My first relationship was with my teacher. I was in Junior High School. She was my English teacher. I’d never seen any woman as beautiful as she was. She would face the board and write notes on it for us to copy. I would look at the board and all I would see was just her behind. I would stop writing and focus on her ass, her curves and think how it would feel to be with a lady like her.
She would turn to face the class and ask: “Have you finished writing the notes? The entire class would chorus “Yes madam!” I would be the only voice to say “No madam” because, somehow, I’d spent most of the minutes watching madam’s buttocks and curves instead of copying the notes.
She never got angry at me. She accused me of being slow but she gave me extra minutes to finish copying the notes and that made me love her more.
One afternoon I found myself in her room. She looked at me and said: “I know you want me. I see the way you look at me. I know what you want. You’re just a boy but I like the fire in you.” She held the collar of my shirt, pulled me closer and kissed me. I didn’t want to stop. It was dream come true. We did it for several minutes. Even when she stopped to catch her breath, I pushed in for her lips and it happened again and again and again.
Before I left, I asked her: “So what are we? Am I what I think I am to you?” She laughed at me. She asked what I think I was and I answered: “I’m your boyfriend, right?” She answered: “Of course, you are a boy so being a boyfriend is in order.”
A relationship started between me and my teacher except that everything you read in paragraphs three and four wasn’t real. It didn’t happen in my reality. It happened in my dreams. They are things I daydreamed about and wished they could come true. I didn’t know what was happening to me but I started believing in my daydreams. I saw her as my girlfriend. I even confessed it to a friend that I was in love with my teacher.
That was the greatest mistake I made. That friend told a friend and the friend also told a friend until one girl heard it and told the teacher about it.
I was called to the office. She was there alone. And immediately I saw her, I started licking my lips. “Why did she call me when she knew she was the only one in the staff common room? Was my dream about to come true?”
She signalled me to sit next to her. My heart leapt out of my chest. “I finally got to sit next to her? Wow!” She asked about my age and I told her: “I’m thirteen years old.”
“And you’re in love with your madam?” she asked me. “You didn’t even keep it to yourself but went around telling your friends? I wanted to beat the hell out of you but you just hit your teenage years so it’s normal. I understand it’s an emotion you go through but you need to manage it well before it destroys you. You can’t go about falling in love with people who can give birth to you.”
She tapped my head small and asked me to go and sin no more. I thought it would end there but I was wrong. In the evening, I saw her at my house asking to talk to my parents. I nearly collapsed. I started begging her: “Please madam, I promise. I won’t feel that way again. Please don’t tell them.”
She spoke to my dad. My dad was shocked. He screamed: “Hmmmm! Ato! Is that true? You’re telling your friends your madam is your girlfriend?”
He threw his hand to hit me and my madam blocked it. She told my dad: “I’m telling you so you start moulding him. He’s a teenager so this is the time you make him understand the changes he would go through as a boy experiencing his teen. Don’t beat him. He may end up doing worse things behind you.”
My dad thanked her and she left.
The first slap came from my mother. She screamed: “If the spirit of fornication has entered you, I’ll cast it out today. What kind of embarrassment is that?”
She was looking around for something to hit me. My dad threw his belt to her. By the time she caught the belt, I’d escaped from her grip. But a runaway child always comes back home. So, I did and my dad took it from where my mom left off. I was beaten like a thief.
I would be walking with my mom and we would meet her friend and my mom would go like: “Can you imagine what Ato did in school?” She would tell them the story just to embarrass me. A few days later, everyone in our area knew I was in love with my madam. I lost interest in school and lost interest in life. I regretted having them as parents because they were the reason people pointed their fingers at me and mocked me.
My dad changed school for me and told the teachers to be watchful of me because I fall in love easily. The change of environment did the trick. I started rebuilding my confidence and started doing away with girls. If a girl sat next to me, I changed my seat. If I was paired with a girl, I begged to be paired with someone different. I didn’t want to have anything to do with girls any more.
I grew up and didn’t know how to deal with women, even those I fell in love with. My mates teased me that I was scared of women but I never shared my story with them.
I fell in love again when I went into university and again, I couldn’t tell her. I stayed far away and daydreamed about her just like I did with my teacher. It was my course mate who later dated the girl. I hated that guy until I completed university. He didn’t know what he did wrong and I never told him. He stole my girl. A girl I never proposed to or even dated.
I’m twenty-seven years now and things are better. I have a girlfriend—my third. I struggle at first but once I get them, the fear goes away and I give my all to the relationship.
I still remember that madam. I know her name but don’t know where the wind of life blew her to. She meant well for me but my parents blew it out of proportion. I still love her but in a different way. The fact that she didn’t hate me and instead tried to help me gladdens my heart a lot any time I think of it. Wherever she is, I hope she’s happy and that she got a man who would love her backyard and curves the way I did.
