The Padlock

My name is Florence, and before you start judging me, I’ll have you know that I LOVE THE LORD, I know I shouldn’t have shouted at you but then you will have to pardon me, I needed to make that point even before I start telling you my story.

I am going to be 35years old in the next few months. I am a medical doctor and I’m doing quite fine in Neurological Sciences circles.

To the outsider I have it all, a great career, nice car, fantastic flat (that I bought with my own money) and a great body.

I know I’m a beautiful woman, thank you very much!

Since I’m writing this story you must have guessed that all is not well in my paradise, yes my dear brother or sister, you know that saying ‘all that glitters is not gold’? Yes that one, I'm now a cliche.

I am a beautiful, intelligent woman who is the envy of her peers, but as my pastor, my mother, my siblings, church members and even Facebookers and Tweeps (whom I’ve never met, nor likely to meet) have pointed out over and again, all these things are NOT important.

I am a failure.

Yes I said it, and no I do not have an inferiority complex. Why would I suffer from that kind of thing when I know exactly who I am and what I want out of life? 

The problem started when I was born a girl, I still don’t understand it, I should have come as a boy, all women should have been male so that there will be equality in the world, and no, I’m not a feminist, I dislike those manly women almost as much as I dislike all those married women in my church who flaunt their husbands and children in my face continuously.

I’m the child of the Most High God, the best friend of Jesus Christ and a vessel full of the Holy Spirit. I am a staunch member of my church and I give my tithe even far above what is required of me. In spite of my tight schedule I volunteer in church and I belong to about three departments and these three will practically fall apart without me. I tell you no lie.

As per what I want from life ... A husband and three children. Two boys and one girl, Jesutito, Jesuwalaye and Jesuseyifunmi. Is there anything wrong with picking out names for your unborn children? The names are written down in my prayer

notebook, the date on it is 7th of August 2000, that is just to show you how long I’ve been asking God for my own family.

I do not possess a single bone of jealousy or envy in my body, anytime there’s going to be a wedding in church and another one of those little girls with little sense and those blind brothers decide to put a wedding band on each other’s fingers, I always make myself available for those occasions. Some of these broke people even approach me to help finance their weddings, (rubbish!).

I don’t think I’ve asked the Lord for too much, since I did most of the work of passing my medical exams and performing exceedingly well in my duties as a doctor without divine intervention.

Recently I met a Christian brother, Poju, who is the embodiment of everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. 

He is a fiiiiine boy! 

He is not only fine he also has good taste, you should see the designer clothes this brother wears to church. He trained as a fashion designer in one of those swanky art schools in America and has just returned to Nigeria to start his own fashion label. He is well traveled, a wine connoisseur and he reads! Frankly he can easily give all those romance novel heroes a run for their money any day!

Immediately he joined the church I was drawn to him. Not only because of his good looks and wealth, but he is also my intellectual equal, we spend hours arguing one fine point of the books we’ve read or the other, we critiqued movies and loved eating the same type of food. It would appear that the Good Lord has finally answered my prayers.

Immediately he came into my life, I went to buy a suit for him which I kept in my wardrobe and every morning I pray him into the suit. I will point my hand at the clothes and imagine his body filling them. Ah my brother (or is it my sister?) that man is fiiiiiiine (I said that already abi?) and that body! Jesus walks!

From the moment we met Poju and I became inseparable, we enriched those thieving telephone network companies with our constant calls.

It got to a point that we started sitting beside each other in church and people started noticing us. For the first time since I joined that church, people looked at me with envy and I felt a deep sense of satisfaction, the wait had been worth it.

My mother heard the news through the grapevine and was overjoyed. Life is good ... or so it appeared.

When I told my mum that I was disturbed about the fact that Poju had never touched me before. The best we’d done was exchange chaste goodnight kisses. My mother was shocked at the turn my thoughts were taking. Impure thoughts she called them. She did not raise me as one of those nymphomaniacs who seem to enjoy sex, it is shocking the things you see these days my mother said in consternation, all those girls enjoy sex and they even ask for orgasms, it is so not lady-like!

After that day I stopped talking about my failed attempts at luring Poju into my bed. I have ‘accidentally’ touched him before and I’ve seen him rise to the occasion once when we were in church and some boys and girls seated in front of us were shaking their bodies to the Lord.

Poju is a yansh man and thank God for giving me that gift.

So I am darn sure that he does not have a problem in that department, I concluded that he must be one of those who actually don’t believe in sex before marriage, not those ones that do everything but penetration and still claim to be virgins.

In order to ensure Poju’s full cooperation in our upcoming nuptials (although the dense man had not proposed at that point in time) my mother took me to one of my uncles, a pastor who is well versed in the spiritual arts. Don’t get me wrong, he does not practice all those fetishes some of these ancestral spirit worshipers engage in, he is just more spiritual than the average Christian.

The long and short of the story is that he gave me a padlock and a key, which he assured me was my spirit and Poju’s spirit. The padlock was Poju and I was the key. Once the key (that’s me) has locked the padlock (that’s Poju) his eyes will be opened to the fact that he loved me all along, that he’s never loved anyone as much as he loved me and he will marry me immediately and all my dreams will come true and the Lord Jesus would finally shut the big mouths of my enemies. And a trailer full of joy will hit me as I cross an expressway, a trainload of happiness will crush me on my way to work, a plane full of health and wealth will crash on me as I sit down in my lovely sitting room.

My uncle told me to keep the padlock and key in a safe place in case I decide to unlock the thing by myself because once it is locked both of us are locked together forever and there’s no escaping the person, and if we go our separate ways without opening the lock and doing the appropriate rituals, both of us will die, slowly and painfully. That sounds right up my alley. 

I love padlocks and keys.

True to my Uncle’s words, as soon as I locked the thing ‘pam’ like that, my phone rang, it was Poju. He was anxious to see me, when I told him I was doing some stuff in my village, he insisted that I must return to Ibadan immediately. When I got to his house I found him pacing his sitting room. As soon as he saw me his countenance changed and he hugged me (which goes to show how much he’d missed me).

He knelt down and asked me to be his wife. I was short of all other words except ‘YES!’ and ‘THANK YOU JESUS!’

Wedding preparations started in earnest, and I was sad when Poju resisted all efforts on my part to make him kiss me. But then the days of my patience were numbered so I did not mind so much.

Early yesterday morning ... this is difficult but I have to do it

Early yesterday morning the person that brought our platinum wedding bands from England called to inform me that the rings were ready, I quickly went to Poju’s house to pick up my atm card that I had forgotten there two days earlier, so I can pay the girl. I thought I heard sounds from Poju’s room so I entered and met him being taken from the back by his personal assistant, Kabir.

The two men scrambled for their clothes and Poju burst into tears. He loved me and nobody else he claimed, it was just sex and nothing more between him and Kabir. Although he can’t stand the idea of a woman touching him in a sexual way, he was willing to sacrifice himself for me and that’s the depth of his love for me.

He and Muhammad, umm I'm sure he meant Kabir, were just having a goodbye fuck. From now on, he said as tears streamed down his face, he will be faithful to me, the look of dismay on his face when he uttered the word ‘faithful’ had me gasping with laughter.

The implications of what happened eventually sank into my consciousness, I fainted, not because of my discovery, but because yesterday morning I had traveled down to Lagos and thrown the padlock and key inside the sea.