically cohabiting because I moved into his home. We were so happy with each other.” “That was cool. I have lived in the university environment before. So, I can feel it. I can really relate.” Tunde commented. “Yes, but soon, trouble started. It seemed our honeymoon was over. You know, all through that time, I had still never been in any other relationship except with Kalu. But he, it seemed, had had a few other girls while we were separated, and it seemed some of those girls were also in the university. Many times, I caught love messages in his phone, sent by girls. I complained bitterly, but nothing changed. “Then, I got pregnant for him. Can you imagine. Because we were scared of our parents, we decided to abort it. We did it the crude way, and I almost lost my life. After I recovered fully, I made him promise me that henceforth, no condom, no s*x. He agreed for a while. Then, he went back to insisting on unprotected s*x. He said he was tired of eating candy that was still in its wrapping. Soon, I got pregnant for the second time, and once again, we aborted it. “I tolerated all those things because I loved Kalu deeply, and in my heart, he was my husband to me. What I didn’t know was that my beloved Kalu had gone completely renegade. He had become a serious womanizer and was seen with several girls all over campus. In spite of everything, I tolerated him. Then, the worst happened. I came home one day and caught him pants down with a woman, not even a girl, a woman, a sugar mummy. “If it had been a girl, a young girl like me, I would have felt that maybe it was because something was wrong with me. Maybe I needed to repackage myself and improve on my makeup, my dressing, and my general appearance. But it was a woman, an elderly woman. He didn’t even have the respect and civility to lock the door when he knew that I had gone for lectures and could walk in at any time. “That was it. I had had enough. I went to my own hostel and locked myself in my room. I cried for three days, and within all these three days, I didn’t have even a bite. Can u imagine that all through those three days, Kalu didn’t look for me. He didn’t even call or text. The last of the three days was my birthday. I stayed from dawn to dusk with my phone in my hand, waiting for a ‘happy birthday’ text from him, but none came. I was desperate even for a normal ‘HBD’, just to show that he still cared a little, but none came. “Six months later, and I had already moved on by then, that was when the Sango came and started apologizing. He thought I was still the naïve, weak-hearted, and foolish girl I used to be.” “And what did you do?” Tunde asked. “Of course, I drove him a way like a dog. He became enraged and told me that if I didn’t take him back, I would date no other man in that school. He said it was him or no one else. I told him not to waste his precious little time because nothing on earth was going to get us back together. I had grown to hate him with a growing dislike. Haven failed in convincing me. He now turned to threats. He started sending people to threaten and harass me. My life became very insecure because I got news that he had joined one of the deadliest cults on campus.” “Wow! Kalu? He must have been crazy.” Tunde commented. “Quite spectacularly so, honey. Anyway, my life was precious to me. So, I packed my stuff and went back home. I told my parents that I was being chased by cult boys, and they had threatened to kill me. I was sent o UNICAL, and I never saw Kalu again till today.” Damilola finished her tale. “One hell of a story.” Her husband remarked. “Anyway, it has been many years now. He is now an elderly man. I am sure he has gotten over you, especially as you both are now married.” “That is what you think. I know what I saw in his eyes, honey. Beside that fake smile he had on, there was a deadly spark in his eyes. You have to be careful, husband. I don’t want any harm to come to you. Be wary of him. No more hanging out with him. Do you understand?” “Yes, my wife. I will be very careful henceforth.” He replied. “Thank you.” The next day at work, Mr. Kalu went into the office of one of his other colleagues. When he had greeted and sat down, he began. “I have news, Okon.” “What sort of news?” Mr. Okon asked, shifting his attention from his computer to Mr. Kalu. “I have confirmed it. Tunde is indeed married to Damilola.” “What? The same Dami?” “Yes, my Dami. Can you imagine?” “Wow!! Then, we need to begin making plans immediately.” TO BE CONTINUED…