Spoiler alert, this is not where I almost died. It was far much later.

The encounter with Jane had opened a door that I should never have walked through to the other side. However, it felt like that was where my solution lay. ‘Maybe Jane was not the right woman to get me the love I wanted,’ so I told myself.  Since things had not worked out with her, I looked forward to meeting the one that would fill that void; the one whose love would overflow and from whom I would quench my thirst.

Sometimes it is better to withdraw from a place so that you can save your life. I wish I had known that earlier. The only way Lot could be saved was if he got away from the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The cities were the brewing ground for sin. Sin thrived there and the residents were glad to take part in all manner of it. I should have borrowed that principle since the story had been told to me and my siblings since childhood.  Unfortunately, I did not.

My work buddies continued to throw in those sugar mummy phrases now and then and while I would almost immediately brush them off, they still lingered in my mind all day. My biggest problem was, even if I wanted one, where would I have found one? I did not know where they were found. That was a problem but a good thing. Secondly, I did not want a sugar mummy. I was not willing to be anybody’s sex playboy. Nevertheless, I still needed to feel loved. These work buddies had their lives changed. The details of their lives were scanty but one thing they told me is that their success was attributed to having a sugar mummy.

You evolve to become like what you constantly hear.

Around this time, I had gotten to know a certain lady through a mutual friend. For the sake of this story let us call her Emily. Emily had been invited to an event a friend of mine and myself had organized. She had come to see what was happening on the ground and give her input wherever it was required. Before then, I had only seen her once and maybe several times through the video calls she made to a friend of mine. I was not interested at all in what she had to say because she was not my friend. All that changed when she came to the event. I guess because I was not interested in the video calls and conversations she had with my friend, I had never taken note of how beautiful she was. I vividly recall the entrance she made when she came to the event. She had worn a skirt suit that was polka doted and had her hair nicely done.

That day, I took note of her.

After that event, things grew rather fast between us, as we had exchanged our contacts and we had begun a conversation. She was a nice lady and I believe she still is even today. We would talk about life and everything related to it. She once came to say hi at the graphics shop and when my friends saw her, they could not leave me alone. As soon as she had left, they kept asking me what I was waiting for. They told me I had to make a move.

There are several things you need to know right here about Emily. Firstly, she was older than me by a few years; four or thereabout. Secondly, she had been married before but was now separated. That I did not know until later when thirdly, I learnt she had three children. Is that a lot to take in right now? Well, you can imagine how it was for me when I found out all that. I knew she was older than me and that I was comfortable with that but about marriage and children, I would never have engaged right from the word go should I have known.

Eventually after I knew all these, I found comfort in knowing she was no longer married. I cannot in truth tell why I found that form of comfort but I just did. So we continued talking even after I had known all that because I had to show her I did not have ulterior motives other than friendship. I also did not want to make her feel less of a human like I felt at that time.  When she came to the shop that was close to almost a year of talking since I had taken note of her.  It just happened that she came to the shop when all the sugar mummy nonsense was going on. When you are into a year of talking and chatting, you will have spoken everything there is about life. Familiarity creeps in and you start being open about things that you should not even be open about. With the feedback from the shop, I had to make a move. What you should actually know dear reader is that she had severally invited me to her place but I had always turned her offer down. Of course I did not do that directly but I had to make excuses to avoid going there.

As fate would have it, the invites still came. She had really longed that I go visit her and see where she stayed. When the invite came this time round, I agreed and went. She had prepared some good food. That girl is a good cook. The food was amazing. After eating, we sat down to properly catch up while watching a movie. The kind of movie she had selected had sexy steamy parts but I thought it was just the normal nature of movies nowadays to include such parts.  We watched as we talked and without  knowing, darkness was fast approaching. I had to excuse myself since I had not planned to spend the night in her house. When I told her I was about to leave, she said it was okay and offered to show me the way out. We had to say the byes to each other. I stood to hug her so that I would go out. When I hugged her, the hug took longer than I anticipated.  I had thought to myself that it would be a quick hug and I would soon be on my way out. When I was ready to disembark from the hug, I felt it get tighter. ‘Well, she just wants to be hugged’ so I thought. I obliged. When she had gotten enough from the hug, she finally let go and out we went.

Let us pause for a while here.

These are things that I came to know way later, not at this point. The first was, Emily had taken note of me just as much as I had taken not of her. Secondly, she too was looking for love. I tend to think that after their divorce, there was a big hole that was left in her heart and she needed somebody to fill it.  I cannot say this for sure but she must have seen that I was also looking for something or how else would you explain this situation?

After I had gotten home, I texted her to tell her of my journey mercies. I then asked her why the hug took so long. I could not ask while I was still at her house for reasons known to me. I should never have asked that question. I should have stayed with what I thought was the case; just an innocent friend with an innocent hug. That question opened the flirting window. The conversations that followed cannot be typed here because I am not sure I am the one who typed and wrote those words. One thing leads to another, right? After all the flirting, a second invitation was made and I was happy to oblige. This time round, it was not a visit like the first. I had gone there with the agenda of putting her to bed. It is weird how we equate sex to love and love to sex.

I did it. Yes, I did it.

Too much information and dirt had been fed into my mind and you know the saying, garbage in garbage out. I put her to bed and she was happy to let me have the candy any way I wanted. At that very point, I thought the thirst in my heart would be quenched and the void in my heart would be filled. That was not the case. I still felt the same way I felt before. The void was still there; it had not been filled. As I lay on that bed, I thought that maybe all I needed was time. With time, maybe the void would be filled and the love I so long sort for would be found. There I was. I decided to give it time.

What followed were numerous episodes of sexcapades with the hope that what I was looking for was there and all I need was to go a little bit deeper. Sadly, we were just feeding each other with short term ecstasies thinking they would turn out to be what we were looking for.  Just like in the previous case, this also did not work out. She was not a cure to my unloved feeling and neither were the pleasantries we exchanged. At one point she brought the idea of marriage and I was short of words to answer her. It was not what I was looking for. At least not then. I was looking for something that I never got, love!

She moved.

After a while, she got a job on the far west side of our country and she had to move. Thank God she moved because there was no way I was travelling all that way to exchange pleasantries again. While we continued talking, we all know that out of sight out of mind. That may seem rude but it is true. The conversations did not last for long. Everyone became busy. By the time she was moving I had left the movie shop to pursue my professional path and she too had a lot to do in matters catching up with the new organization she had found work. That busyness drifted us apart and apart we grew never to re unite.

Fate had brought two hurting people together. These two hurt people were looking for love and they thought they would give that love to each other. They were terribly wrong. What they needed was to heal first from their hurts and then maybe, just maybe their hearts would be ready to give and receive love. At the end of the day, we did not get what we wanted and were looking for. We still carried our pains and hurt to our new working stations. For me, that still caught up with me because I was not yet done ‘dealing women.’ I still thought I had a shot at finding a woman that would give me what I was looking for. I was in for a rude shock.

Today as I write this article, I am wiser. I now know that hurt is a heart issue. I should have addressed my heart instead of turning to women to try to mend it. I am the only one who could have done it. I am the only one who would have healed my heart.

I however do not condemn myself. I was a hurt young man trying to find love in the best way I thought but instead brought upon myself a path of doom. After Emily had left, I found another woman but this time round, I was prey and not the predator. I found myself in a pit whose end was death. Good thing is I survived and I am here to tell the tale in the next article.

I wish I had screamed loudly that I needed help back then. Maybe I would have gotten it.

Since I did not, allow me to scream it here. ‘Help, I’m hurting!’