Some stories are hard to tell. I grew up just fine despite everything that happened to me. I do everything to hush it. I consciously make an effort to shush the voice of my memories but no matter how hard I try, I still get the images. It rolls before my eyes like a movie I watched years ago. Those movies in black and white. The silent ones where the actors don’t talk. They act their voice out. Their action is their language. You watch it and still get what they are trying to say. In the movie, I see my sister—the first of five children. She doesn’t talk to me. She just walks up to me, holds my hands, and takes me to a quiet place. She tells me, “Don’t talk, just watch me.” 

I was a boy but I had no fears. I was seven or eight at that time. My sister was like fourteen then. She knew more about life than I did. She saw it when our father died. She still has a perfect recollection of whatever happened when our dad died. I don’t remember because I was too young to understand. When our father died, or let me say when I wasn’t seeing our dad again, my senior sister became the father. We’ll come from school and meet her at the house. She’ll cook and feed us even before my mother returns from the market. In the evening, while studying in the hall, she will call me, “Albert, did you bring any homework?” Sometimes I will lie but she’ll see through the lies. She would put me down on the floor and put my homework before me. She’ll scream, “Let me see you doing it.” 

I will complain about my other siblings who had homework to do but not doing it. “Why are you not on them? Why are you always on me forcing me to do my homework? When mommy comes I will tell her that you’ve been beating me.” She would say calmly, “I’m doing that to you because you’re my favorite. Those ones are stubborn. I don’t like them and their stubborn ways. It’s you I want to help. I want you to turn out better than them.” She’ll teach me my homework. Sometimes she’ll do the homework for me. She taught me how to read. She taught me addition and subtraction; “Bring your counters. Put two here and three there. Add one to three and let’s count together. How many counters do you have now?” 

She made it easy. She made it fun. She made me fall for her ways of doing things. But she was only eighteen and she was my sister. An elder sister turned father of the house. One Saturday afternoon, my other siblings had gone out to play. In fact, I was out there playing with them when my sister came to fetch me. “Where are we going?” I asked. I don’t remember her answer. She said something. One of the things she usually said when I asked her questions. Soon we were in the room. Our hall. She said, “Take off your shirt.” I looked outside. There was daylight. It didn’t look like it was time for me to take my evening shower. I asked, “It’s daylight. Why do you want me to bathe?” She said, “Keep quiet and watch me. Don’t say anything.”

I watched her. She took off my knickers and started playing with my thing. It was tiny. Innocent. Yet to discover the power it wields. It was brand new. Yet to make a mile of its own. It was my sister who took it in the palms of her hand and started it on a journey. I was quiet because she asked me to. I was looking at her because it was an order. She would ask me every now and then; “How do you feel? Do you feel good? Do something for me to know that it feels good.” I was only looking at her, trying to figure out what she was doing to me. I don’t remember how I felt in my skin. The feeling belongs to the archives of what ought not to be remembered. When she finished and told me not to tell anyone, I thought it was a one-off thing. Something that happens once and never happens again because no one was supposed to hear about it.

It was only the beginning. I became her pet. Her plaything. A wand she swishes to get whatever she wanted. It happened in the afternoons. It happened in the mornings. It happened every time mom was not around and my other siblings were not watching. 

The five of us shared a room with my mother. It was a chamber and hall we lived in. Two of my siblings shared a room with my mother in the chamber while the rest of us slept in the hall. At first, I was one of those who slept in the chamber with my mother but my sister changed it. She changed the arrangement when she started doing things to me. There was a mat. A very big mat spread at the center of the hall. We would line up on the bed and sleep. My sister always ensured that I was sleeping right behind her—where she could touch me. Where I can become her plaything throughout the night.

 In the night while my other siblings were sleeping, my sister’s back would be facing me yet she would find a way with her hand. She would be facing forward while playing with my thing from behind. I don’t know if you get what I’m trying to say. When she does that, no one among my siblings would suspect that something of that sort was going on. After all, she was not facing me. Her back was against me so you won’t suspect her of anything.

