by Opeyemi Akande

”It breaks his heart to see me do all the work, and watching me do all the work kills every desire for sex in his bones.”

“Hey, what are you doing here?” I asked, as my cousin’s wife walked in through the front door of our apartment.  It’s been several weeks since I concluded my first semester exams and came home. Even though I was bored and tired of being home alone, the last person I wanted to see walk through that door was Toyin.

Don’t get me wrong, Toyin is a very nice and intelligent lady. Yea? I guess her intelligence and over confident nature is one of the things I find quite annoying about her. Please let me explain myself, before you all get on my case.

You know when you’re in class and you have some certain efikos, and then there’s this particularly annoying efiko, that’s very good; in fact annoyingly good that sometimes he can make a 2- hour lecture drag up to 3 hours, because of constant questions and arguments. You know that one that will still come for a lecture, after the whole class had decided to boycott the lecturer’s lesson. That one that makes you look like a really bad student? Yea! Toyin is that one.

“This is a surprise, thought you are supposed to be at work, what’s up?” I asked.

“I have a lot on my mind and I needed someone to talk to. It’s actually been weighing me down” she replied, taking her seat on the sofa opposite me.

“errm… ok” I mumbled, confused. Why come to me nah? Oh! Maybe she thinks mum is around. “Mumsie is not at home oo, she won’t be home till about 5pm. Can you wait?”

“It’s you I want to talk to” she said.

*AWKWARD SILENCE*

“Well…” I was about to say something, now I think back, I’m pretty sure I had nothing sensible to say; I was just trying to get rid of the uncomfortable silence. Before I could say whatever pointless thing that was about to proceed from my mouth, she said something else that was even more… (I don’t know, please fill in the gaps)

“Segun is having an affair”, She blurted, tears welling up in her eyes. At this point, she just continued to talk and I just sat there listening, letting my mind wander off sometimes.

“It all adds up, he doesn’t eat at home anymore, he won’t even talk to me, all he seems to enjoy now are ‘nights out with friends’ as he calls it. And now, Segun won’t even touch me. He won’t have sex with me! ”

Okay, let me make this long story as brief as possible … Segun was an investment banker in Lagos until something happened somehow (I’m trying to make this story brief. It’s not like I don’t understand all those bank terms) and he lost his job and can’t seem to find one at the moment. According to his wife, for the past few months he hasn’t been his usual self – he’s been staying out late, barely talks to her and what she can’t really comprehend is why Segun won’t sleep with her. Apparently, Segun has a very healthy appetite when it comes to sex. (You know, the way fat boys love food); and Toyin concluded that if he isn’t getting it from home, he must be getting it somewhere else.

As much as I found the conversation uncomfortable, I couldn’t help but voice my thoughts, “I don’t believe Segun is cheating, the Segun I know wouldn’t, maybe you should talk to him about it, you know?”

After a lot of convincing and every other blah blah (as usual she always had a valid argument to support her accusation), she eventually decided to speak to her husband on the issue.

Two days later, I get a call on my phone and it’s Toyin.

“Hello, can you talk where you are? I finally spoke to Segun about the issue.” she said.

“Yea sure, I’m alone. What did he say?” I replied, eager to hear her response.

“Well, he said so many things that made me believe that he’s not cheating. He said he’s feeling inadequate as he hasn’t been able to provide for me and the children for a while, and because he’s so ashamed of himself, that’s why he stays out that late. It breaks his heart to see me do all the work, and watching me do all the work kills every desire for sex in his bones. In his words, ‘’a jobless man has no right to an erection!”

I’m at the other end like “Huh?”

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30 Days 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.