AFTER SEX

AFTER SEX

Nobody tells you this: that you would feel the opposite of euphoria after ejaculation. Nobody tells you that that mad rush of desire that had spurred you to hold unto her waist like your life depended on it as you repeated the thrusting movement of your own waist would diminish into obliteration the second your back arch instinctively and your legs shake like a miniature volcano.

You come down from on top her body and lie on your back to catch your breath, beads of sweat darting all about your face. You keep staring at the white asbestos ceiling high above you, breathing heavily… deliberately, because you do not know exactly what to say. You don’t feel like holding her anymore, or calling her ‘baby’. You would have been prepared for this feeling if someone - your brother or one of your friends - had told you to expect it. They knew you were going to have sex for the first time. It was their duty to give you a heads-up. You are inexperienced after all.

You continue breathing heavily and looking up at the ceiling as Amaka wears her clothes and rearranges her hair. When you finally look at her and realize that she is fiddling with her mobile phone, you say “Amaka, are you okay?” She looks at you for half a second, turns back to her phone and nods, implying the affirmative. You can swear that in that half-a-second glance you saw disappointment in her eyes.

“I want to go,” she says when the silence has stretched on for over three minutes.

“Let me walk you,” you reply, standing up from the bed.

She does not answer.

You shuffle with your boxers and then your jeans. You walk with her to the gate with no shirt on and no words in your mouth.

Why the hell do you feel this repulsion? Why do you feel this unfathomable guilt?

At the gate she tells you “I can walk to the junction alone, don’t worry.”

On prior visits when she had said things like this, you had insisted otherwise. You had walked her down to the junction, her appeals regardless. Today, however, you do not argue. You simply say; “Okay, take care.” Although you do not intend to, you do not add the affectionate titles ‘dear’ or ‘baby’.

The repulsive guilt continues in your chest for two days, and when on the third day you summon up enough courage to finally call her, she picks up the phone and says, in reply to your “Hello, Amaka,” “Tony, shey you have gotten what you wanted?”