I was nineteen when he started wooing me. I didn’t know his age but he was already working and using his father’s car. I thought he was too old for me so I didn’t give him my mind. He would buy me gifts, give me money and ask me to be a good girl. I called him Uncle Lee. He didn’t like it. “Call me Lee, I’m not your uncle,” he demanded

Later when I got to know he was only twenty-six, I did the maths; “Twenty-six minus nineteen is seven. Just seven years difference? What’s the age gap between dad and mom?”

I said yes to him and he became my first love. He taught me how to kiss and how to be a girlfriend. I was so inexperienced I had to fall on my friend Matilda for tips. Tips on how to succeed at first love. I didn’t want to lose him so when he asked me to jump, I asked how high. He was loving and caring until a year later, he began to change.

He didn’t call me as often as he used to. He said he was busy. I used to stay in his house even when he wasn’t around. I had his key but when things changed, he took the key from me. I had to ask permission before visiting him.

Matilda was so sure there was another lady involved so she asked me to find a way of catching them together so we could deal with the lady. That wasn’t a solution I was interested in. Again, she told me to leave the relationship and see if he would come looking for me. I was so scared of losing him so that was also not an option. I threw myself on him at any chance while he played me like a ball.

He stopped supporting me financially, something I relied heavily on to get by. One evening, out of frustration, I confronted him. “Why are you doing this to me when you know you are my all? Who’s that lady taking your attention from me?”

The question got him infuriated. He threw my things in his room out and asked me never to step foot at his place again. I went on my knees begging him, crying and telling him it wouldn’t happen again. He shut the door and left me stranded on the outside. When I got home, I called Matilda and told her everything. She told me to leave him for good but I didn’t see that as a possibility. I asked her to help me beg for his forgiveness and she did.

It took time but eventually, Lee took me back. The rules he gave me were many but I loved him so much I accepted to do everything to make him happy. I was walking on eggshells around him. I didn’t want to step too far from the boundaries he gave me. I didn’t want to get him angry. I didn’t want him to tell me again that it was over. It was no longer love but fear. Even when I did everything right, he looked for the wrong in the right to complain about.

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One afternoon, Matilda told me there was a way to resolve everything in my relationship with Lee. She said, “When I tell you, you won’t do it. You might say you’re scared but it’s the only thing that will help. Have you ever seen me fighting with my boyfriend? That’s the secret.”

She brought me some mashed leaf and asked me to put it in his food. “Once he eats it, his mind will change. Everything you ask him to do, he’ll do it. He’ll be like a slave to your desires,” she convinced me.

I took the leaf and did as she told me. She told me not to put the leaf in the food while it’s hot and the food ought to be soup and nothing else. I did exactly that but weeks later I didn’t see any change in him. One day I was washing for him when he attacked me from behind, pushed my head into the soapy water and held me by the neck while my head was still in the soapy water. I was suffocating. He kept screaming, “Where’s the money you took from my pocket?”

Out of fear, I accepted I took the money so he wouldn’t kill me. When he left me to bring the money, I ran away. I went to Matilda to ask questions. “Does he become a monster before the leaf kicks in to make him sober?”

She didn’t have answers. She was surprised it wasn’t working on him. I was scared it was the leaf that had turned him into a monster. I was scared for my life so I ran out of the relationship. He called a week later to tell me he had found the money. He asked me to come back but I’d seen enough shege to go back to him. I was only twenty-one. I wasn’t ready to die.

I moved on, travelled out of town to live with an aunt, grew up, found love and lost it, found a job and resigned for another one. I was twenty-eight when I walked into Lee again. He came to a friend’s wedding in our church and he saw me. He was with his wife and kid but he left them behind and came to speak to me. He was so happy I didn’t understand the basis for his happiness. “You ran away. You see it’s a small world. Look at you, you’re a woman now.”

He took my number and called immediately when he got home. He didn’t want to leave the phone. He apologized for things he didn’t apologize for eight years ago. He said he would have married me if I didn’t disappear and even though he was married he was still ready to pick things from where we left off. I laughed at him and called him a dreamer. Even when I told him I had a stable relationship, this guy told me to leave the guy and come to him because he was my first love.

Days later, he sent me money. I didn’t ask him to. He called, “Buy something for yourself. Anything at all.” Another day, when we were talking, I told him things were not good for me and he asked how much I wanted. I asked for GHC500 but he sent me GHC1,000. From that day to today, every month, he sends me GHC1,000. In a conversation, I asked him what I did to deserve that. He answered, “I’m ready to give you all I have. I don’t mind if I go hungry.”

He’s not pursuing me to be his girlfriend. He doesn’t know where I live though he has shown me where he lives with his family. When he asks me to meet him, I give him excuses but immediately I ask him for anything, he gives it to me without asking questions. It dawned on me, “Or it’s the leaf that’s working?”

I called Matilda who had married the guy she was dating when I was dating Lee. I asked him, “The leaf. How long does it work?” She burst out laughing. “Why are you still thinking about the leaf at this age? It didn’t even work for you.” I responded, “It’s working now. Lee gives me everything I ask for. The way he does without complaining, I’m beginning to suspect foul play.”

“Ask him to buy you a land and let’s see if he will do it.” She told me.

I called Lee and told him I needed a piece of land but didn’t have the money. He asked, “Where do you want it?” When I answered he told me, “When you get some, let me know. I can take a loan and get it for you.”

I collapsed on my bed and screamed, “Wow! What’s going on?”

I called Matilda. She told me it could be the leaf but she didn’t know it could work when it hadn’t worked from the beginning. I asked about her husband. “He does everything you want?” She answered, “Yes but it’s not the leaf. We’ve come too far to know we love each other. I also do what he wants so it’s equal.”

I’ve stopped talking to Lee the way I used to though the money comes at the end of every month. I still have not met him and I don’t intend to. Currently, I’m finding a way to make him stop sending the money, not because I don’t want it but because I’m scared of what’s happening. When I tell him to stop, he tells me it’s the little he can do to help me so I shouldn’t reject it.

I’m sharing this story to ask if anyone knows how to stop the leaf from working. I don’t know the name of the leaf. It was already mashed when I got it. Matilda doesn’t know too. She said it always came mashed.

I’m Dating Him And His Mother | STORY BOARD

The sad thing is Matilda no longer believes in it. I’ve asked where she got it from so we go back to ask questions. She thinks we’ve come too far to think this way but to me, it’s not ordinary that a man like Lee will do these things for me. It doesn’t make sense, especially when he has stopped chasing me. He’s married with a child. What if the money he gives me affects the home?

I need a way out before it gets out of hand. I’m even scared of the repercussions if I don’t stop now. That’s what’s keeping me awake at night, Lee and the leaf.

— Justina

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