I HAD my first positive, successful sexual relationship.  Uncle Dee had proved to me that men were not monsters that pushed you down and forcefully had very painful sex with you.  He had shown me, as he had assured, that sex was a God given gift to be enjoyed by two people who willingly decided to go into it, two people who had a mutual liking for each other. He had enabled me to have a changed perspective about men altogether even though inside me, I still had this doubt that maybe other men would still hurt me.  There was this little suspicion in me that only Uncle Dee was calm, soft, tender and very concerned about giving me pleasure as opposed to pain.  I talked so much about him to my cousin who at first mocked me and said I was lying, that I had not done it but was claiming to have done it so as to prevent her from laughing at me.  She asked me to give her all the details of what had happened.  Because the thought of the details gave me so much joy, so much satisfaction and also built that feeling in me that I was a woman after all, like all others, I repeated the details to her.  She encouraged me by asking question after question how it felt, whether I did feel some pain at times, to which I said yes, I did feel pain, but that Uncle Dee was so concerned and caring at any hint of pain or discomfort he would tone down on his actions, asking me if I was in pain, and later asking if what he was doing was now better, painless.  I was the perfect ‘virgin’ losing it all to a man that was truly caring, but also gaining it all by accepting the immediate positive change it was having on my life. Afterwards, I sent so many text messages to the man, the deep feeling of closeness growing in leaps and bounds, my desire to be with him so strong it was hurtful.  I was feeling what my cousin Jusi had always said I would one day feel, the desire to be with a man and have him as my own, to crave for him and his presence, to be nice to him and feel him being nice to me, to love!  I was very sure this was the love I had heard people talk so much about. For the next three days, Uncle Dee took me to the same lodge and with each subsequent encounter, he made me do new things just as he did new things to me, with me, that just made the whole affair more and more exciting.  But after each encounter, he kept advising me not to get carried away.  He said he liked me and wanted us to remain friends, just that. “You know Nana, you are very young,” he said.  “I cannot marry you for the obvious reason that I am already married.  Some of my own daughters are almost your age.” That was truly hurtful.  I hated what he was saying. “Don’t get carried away, dear, ok?” he continued.  “Now that you know that men are not vicious beasts and monsters who are hell bent on causing you pain, try and develop a relationship with your own man, a man your age who will eventually marry you.” “You don’t want me?” I asked him almost choking with emotion. “So…you just wanted to have sex with me…now you are satisfied…you are chasing me…to who?  Who is that man that I don’t know who you want me to have?” I broke down and cried.  I couldn’t think of any other man who would give me the kind of exhilaration and joy that I had experienced the last few days.  “Don’t cry, Na,” he persuaded.  “I am not going away from you.  I will not abandon you.  I am just trying to get you to be careful so that you don’t get hurt.  I am trying to get you to prevent another prolonged period of pain like you had after your ordeal with that foolish boy.  If you fall in love with me and I am not there for you, you will feel an even deeper pain than maybe what you have gone through.  Love is such intense emotions some people have even killed themselves over it.  Na, I am there for you.  I am not leaving.  I am just saying don’t let these feelings for me become too strong for you to manage.” “You should have left me the way I was!” I screamed.  “You taught me to appreciate you, Sir.  You made me so happy then two, three days later you are pushing me off!  It’s just better I die then….!” This wasn’t what I had expected.  My joy, my true happiness which had so suddenly and strongly engulfed me was as suddenly as it had developed now turning into a huge nightmare.  He consoled me, assured me he wasn’t leaving, but I had this strange fear it was just a matter of time before the reality would occur.  I would be left to the mercy of other vicious young men who would brutalise me, use me and toss me about like Nickster. He tried to make love to me but I was finding it difficult to get back into the right mood.  But he was very patient with me.  Like Jusi had said over and over that older men, married men were better than young men because they were more caring, they had experience, I saw that in Uncle Dee as he slowly but surely finally got me back into the right mood for intimacy.  I cried through the love making process.  I called out his name over and over and pleaded with him not to abandon me.  I told him I loved him so much he was now my breath, my water, my food, my life.  Afterwards, he drove me home and assured me all would be well.  Again, as in the last two days, I sent him text after text, expressing my feelings for him and begging him not to leave me, that it was him that mattered to me not any other man.  At approximately 21:00 hours, he called.  “Hi Na! Are you alone?” he asked.  Jusi was watching Zee TV in the sitting room.  “I want to say something to you, Naomi…” My heart skipped a beat.  Naomi?  Not Nana or Na? “Yes, sir…?” “I want you to understand me,” he was…dry?  Hard?  “I will be very unfair to you and to myself if I don’t do this…” God noo!  Please my God…! “Yes sir…?” “Like I have been saying even before the first time we made love, I want our friendship to continue.  I have liked you all the time since I met you more than two years ago.  You are 25…?  28 thereabouts…? It’s time you freed your mind from all these emotional fears about your life.  The first one, the fear of men, should now be over for good.  Men are not animals to tear you apart.  Give them your love and they will give you theirs.  Be loving and caring and they will be loving and caring.” He paused as if to check my reaction.  I was breathing hard and fast, anxious. “Yes sir?” I answered feebly, not even sure whether I was asking or agreeing. “It will be criminal for me to allow you to fall in love with me.” He paused again. “It will hurt you more to get me out of your mind, out of your life if we go on much longer with this.  So…I do not want to …I will not take you out again and …and be intimate with you.  Let’s get back to where we have always been since I met you: the best of friends, ok, Naomi? Friends and nothing else.” I was crying again. I didn’t answer.  I felt pricked, jilted, abandoned. “It’s morally wrong for anyone to have a relationship, like you have been having, with a married man.  It’s called adultery and if my wife was to discover, she can even take you to court.” Piercing.  Brutal.  Straight through my heart!  So now you remember that?  After getting me all excited? “Even on my part,” he continued, “it’s wrong, it’s still adultery.  Sin.”  He paused for a while. “But I want you to know that for me, if what I have done is discovered, it will be so big a scandal… maybe even the newspapers would get onto it.  Naomi…I am a Man of God, a pastor with more than 2,000 disciples.” Whaaaat!!  My voice failed me.  I would have wanted to scream out my shock and surprise.  My head was in a total spin and I felt so dizzy I thought I was fainting.  I could hardly hold the phone to my ear but I still could hear him. “I m a Bishop…”  Very faint now. The phone dropped from my hand.  It made a lot of sense why he had always had that fatherly caring stance.  Tenderly looking after flocks… sheep under the watchful eye of a shepherd…Bishop… I faintly heard the door open.  “Naomiiiii!  Iwe Naomi ni cani????” Jusi’s is a faint voice I don’t even want to hear.  I just need something… I don’t know what. Nickster is standing over me, angrily readying himself for a go at me.  He is naked.  Uncle Dee is behind him, also naked and trying to push Nickster away.  I don’t want them!  Get them away from me! I try to scream! My mind goes blank. Comments: njombwinjo@yahoo.com