I got up at 10:30 pm and told Edu that I was leaving. He was lying naked in bed, unwilling to get up and see me off. He spoke nasally, “I thought you were spending the night here today. Why the sudden desire to leave?” I didn’t have an answer. There was only this strong urge pushing me to leave his place. I couldn’t explain the urge. I couldn’t explain the sudden yearning for my room. I told him, “No need to see me off. I’ll get a taxi by the roadside and leave. I’ll call when I get home.”

He put his head on his pillow while I strode off his room. Outside was very quiet. The sound of the crickets was louder. You could even hear the chorus of the frogs from yonder though far away. I walked for about three minutes to the roadside. I stood there for about five minutes before I saw a taxi coming. I waved him to stop but he drove past me. A few seconds after passing, the taxi stopped abruptly and started reversing. The driver stuck his neck out and asked where I was going. There was another man in the taxi, just behind the driver. He was muscular and huge. I answered, “I’m taking a dropping. I thought you were alone.”

He told me the man would drop off very soon so he would take me wherever I was going. I sat beside this huge man at the back and the driver drove away. All along, I wondered where the man would drop off, but this man sat quietly next to me, stealing glances and breathing heavily. The driver asked where he should pass and I answered, “I thought you’d drop off the man first.” He said, “Let me know where your place is so we decide who goes out first.”

This huge man sat next to me while I gave the driver directions to my place. I should have taken the taxi home but I stopped by the roadside so I don’t take two strangers to my place. I paid the fare and started walking away. The taxi also drove off. I gave a huge sigh of relief and walked leisurely towards my place. From the roadside to my house was like a five-minute walk. Just a few minutes later, I heard a hissing sound from behind. I looked back and it was the man who sat next to me in the taxi. The huge man. I quickened my steps. He kept running towards me, whistling and begging me to stop.

I picked up my phone and started texting Edu; “A man is chasing after me, if you don’t hear from me in the next three minutes please come to my place.” I pressed ‘send’ before this man caught up with me. I could see the gate to my house but I couldn’t see a single human being around. When he asked my name and where I was going I screamed my answer just to annoy him and also alert the neighbours around; “Why are you asking me this question? Who are you?”

He was standing in front of me so I tried by passing him. I moved to the right and he blocked me. I moved to the left and he also moved to block my exit. I screamed again, “I’m not telling you my name, let me go.” Before I knew it, his large palm was covering my nose and mouth and was pulling me towards the darkest part of the area where it was unlikely for humans to pass. I struggled with him. I tried screaming but I didn’t have enough breath in me to scream louder. My screams were muffled while this huge man dragged me to the corner, behind a fenced wall. The next thing to the wall was a huge empty gutter created to avoid flood in the area.

He spoke undertone, “If you don’t stop struggling, I’ll kill you and dump you into the gutter. If you play it cool, we’ll be done in less than five minutes.”

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All along, I thought it was a kidnapping attempt or he was trying to rob me. Rape didn’t occur to me until he made that statement. I froze. My hips tightened up as if to shut the door in the face of a forced entry. I tried to beg but my voice was buried under his heavy palm. I was suffocating, restless and dying but he won’t remove his hand. By the time he put me on the floor with his hand still covering my mouth and nose, I had no strength to kick or resist. I could only make a feeble sound while this huge man went through me. He said it was going to last for five minutes but it lasted forever.

While he was on top of me I heard a voice screaming from inside of the wall; “Ashawo people. Don’t you know where to get a hotel? Is it behind my wall that you’ll come and have sex? Ashawo generation. God is coming! Repent before you all go to hell.”

The voice was a woman’s voice, maybe that was why my rapist didn’t shiver. He knew she could only shout but not come out to see what was going on. Once he was done, he jumped off and started running while trying to close his zip and tighten his belt. I was looking at him run away. I screamed, “Thief” but nothing came out apart from warm air. I watched him run away with a piece of me in his hand.

While dragging me away, my phone fell off. I’d wanted to call Edu or check if he had seen my message and was calling me. I couldn’t get up immediately. I lay there for a while before I pulled myself out of the darkness into the light, looking for my phone. I found it right where he started dragging me. I checked and there was no missed call from Edu. He hadn’t even read my message. I called him but he didn’t pick up. I called someone from the house and she came out with another co-tenant. I told them what had happened to me and they were shocked. They asked if they should take me to the hospital. I asked them to take me to my room.

When I entered my room, I was scared he would return. I locked my door and put my sofa behind the chair. I went to the bath to wash his grip off my skin but couldn’t wash his scent off my nose. I hung in between slumber and trance until the call of Edu woke me up in the morning. It was a Saturday. I narrated everything that happened with tears running down my cheeks. After listening to the whole story he said, “I told you to sleep over but you wouldn’t. You see where your stubbornness has landed you? You made a stranger f*ck you for free.”

At first, I was sobbing but his words made me wail. It hurt more than the experience I had with that stranger. How could he say that to me? I cut the call. I saw him calling again but I never picked up the call, thinking that would push him to come and see me. I saw him three days later. While my neighbours, those two who came to help me, were always at my door checking up on me and encouraging me to make a case after visiting the hospital, my boyfriend of two years didn’t even care to visit.

When he came around, he came with anger instead of empathy. He was still blaming me for what happened. He was still calling me sturbon and was asking for submission. No “How are you?” or “Are you in pain?” or “What can I do to make things better?” I begged him to leave me alone and before he left, he said, “You’re on your own.”

I missed my period for three days. I checked and I was pregnant. I hadn’t spoken to Edu for a week but I picked up the phone to tell him what had happened. “I’m pregnant,” I said. “For the rapist, I guess,” he answered.

All I said was “WOW!”

He didn’t call again to even ask what I was doing with the pregnancy. I concluded he didn’t want anything to do with me again so I decided to move on. I was very sure the pregnancy was for him but the tiny voice in my head said, “It might as well be for the huge man. Do you want to perpetuate the existence of that incident in your life? Are you ready to have his child?”

I couldn’t give myself an answer until I found myself on the doctor’s table with my eyes slowly dazing off. I don’t know how long it took but when I woke up, the nurse told me it had been done. I thanked her and walked out of the hospital feeling I’d left something very important behind, a piece of me or a piece of a memory I didn’t want to keep. I went home and while bleeding, I prayed I should bleed until there was no blood in me and die in my sleep. But I’m here today sharing my story. That means I’m alive because death didn’t want to have anything to do with my filthy soul.

He Woke Me Up At 2am And Asked Me To Go To My Mother’s House

One late night someone came to knock on my door. I opened the door and it was the huge man. He wasn’t looking as huge as the day I saw him. He said, “I’m coming for my child.” I screamed, “Get out before I….”

I woke up from the dream with the remaining of the words on my lips. It was around 11:54 pm, exactly the time I found my phone on the floor that night. I sighed. I picked up my phone and started writing this story, hoping sharing it would bring me closure and also help me forget it a day at a time.

—Adjovi

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