often warned against tempting fate. When you have a relationship and are getting on fairly comfortably with your partner, it’s almost fatal to the relationship to bring in a third party to live with you under any guise. That is why, no matter how repulsive we find it, male domestics continue to dip into the same pots as their masters and male partners throw caution to the wind and pant after the maids!
Love-gone-sour
When Musibau came back from the US years back, the first person he got in touch with was Gboye, his friend of several years. I’d known them together even before they travelled abroad and when Musibau called that Gboye was throwing a welcome party for him, I gladly attended. Gboye’s wife, Rita, and the mother of their three children, was the perfect hostess, she seemed to get on with Musibau, who she hadn’t met until his return.
When I asked Musibau what his plans were and where he was staying, Gboye cut in: “The silly man went to stay in the family home until his wife joins him with their children. I’ve told him it was a silly thing to do. The place is a bit dilapidated and crowded. First thing tomorrow, I’m moving him into the guest room. It would be a temporary arrangement. His wife is expected in a couple of months, and, until she arrives, he has a home with us.”
Rita beamed her approval and, when I cornered Musibau later on and asked him of the rationale behind his moving in with a married couple, he saw no problems at all. “You don’t understand,” he tried to assure me, “Gboye is not only my best mate, he’s like a blood brother. We went back a long way and we’d shared a lot of things in the past. We even lived together once with our girlfriends. No problem at all,” I shrugged. Who was I to put a spanner in any works? Musibau eventually moved in, and I’d seen him with his hosts at parties and they seemed to get on well.
Too well, if you’d asked me. When next I saw Musibau, it was at one of these fancy malls on the Island and he looked as if he was dying for a chat. “Why did you warn me against living with Gboye at my welcome party?”, he asked. Well, why did he want to know now? “I think Rita has the hots for me!” he said, not at all bragging. “My friend has turned into a home body but Rita is the swinging type.
Whenever Gboye refuses to go on an outing with her, she suggests taking me and Gboye instantly agrees. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching the TV late in the night when she joined me on the sofa. She couldn’t sleep, she said, and when the film got really steamy, she placed her hand on my thigh. ‘Do you like me at all?’ she asked. ‘Gboye is my best friend’, I reminded her. She simply got up, said good night with a full kiss on my lips!
I gulped but she’d disappeared to the bedroom. From then on, she gave me knowing looks, even when her husband was around. I became nervous. Rita is an extremely pretty woman but I have my pick of female friends. Only I dare not bring them home because of my friend—he’s a married man after all. I can’t wait for my wife to come back in a month’s time—she’ll save me from making a fool of myself. I shook my head sadly.
Trying to stop a scheming woman, I warned, was like trying to stop a charging vehicle with one hand. My warning came too late. I’d heard Musibau ‘s wife was back and I heaved a sigh of relief. At least, now, Rita would check her randy libido. “She’d already seduced me by the time my wife arrived”, Musibau told me sadly weeks later when he came visiting. “You’re the only one I can confide in.