Many nights ago, I couldn’t sleep so I went on Netflix. And clicked on Surviving R-Kelly. I don’t know if it is because decisions are made faster at night, or if it was the culmination of the week’s depressive episode or the hand of god, but I paused halfway through the first episode and did a hard thing.
Some background.
I started to drink and smoke and pop pills when I was fifteen. One day after I turned sixteen, I got blind drunk and was raped. And that was that. No more drugs, no alcohol. But that also meant no friends and nothing to fill the hole in my chest. All of this context is to say I was a dreadfully sad and lonely seventeen-year-old.
I worked at a radio station in Benin at the time. A colleague studying mass communication had a book with him, one of his recommended readings. I begged him to lend it to me because the title was interesting. Excuse Me!
It was funny, odd, the writer was from Edo state. I found him on Twitter and told him we were going to be friends. Blackberries were a thing then. We exchanged pins in the DM and thus began a relationship I’m not sure I can describe but will attempt to.
Let’s start with the good things.
Victor led me to Bassey Ikpi’s Instagram account and her captions helped me understand a bit of what went on in my head.
He is the reason I created my first blog. Helped create this name I’m so comfortable hiding behind, S.I Ohumu.
He was on the other end of the phone at 2 am when I couldn’t stop crying because I was afraid someone might be molesting my siblings. He was my dear dear friend and has been for years.
Now the confusing.
Sex is how I navigate the world. Not the verb, the noun. I’m not sure why that is but a sexual analogy is never far when I need to explain or understand something.
Right off the jump with this new friendship I employed all of the innuendos in my arsenal. He asked how old I was and I said seventeen. He said he had thought me much older on Twitter.
Wanting to impress, I began weaving myself.
He talked about how Nigerian women don’t shave their legs and I agreed, yeah that sucks, quickly adding but I shave though. That was not the last lie I told in those early days. I lied that I wore socks to bed, silly things like that. Needed him to like me.
The first time we met, he was in Benin for the burial of his friend’s mother. The friend lived really close to my parents’ house. On the day we were to meet I shaved all of my body, got in a cab and went past the house. I couldn’t breathe.
The second attempt the next day, I had my brother drop me in front of the house and wait. I told him a friend had books I needed to pick up. I remember being so nervous I greeted his friend “good afternoon sir.” I never say sir or ma. And there he was. We got upstairs. He put me on his lap and ran his hands all over my thighs. Like goat meat on a meat seller’s slab of wood in Oliha market. I think we kissed, I’m not sure. I told him my brother was parked outside waiting, got my bag of books and promised to come the next day.
That reminds me, one of the best things Victor did was introduce me to Binyavanga Wainaina’s writing.
Sex with Victor was after many attempts. It was painful. No condoms. It hurt. But I was so excited because he asked. Nobody had ever ever asked.
Not Ebo from the time I was six. And not that fucking idiot when I was sixteen.
Victor asked and saying no was a dream. I’d say no and he’d say okay then he’d ask again. Until I said yes or until he gave up. Sometimes in his entire visit to Benin, I would continue to say no. Sometimes I’d grow tired and say yes. Many times I’d initiate the sex myself.
I used to be so scared in the beginning. He would be holding me, maybe touching my breasts and I’d forget it was him. And just start screaming. I’d forget it was Victor and instead see the face of my childhood abuser and get so afraid. I’d cry and Victor would hold me.
I cried a lot then. I cried on a call to Victor on Christmas Day after my father had taken me to a shrine in the village because as he said, I was an ogbanje.
I cried when my vagina started to change and I went to the gynaecologist and the nurses were mean. They gave me medicine and asked me to get my partner to take some as well.
I cried because I loved him and asked him why he wouldn’t marry me.
I was so stupid. So young and stupid.
One time, his friend, who was also called Victor, asked me how old I was. I answered seventeen. His friend looked at him and said “Okpia, this one nor be child abuse?” And Victor laughed and said, “Na Stephanie dey abuse me.” I loved that. Was so proud. He always told me I was older than my age. I felt powerful. In some ways it was true. I had seen some things. In many ways it was false.
Victor would ask me to introduce him to my friends. To prove I was an unbothered mature woman I would. That is perhaps what I most regret.
Anyway, eight years is a long time to recount. Let’s stick to the milestones.
I had promised myself I would kill myself at eighteen. Victor and the books he brought were a reason to stick around.
I graduated only because Victor was there. I was so terribly depressed and he said, just finish. Just finish. And I did.
