Clear signal or deceit?-Boy and Girl Series

In 2020, a young corps member met an older guy in Ekiti State where she was posted to serve. He was serving too, but just had a few more months to go before passing out. Not only were they in the same CDS group, they also shared the same primary place of assignment, which gave him the chance to see her almost every day of the week. He showed sexual interest in her, and that was after revealing to her that he was into a serious relationship with his partner, but she turned him down.

However, the young man did not give up.

And while they served, he continued in his relentless pursuit of an intimate relationship with her, and she always made it abundantly clear that she was not interested in dating him each time. He invited her to his rented one-bedroom flat severally in Ekiti, but she never honored any of the invitations. When he realized that all his attempts at making her fall for him was not working, he accepted to just be a “friend,” which was absolutely fine by her. Then he rounded off his youth service and relocated to Ibadan where he was permanently based.

Their friendship continued.

But that is not to say that he did not stop trying to win her over, only that he was less consistent about it. Gradually, her period of youth service began to crawl to an end, and like every other adult, she started to worry about what the future held for her. In a country where one cannot get a good job without the help of an affluent or well connected individual in the government, such worries are bound to set in. She wanted a job badly, because she did not want to be like other youths before her who finished National Youth Service Corps and stayed home for months or years without a job.

This worries and fears she shared with her supposed “friend.”

He offered to help by promising to speak with a close uncle of his who works in a good place right there in Ibadan, and to prove to her that he wanted the very best for her, he did not hesitate to talk to this uncle of his about his friend. Unlike most people who would dangle promises in front of a desperate person and not deliver, he went further to show her his WhatsApp conversation with his uncle, stating that indeed, he was just in time for an employment!

The young female corps member was over the moon with excitement!

In fact, she started to go wild with imaginations of working and living a good life in Ibadan; a place she had never visited before. She was asked to forward her credentials and CV, which she did without wasting any time, but the feedback she got was that she would need to go over to Ibadan so that this uncle would see her physically; he needed to know who he was helping out with employment. Ibadan is just a few hours from Ekiti, and she would have been able to go from Ekiti to Ibadan and return the same day, but after calculating the time his uncle asked her to show up in his office, she realized that there was no way she would be able to go from Ekiti to Ibadan to meet up the appointment if she did not go the day before. Therefore, she would need a place to pass the night. She did not know anyone in Ibadan except the ex-corps member, and he lived in a one-bedroom apartment, which means she would have to share a room with him if she considered his place for the night.

And she did not have money to lodge in a hotel as well.

After deliberating much on the matter, he jumped right into offering her his room. Of course, every well-meaning friend would do the same, right? After all, he helped her get the appointment, so he might as well assist her see through it.

She was desperate, and because of the assurance she received from him, she was a hundred percent certain that she would get the job. The only job she had was to show her face, and that was all. She accepted his offer; she could not find any other option, but she made an agreement with him that he would not make any attempt to touch her at all. He agreed.

And she foolishly believed him.

She arrived at Ibadan late the evening before the deal day with full spirits and high hopes. He was there at the park to pick her up. When they arrived at his room, he offered her food and water. They talked and laughed. He asked her to take a shower, she refused. He begged her to stay some more days instead of leaving right after seeing his uncle, but she refused. She was not entirely comfortable, but she was already there…so?

She did not bother to remove her bra or even change her clothes, even though he teased her about being uncomfortable in his house. The night came when men and women slept, except for witches of course. They went to bed together. She could not sleep, and just like she feared, he decided to make the same attempt they agreed he would not make. He slid his hand over her and tried to reach for her breast, but because she was awake and alert, she immediately shoved his hand away. He tried again, and she asked him to stop was he was doing, or else she would leave the bed for him, but he was adamant.

When he tried again and again and again, she angrily got up, went to the ground and sat down close to the door. He had thought she was bluffing, and so when he saw that she was sitting on the ground late that night, he started to apologize for his actions and beg her to return to the bed. She refused. He tried to appease her by giving her a friendly touch, but she warned him that if he made any move to touch her again, she would go out of his room and spend the rest of the night outside. Seeing that she was not someone who just threw words around, he did not touch her again. However, he begged and begged, asking for her forgiveness late into the night, but she remained rooted in her position on the ground. When it was way past midnight and she did not budge an inch, he went back to his bed and slept off.

She stayed on the ground, regretting that she ever came, and even hating herself more for ever believing a man who has clearly made his desires known to her from the outset. While she stayed there thinking about how awful she was feeling, she managed to doze off. By morning, he showed her to the bathroom which was outside his room. She could not say no, because she needed to have her bath and dress up for her appointment with his uncle, but having being bitten once, she was beyond careful. Fortunately for her, he was outside when she got out of the bathroom. She hastily entered his room and locked the door. He knocked and pushed at the door, but she did not open up for him until she was fully dressed and ready.

Meanwhile, he acted as though everything was cool between them, even going as far as using last night’s episode to tease her. Then when it was time for them to go, he said he had a confession to make.

“I am sorry, but I do not have any uncle of mine in any office, therefore, there is no appointment or job waiting for you anywhere. I only made that chat up with my friend, because I knew that if it wasn’t for something you desperately needed, I would never have been able to convince you to come and visit me in Ibadan. This is the only way I could drag you down here.”

She could not believe her ears!

After travelling all the way from Ekiti, going against morals by sleeping in the same room with a man who was not her husband, spending the night half-sleeping on the ground, everything turned out to be a lie and a ploy satisfy himself? She could not have been more upset in her life. Still, he had the audacity to plead with her again to spend some more days with him. Without wasting any more time, she took her things and went back to Ekiti, having learnt the biggest lesson of her life.