I proposed to Ophelia and that same day she accepted. There was no drama to it. “I love you and want you to be my girlfriend,” I said. She answered, “If you’re serious about it and are ready to build a committed relationship, then I’m all for it.” The following day was her twenty-seventh birthday. I held her hand and took her to a place she told me in a conversation that she would love to visit. When we got to the entrance she thawed. She looked at me and said, “You really listen to me when I speak. You did what will always live on my mind.”
We had a beautiful night together. Everything was a joke for the two of us. We were on top of the world and the world was below us. Nothing could bring us down because we had the love that was holding us up high. Before we said goodnight to each other, we hugged. I wanted a kiss but a hug was all I had. I didn’t push for anything else. True love is patience. He waits patiently for the other party to be ready so I was ready to wait for her to come around.
We didn’t make rules but it was obvious she didn’t want to rush the wheel of our relationship. She was cautious and I could understand her. The last person she was with before me did her badly. Apart from cheating on her, he abused her physically too so she was afraid to give the relationship her all right from the start. I knew her story. I wanted to be better than her ex and I also wanted to prove to her in our daily conversation that I could be trusted.
It took her over a month to have the courage to walk through my door. Before that, I had to assure her that nothing would happen to her if she comes around. She told me, “I’m not trying to stretch you but I hope you understand. I’m a woman who loves to take things slowly—slow but sure gets me to my destination every time so I prefer to go slowly.” She was in my room and looking like a meal served to the gods but I couldn’t bring my spoon to the table because she wasn’t ready to be eaten. She talked about connection first before anything else and I agreed.
The whole relationship was at her beck and call. Whatever she wanted, I agreed to it. Whatever I wanted that didn’t benefit her directly, we talked about it and we later nipped it in the bud. Two months later, we had graduated from holding hands to hugging. When we hugged the first time, I couldn’t let go. She pushed her way out of my arms and said, “You’re crushing me. Why don’t you take your time?” It got me wondering if everything was right with this girl. I asked her, “Ophelia, have you been sexually harassed before?” She answered, ‘“No, I haven’t. Why do you ask?” I explained, “It’s because of the way you’re always in a hurry to run away from intimacy. Anything that brings your skin to my skin makes you uncomfortable.” She said that wasn’t the case but she preferred taking her time.
Five months later, we had kissed just once. We had our second kiss in the sixth month and from there, everything flowed. She was comfortable around me and was ready to let herself go. I asked her, “Are you sure you want to do this?” She answered, “Don’t make me change my mind. I know when I’m ready and I’m telling you I’m ready.”
It was a Saturday afternoon when she came home. We cooked and ate. We had enough to drink and later settled on her favourite movie. I got touchy but she didn’t complain. I sent my hand to places she previously hit my hand but this time she allowed it. I did the sign of the cross in my head and started full exploration. She didn’t stop me from doing anything, in fact, she even encouraged it through the way she reacted to my touch. She was naked and on the bed waiting for me to get ready. I got up, took off my shorts and was ready to fall on her. Immediately she set her eyes on my joystick, she got up from the bed and pushed to the corner. With her eyes opened wide she asked, “Everything down there is for you alone? Look at it, it’s not even fully awake but look at the size. No, I can’t do it.”
I thought it was one of her jokes so I smiled it away and started pushing forward. By that time she had started reaching out for her dress on the floor. She said, “Please stop it. Don’t touch me. Please don’t force it on me, you won’t like the results.” She was virtually shivering out of the bed. I said, “Hey, are you serious?” She answered, “Yes, my life is very important to me. This has to be enjoyed and not endured but the way I see it, I can’t enjoy it. I would be hurt badly if I try it. No, I can’t. You should have told me right from the beginning that what you have isn’t normal.”
Dear friends, I’m normal. She wasn’t the first woman I was meeting. I’d met others and they didn’t complain. Those who talked about it did it with joy so I didn’t see the source of her fears. I’m not the kind of man to force things. I thought there was going to be a better day so I also dressed up and later left the house with her. I was embarrassed. It didn’t feel like a joke to me anymore. She made me doubt myself and started asking questions about the women I’d met and why they didn’t say anything.
From that day she started giving me an attitude. She won’t pick up my calls or respond to my text the way she used to. When I complained she said, “Please, I’m thinking about myself. After what I’ve seen, I don’t think things will be normal again.” I asked for further explanation and she said, “I will never try it again. I’m not ready to destroy my womb to satisfy a man. No. Never.” I asked, “Even when I’m planning to marry you very soon?” She answered, “Marry who? Please let this cup pass me by. I can’t stand this. Not even when we are married.” She made it sound like a joke but she was serious about it. We had a final conversation and she made it plain that she couldn’t continue with the relationship because I’d scared her soul out of love.
Our eight months or so relationship came to an end with a cocktail of embarrassment and self-doubt. I learned to move on. I slowly disregarded what she said about me and stepped out there to love again. I found another woman just around our neighbourhood. We were trying to build something together when she started giving me an attitude. I didn’t get it. “We were fine yesterday so why are you showing me this cold attitude?” After a little probing, I got to know she had been in contact with Ophelia and she had warned her about me. I was shocked. “But how did she even know that there’s something going on between us?”
I called her, “Ophelia, why are you doing this? Remain in your grave and leave my life alone. Who made you the mouthpiece of my love life that you will go around warning someone to stay away from me?” She swore she wasn’t the one but the lady said a lot of things that pointed to her. If not, where else did the lady get to know what I had in between my thighs will bring her intestines out? Just that phrase gave me a clue of who had been talking to her. That relationship also didn’t survive because the girl insisted I should send her a photo of it before she could say yes to me. “Seeing is believing. I don’t want to be surprised,” she said.
There’s this new girl I’m with currently. I posted her on my status and Ophelia came to comment, “Is that your new victim?” I didn’t respond. She sent another message hours later, “Slim girl like that, she won’t cry her own cry, she wants to run where angels fear to tread.” I blocked her that day without saying a word to her. The good thing is, she doesn’t know where this one lives or how to get in contact with her. It’s a new beginning with her and so far so good. We haven’t been intimate yet but something in me tells me she won’t have a problem with it when the time comes because I’m just a normal size. It was rather a devil called Ophelia who wanted to just shame me—shame me with a big size I didn’t deserve to have.