He paid for the hotel when I first came to Lagos to apply for the British Council internship.
My first visit to a gallery, Rele, was Victor.
As I grew older it got more confusing. There was a very distinct power he held. I was able to verbalize no, but somehow it didn’t hold.
I think I first started to hate Victor when I was twenty. There would be moments of such intense hate I would block him. Write a thinly veiled blog. Make a thread on Twitter then delete it.
Next minute I’d be back to needing him, laughing with him. Thinking, this is my best friend in all of the world. Wanting to fuck him. It is so confusing. He insists we are friends, and we are. But somehow his pants are always down. And there’s me with some sort of lust, disgust, shame, triumph.
I first learned of the term, grooming, while we were filming Sex for Grades. In the encounters with Boniface. I saw the journalist who played Kemi becoming sympathetic to Boniface and it made sense to me.
This is what is odd. For some days during the secret filming, I stayed in the signature room at Angels and Muse. And of course, there was cum involved.
My friendship with Victor is the most transactional relationship I have ever been in. He insists it’s not. But it is. I know that he cares for me. That we are friends. But somehow, when a favour is given, when a visit happens, somehow, sex happens. And I feel like I am paying. But remember I also initiate this sex sometimes. And this is one of the things that confuses me most. Why am I doing this? Because I am attracted to him? Yes, I am. Because I love him? Yes, I do. Because it makes me feel powerful? Yes, it does. Because he is familiar? Yes, he is.
But I hate him too. I do.
This hate solidified when in a hotel room in Benin he asks about my sister. How old is she now? Sixteen, I say. I tell him she’s applying to Uniben. He says, “Tell her to come to Unilag na. I’ll mentor her.”
My stomach falls. The disdain settles. But I fuck him anyway. It doesn’t make any sense. I am stupid. I am always so confused.
The day before Sex for Grades is released, tensions are high. There’s a pit and a hill in me. Tomorrow is an important day. I tell Kiki about this weird thing with Victor. It is the first time I have told anybody. I beg her not to say a word.
Back to the hard thing.
Pausing Surviving R-Kelly, I text Victor and then block him. Then delete his number. It’s real this time.
Why have I done it? I am looking at these people who were around R-Kelly. Who suffered at his hands. Who cloaked him with their friendship. Their loyalty. Woman after woman saying she thought she was the only one. It is never only you. And although I will not say this out loud, at least I can stop supporting behind the curtain. I end it because I feel nothing for myself and everything for others. And imagining my baby sister or any of the younger women in my life, my cousins, my friends from Space, in a similar situation terrifies me. They all think they are so old but are so young. So so young. So silly. Kids really. Was that me? And if yes, how could he?
But, (and it is important to note what I say next is directed at myself and this situation specifically,) consent cannot be rescinded.
I shared naked photos with this man. I said yes. I was party to this long after I stopped being a teenager. The thing is though, with Victor, a part of me always remained that seventeen-year-old. Maybe when you are cement-not-dry-yet-young, whatever lands sticks around. I always rationalized why I was getting in an Uber and going to his office when I knew what would happen. Why I was speaking so highly of him to an acquaintance. Why whenever he needed someone to work with I only ever recommended men. Never women. Never young women.
He is not the bad guy in this story. Just as I am not the good guy. Just two people involved in a weird thing. I am only able to tell my side of the story in the end. And single perspectives only make for linear context. It is never the complete thing.
With all of that said though, boy am I glad this is over. I texted and blocked in the night. When I woke up in the morning, for some seconds I did not remember what I had done. Then it came to me and I started to shake. So I wrote to two of my best friends and told them everything. I said it out loud. The best way I know how. In text. And I felt free. I feel free. Something bad has ended.
What do you do after you let go of your oldest closest friend, and all of the confusion the situation carries?
You move. I want to move now. I credit Victor for being the reason I did not kill myself at eighteen and it is true. But in many ways, I didn’t live either.
I am alive now. I want to move.
I am very afraid, telling you all of this because you are the public, nuance averse strangers. You don’t give a shit about me. And I do not give a shit about you either, to be honest.
I am very specifically opening this mouth of mine and saying all of this out loud because I am afraid I was not, am not, will not be the only one.
It’s a particularly tough thing to go through, grooming. It’s confusing, follows you for years and years. So here’s to hoping there’s no one else like me out there. And if there is, maybe this helps you in some way. Victor, maybe this is the feedback you need to increase the entry-level age for sexual partners?
Bated breath, fingers crossed.
