She was twenty-one when I fell in love with her. I was twenty-four and had all my youthful exuberance intact. We were young like the dews of the morning so there was nothing we couldn’t do. Our troubles were few and far between. We ate from the pockets of our parents so life was easy except we had completed school not too long ago so we were both job hunting. Apart from that, we met every now and then to do what young lovers do.

She would come to my place one afternoon, I would check the outside and see if someone saw her coming in. If I’m too sure no one did, I will lock the trap-door, jump over her, kiss her from hair to toe and when she says yes to s€x, we’ll have the best sex of our lives. That’s all we did. We did it in my room. We did it in her room. One night when I couldn’t go to her room because her father was sitting outside, we stood behind the dark walls of her house and did it.

It was like nothing could stop us from doing it. We tried it at the center of their hall one afternoon when her parents were away. That day, her junior sister caught us in the act. She wasn’t going to tell anybody but to ensure she keeps her promise, we combined resources to pay her a certain amount every week.

And then we grew up.

Few months to her twenty-sixth birthday, we both stood at the altar; and in front of her parents and mine, we exchanged our vows. We didn’t think about marriage. There was no point in our relationship where we both sat down and discussed when to marry and what we had to do to get married. Marriage happened to us. It was the most natural thing to do after staying together and running the crazy shows of our lives for over five years. When I said “I do,” I knew there was no one I could say that to apart from her. She said her’s with a smile. She said it from a place of care and believed there was so much we could do though we had done a lot already.

Fast forward, we have two kids, we’ve been married for five years, I have a job that takes me away most of the time. Some times it feels like we’ve been married forever. All of these changes are normal. We are not scared. Our s€x life has taken a dip. Of course, we are not still in our twenties. We have responsibilities and have kids who interfere in our daily lives.

I have lost a little bit of color when it comes to s€x but my wife hadn’t aged a bit.

When I had gone away for some weeks and had finally returned home, she would do everything to squeeze the little juice I had left in me. Kids won’t sleep early so at dawn when they are dead asleep, She’ll jump on me and start the journey. Mostly I would be too tired to respond but she wouldn’t mind. She wants her pound of flesh and would work all night to get it. Some times twice. Some times trice. Some times I’m only saved by the cries of the kids.

The virus happened and we had a lockdown. Work stopped for both of us and since kids were not going to school, we sent them away to their grandparents. All we had left was us. Nothing in between. No work and no kids to save me when the going gets too tough.

The first night started as a sprint and ended up being a marathon. We had a little time to sleep. Every now and then, she would tap me and say, “You don’t have to sleep like that. Tomorrow we are going nowhere.” I lost count of how many times we did it but it was more than four. Yeah, I enjoyed it until it became a chore at some point.

During the day, she wore this skimpy dress and put makeup on as if she was going on a casual date. She came to sit next to me and started talking about memories when we were young. The places we went, the crazy things we did and how fun it was. She asked why we couldn’t do that often. I told her, “We are grown-ups now. We have kids and responsibilities.” I knew what she was doing. She was trying to get me into the mood.

All of a sudden it felt like I didn’t know my wife. Yes, I knew her appetite for s€x but how she was behaving around the house was something new to me. We could be watching a movie and there would be a kissing scene. She would turn to me and ask for hers. If there’s a sex scene, she would ask us to replicate the scene.

I understood she was trying to bring fun into our solo existence and that was alright but the speed at which she was traveling got me scared. After seven days of staying together, I started dreading going to bed at night because that’s where all the worries start. I will either stay late in the hall watching TV or fall asleep in the hall while watching TV.

She did the laundry last Saturday and while she was in the kitchen cooking, I went outside to remove the clothes from the line. I know how she arranges her stuff in the wardrobe so I started folding her things and putting them at the various sections she places them in the wardrobe. I pulled the drawer to put in her panties. It was already full because all her pantie in there were not folded. I poured all of them on the bed and decided to fold them one after the other so they can easily fit into the drawer.

There was this pink pouch among the panties. I opened to see what was inside: Dildos! Three of them. Different sizes and different shapes. And the sad thing was, all of them were bigger than mine.

I immediately zipped it up, put it back in the drawer and put the panties back on top just like the way it used to be. I didn’t know what to think. I started having cocktails of emotions about the whole situation; “Should I ask her? Maybe I should not. So when I’m not around, that’s what she uses? Is it possible that another man had been sleeping with her? Am I not enough? Look at the sizes, I don’t even come close to any of them. Am I too small that she craves bigger ones?”

I was in a bad and confusing place.

Whenever you are troubled, no matter how good you are at hiding it, it somehow reflects in your mood and the way you behave. Every now and then she asks if I’m alright and I would lie, “Yeah I’m alright. Why do you ask?” I will feign a smile and try playing with her just so she would know I’m alright. But I was not.

I felt inadequate. I felt cheated on. I felt lied to. I felt small in between my legs. I felt all the moaning was fake and acted.

So two days ago, I brought the issue up in our conversation…

“I found those sticks in your drawer. How long have you had them and why do you think you need them and why do you have three of them?”.

Her face moved from indifferent to shock, to troubled and then to remorse. I told her, “I’m not mad at you. I believe you have reasons. That’s all I want to know.” She sat quietly for a while and said, “Please forgive me I shouldn’t have them. Please forgive me.”

“I only want to know why you have them and why you have them in different sizes.”

“I don’t have a reason. I was only curious. I was only experimenting. I don’t even use them often. Forgive me.”

“Am I too small for you?”

“Oh nooo. Not that at all. I’ve told you, I was only curious.”

“So what shows you haven’t cheated on me. You’ve been curious enough to get a stick. Anything at all can happen.”

“Noooo you’re thinking too far. I swear I have never cheated on you. It’s only this that I bought. Please forgive me.”

I trust her but then again, something tells me there’s more to it than this. I don’t know but my intuition isn’t right about the whole thing. There’s seem to be more hidden than I’ve discovered.

We haven’t spoken much since. We wake up and go about our lives as though we were strangers. I’m only praying there’s nothing more to it. Because I will die if what I suspect of her is true.

—Robert, Ghana

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