A few months before I completed my national service, my boss, the owner of the company I was working for, proposed to me. He said he had a trip coming up and wanted me to go with him, if only I would accept his proposal.

I was almost done with my national service and would soon go home to look for a job. I felt that if I accepted his proposal, they would retain me in my position, and I could use that opportunity to build a better future for myself. The only issue was that my boss was dating two other ladies in the company. It was an open secret.

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These two ladies didn’t see eye to eye, and they even had their own camps. If one of them saw you talking to the other or getting too close to her, you instantly became an enemy. Both of these ladies were also very influential in the office.

When I started my national service, a guy I shared an office corner with gave me a full orientation about these two women and warned me to play the office politics well if I didn’t want to end up in the bad books of either of them. So when my boss proposed to me, these two ladies immediately came to mind.

I was scared of being seen as competing with them, but this proposal also came with a lot of benefits, so I went ahead and accepted it. The trip he said he was going to take me on never happened. The week we were supposed to travel, his wife gave birth to their third child, so he had to cancel the trip and stay behind. I wasn’t hurt because it was that same week I received my appointment letter.

I had come to the city for my national service, so I had rented a place for only one year, and my living conditions weren’t good. One day, my boss told me he wanted to visit. I told him about my living conditions, but he still insisted on coming. He arrived around 9:00 p.m. and saw everything for himself. He laughed as though my living situation was a joke. I told him, “I have a job now. I’ll save some money and move out soon.”

He spent hours with me in my shabby, poorly ventilated room. When he was leaving, he asked me to find a better place and let him know about it. I quickly hired an agent. Soon, my dream was taking shape. I had a job and was about to move into a decent place.

I found a very nice single-room self-contained apartment in a good location and told him how much it would cost per month. I thought he would complain. Instead, that very day in his office, he signed me a cheque and asked me to pay for two years’ rent and use the remaining money to furnish the room.

“Let me know when you finally move in. We’ll have a housewarming—just you and I.”

He traveled to South Africa without me. Soon, it became obvious that he had traveled with Cindy, one of the ladies he was dating in the office. Cindy didn’t come to work for as long as my boss remained in South Africa. I didn’t call him until he called me. I was very careful, even when I texted him. I didn’t want Cindy to get any hint of our communication and turn his attention against me.

My boss didn’t know I already knew, so he tried to dance around the issue, making it seem like a secret. But whenever he was out with Cindy, I knew it. And whenever he traveled with Jessica too, I knew it. I wasn’t jealous or angry. I was only playing my part to get what I lacked in life and maybe move on.

One late evening, I received a call from a number I didn’t recognize. She screamed at the top of her voice, “You rat! When did you come that you didn’t ask after me? How dare you send my husband those sultry messages? A child like you. You’d better resign before I get hold of you.”

My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. I couldn’t sleep all night, wondering whether I should go to work the next day or not. Around 6:00 a.m., I saw a call from my boss. He tried to make it sound like a joke and told me not to worry. I asked if it was safe for me to go to work, and he said, “Why not? If you don’t go, I’ll send you a query letter. No one is going to attack you.”

I went to work wearing fear like makeup, but the moment I saw Cindy, a strange calm settled over me. I said to myself, Even these two are still here after all these years, and everyone around the office knows about them. Why should I be scared?

I had a normal day at work, but that evening my boss’s wife called me again. This time she was direct.

“I’ll come to the office tomorrow. You’d better not be there.”

I called my boss, but he didn’t answer. Early the next morning, he sent me a text message.

“Don’t come to work until I tell you to. She keeps reading our messages.”

I knew I was in trouble, but the question I kept asking myself was, Why me? It hadn’t even been a year since I started dating him. What about those other girls? What kind of juju did they have that my boss’s wife wasn’t coming after them?

I stayed home for two days before my boss sent me another message telling me he had to terminate my appointment for my own security and safety. But he assured me not to worry because he would continue paying me until I got another job.

All of a sudden, my world felt like it was ending.

How was I going to survive without a job?

I stayed home for over three months, and my heart started growing envious, especially when I spoke to colleagues and they told me Cindy and Jessica were still there, doing their usual politics. They had been dating my boss long before I came into the picture, so why was I the one suffering?

So I got a new number and started texting my boss’s wife. I told her about Cindy first. And what happened at the office afterward was something that had to be seen to be believed. Unlike me, Cindy fought for her place. She still went to the office after receiving the warning. It took the security officers to escort her out.

I waited a few months and then snitched on Jessica too. Jessica was just like me. She didn’t fight the way Cindy did. She quietly walked away. I thought I was making them experience what I had gone through, but in the end, my boss took his eyes off me. He stopped sending me money as he had promised. I could understand him. He was dealing with too much at home.

I Called My Girlfriend And Another Man Answered The Phone

He stopped answering my calls, and the last time I heard from him was a year ago. My rent expired, and I couldn’t renew it. I have a job now, but the salary is only a shadow of what I used to earn. As I speak, I hear my former boss and his wife are going through a divorce, and his life has never been the same again.

I look back now, and I’m haunted. I feel like I caused too much pain for everyone involved, including his wife. Apart from that, I helped tear apart what God had put together, and I’m scared I’m going to bear the mark of my sins the way Cain did.

I’ve started praying. I hope God forgives because, otherwise, I’m doomed.

—Gifty 

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