I ended the year in a hotel room with a man and his wife. For the first time in my life, I kissed a woman while a man was watching us. She kept whispering in my ears, “Can he join?”

I found Annette in an all-female WhatsApp group. For some reason, she always supported everything I said in the group. When she wanted to pick on someone, she would send me a message and say, “Are you online? I need backing. I’m going to fight so-and-so.” I was always ready to support her, just as she was also always ready to support me.

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She said she loved my spirit. I said I loved the way she loved me. I never knew she was married. I never knew she was way older than I was—eight years older. I thought I’d found my age mate so I could play silly online games with.

She invited me out one evening and paid for everything. It was an expensive place, so I was shocked at how she could easily afford it. I told myself, “Is that my destiny helper I’ve been fooling with?” When we were about to depart, she told me her husband was coming to pick her up. I was like, “You’re married?” She nodded.

“You’re springing up surprises at me today. Where’s your ring?” I asked. She said we had a lot to talk about, but soon, one sleek car parked outside and she told me, “My husband is here. Would you like to meet him?” “Of course I would like to,” I answered.

She texted for the man to come in and this young-looking man walked in. If you compare the two, you might say Annette was older. He kissed her on the cheeks before saying hello to me. Annette introduced me as, “The friend I was telling you about, Kuukua.” He shook my hand and we called it a night. She ordered Bolt for me and paid for it.

I was so happy with what I discovered. I needed help in life and I thought—in fact, I believed—the help would come from this couple. I’d completed school without a job. I was relying on my boyfriend for everything, and because of that, he treated me anyhow, knowing I couldn’t leave him. He even told me, “If you leave me, you would starve to death.”

It hurt my pride and broke my confidence into pieces, but he was right. When I met Annette and her husband, I knew I was going to ride on their favor to get a job. Annette has always been free-spirited. She talked to me freely about the crazy things she did with her husband. I would call her in the morning and she would tell me, “I can’t get up. My legs are frozen. Philip didn’t take it easy on me last night. A marathon, paa.”

She invited me to also share my sex life: who I was dating and the dynamics of our relationship. I told her about my boyfriend and how he couldn’t do the things I desired as a woman. She asked, “So why are you still with him?” I answered, “I will starve if I leave him.”

We both burst out laughing, but it helped. It changed the conversation to jobs and why every woman should have her own. I told her I was looking for a job seriously and she told me she would tell her husband about it and see if he could help.

One morning, Annette called. She gave the phone to her husband and we talked for over thirty minutes. I understood why the two were a great couple. He had the same crazy mind Annette had, very jovial and made every situation look funny. He said, “I will help you find a job. A beautiful lady like you shouldn’t starve. Not at all.”

Annette would send me GHC1,000 and say, “It’s from Philip. He says you shouldn’t starve.” I would escort her to town to shop and she would tell me to pick whatever I wanted. If I told her I hadn’t eaten, she would order food and send it to me. Because of them, I walked with my shoulders high, without an iota of respect. They were doing more than my boyfriend could ever do and still didn’t shame me or tell me I would starve without them.

I jumped whenever Annette asked me to jump. She could ask me to cross the road and I wouldn’t watch left or right. I would just cross, believing no car was coming. She told me, “My husband has a crazy thing on his bucket list he wants to cross out before the year ends. He says he wants to watch me get intimate with another woman.”

I was like, “How? How is that something to put on a bucket list?” She answered, “As if you don’t know Philip. He’s always looking to do the crazy things.” I asked if she was going to do it and she whispered, “It sounds like fun, don’t you think so?”

I didn’t think so, but I responded, “It will look weird, especially when he’s there watching you do it.”

I was being recruited, but I didn’t know it. Each time we talked about it, it sounded more normal than it had the previous day, until I began feeling it was a normal demand. She said, “I think Philip likes you. The way he talks about you, he wouldn’t mind if I do it with you while he watches.”

Annette would tell me to jump and I would ask how high, but this one sounded far-fetched. I asked, “And you’ll also agree to do it with me?” She answered, “Why not? You’re beautiful and the only person I can trust under the sun. It would be better with you than anyone else.”

She sent me money and sent photos of lingeries I should shop for, and even showed me the perfume I should wear that day. I was going to do it for her because she had become everything I had, and because of her, I could let my boyfriend go and still not starve. She picked me up on the 31st of December night when I should have been in church thanking God for another year. She drove us to the hotel where Philip was already waiting.

She kept whispering in my ears, “Can he join?”

I looked at Philip sitting in a chair a few inches away from the bed. He was ready for us. He was only waiting for me to say yes. I nodded, and before the sound of fireworks went up to welcome the new year, we had already welcomed ourselves into the most ungodly thing I’ve ever done in my twenty-five years of existence.

They were so happy they started drinking after the act. I crawled slowly out of bed looking for something to cover myself and maybe my shame. I entered the bathroom, trying so hard to arrest my conscience so it wouldn’t come at me. Philip sent me money my bank account has never seen before and thanked me for making a dream come true.

I’m starting a new job tomorrow. Yeah, he made that possible too, but I don’t know if I’m happy about anything currently. The way I’d looked for a job for this long, this opportunity should blow me to the moon, or I should be all over social media talking about it, but I can’t even tell my parents that I have a new job. It’s something that came from something. I didn’t work to get it on merit. I don’t even know if I will do well, but the salary is good and it’s a new start for me.

I still have Annette. She’s still a good friend. We talk as if nothing happened, but I don’t know what the future has for us—that’s what scares me. What will be the next crazy thing to do? Would I have the courage to say no when the time comes? What happened on the 31st won’t happen again—that I’m very sure of—but what next?

Marriage Through the Eyes of Millennials and Gen-Z

That’s what keeps me awake at night, and since I can’t share this story with anyone in my life, I’m putting it here in the wild to free some space in my head so I can breathe again. Feel free to judge me. Call me any name. Put my name in the same sentence as the devil. I deserve it. It will help my next step a lot and maybe shape my decisions for the next step in life.

—Laura

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