I started sleeping in class because my nights were busy. My sister was hard to satisfy so we played all night. I was only a boy—eight or nine or ten. I remember on my eleventh birthday, a classmate of hers came to visit her. She brought me biscuits and three pieces of balloons. In the afternoon when the house was empty and my siblings were out. My sister took me to the bathhouse. Just when she started, her friend walked in. She said, “Eiii, is that what you two are doing? If you don’t allow me to do some, I will tell everybody.” I was so shy I wanted to run. My sister said, “Albert, allow her ok? It’s even more fun when we are many.” The two of them. I watched them as they took their turns. I don’t remember if the pleasure was different but I remember my sister’s face. I can recall the aggression in the touch of my sister’s friend. 

That was the beginning of another chapter. Chapter three because we were three from that day going. Her friend never missed a visit to our house. She came after school and came on weekends. We didn’t do it every day and when it didn’t happen, I saw the disappointment on her face. 

My sister completed JHS and went to boarding school. That was when I started having restful nights. But then I had become addicted. I started hitting on my classmates. Even girls ahead of me in class were not spared. I couldn’t get any. They all pushed me away and made fun of me. Letters I wrote to them found their way out in public. I remember at some point I was crushing on my class teacher. I wrote a letter to her but didn’t send it. I told my friend George about it and one day he leaked the letter. Madam Dorcas. May God bless her wherever she is. I thought she was going to beat me or sack me from school or report me to the headmaster or even report me to my mother. She didn’t do any of those. She took my letter and while everyone was on break, she read it to me word by word and asked me, “What came to your head when you wrote this? Have you had a woman before?” I said no. “Have you been seeing adults doing it?” I said yes.”

She told me, “You’re growing. Feeling of such nature is normal. But you’ll learn to control it as you move along. If you’re going through something and you don’t understand, talk to someone older. Your mom or father or anyone you trust. Don’t write letters to adults. They will pick on you and call you a bad boy. I will be your friend. If you have any problem, you can tell me.” She made me so comfortable I wanted to confess. I wanted to give it all away—my sister. Her friend. The escapades. But I loved my sister too much to disgrace her. 

One day, my sister’s friend came over. She was trying to push me into it. I said no. I threatened to tell my mother. I threatened to scream. She left me alone. I was battling with my addiction—So young but already had an addiction.  Madam Dorcas was there for me. I didn’t tell her everything but somehow she could figure it out that I was a boy in need. My sister came home for vacation. That night she was very aggressive with me. She covered us with a cloth and was wiggling her way through when my mother came from the chamber to the hall. She heard her footsteps early so she quickly dashed off me and pretended to be sleeping. My mother came to lift the cloth. She tapped me and I opened my eyes. She tapped my sister severally. She didn’t wake up. My mom took my hand and sent me to the bedroom. I never slept in the hall again. 

The next day my sister asked what my mother said and I told her, “She saw us. She said the next time I do it again she would beat me.” My sister asked, “You told her?” I answered, “Yes I told her the truth.” For the rest of her days on vacation, she lived in fear thinking mom would do something to her. She never touched me again. And I was free but I wasn’t free from the addiction. In SHS I was suspended twice before I was finally sacked from school, all because of issues with women. I went to another school to complete.  

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After university, I met Alice. We dated for four years and I never cheated once. I told her my problem. I told her the story, all of it. From chapter one till we got to chapter three where we became three. That day she cried. She said, “You’ve turned out good, regardless. Whenever you want it, call me and I will be there. The day you think you’ve had enough of me and want something else, be truthful to me and I will change the way we do things so you’ll have something new to enjoy. We didn’t get to that stage where I had enough of her. She was enough and she was all I wanted. After four years, we got married. 

My sister has two children from two different men. She’s not married. The last man she got pregnant for is a married man. We don’t talk often. I work in the same town where she works but we never meet or talk on the phone. We live like strangers and it’s good for me because anytime I see her, the movie of our past plays in my mind. 

–Albert

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