Consent—A lost and endangered Art

Fiction that you might not agree with.

Ìbùkún thinks about his girlfriend the way broke people ruminate about money. He never neglects an opportunity to talk about the latest achievement she's made or share the funny joke she came up with, jokes that make him laugh and lose his breath as if he's hearing them again for the first time. He talks about Mariah the way your local village chief would boast about his very first Benz. His eyes shine brighter than headlights, his pride and adoration for this lovely young woman is anything but inconspicuous.

And so because I assume that Ibukun's healthy relationship makes him an expert on matters of the heart, I turn to him for advice. Ìbùkún has been my friend through the ups and downs of gory situationships and has held my hand while I stumbled through talking stages that I never should've been in in the first place. He was a good friend, not an iota of doubt about that fact. But our personal beliefs were like water and oil or better still, parallel lines that would never meet. His takes on certain issues would often make me want to poke his eyes with my fingers.

"Is that why you're angry?" He asked incredulously. His hair was in its usual "comb me not" knots and he was wearing our red class jersey. He'd just emerged from the thickets of an intense match but I'd had an emergency, a love emergency. And of course, doctor love had to don his heart—sorry, hat—and fly over from sports centre to my hostel in his mighty chariot, a small Unilag cab.

I narrowed my eyes, confused by his irritation, "yes, yes that is exactly why I'm angry."

Ìbùkún hissed for a beat then proceeded into full on laughter. His deep chuckles weren't sounds of amusement or joy, they reverberated off my ears as deep seated scorn and mockery. My confusion gave way to irritation as I observed him, tears gathering in his eyes from his meaningless amusement.

"Sarah, this isn't primary or secondary school. Boys will touch you if they're into you. It's not that deep."

"It is!" I snapped, nearly flying of the ledge we were seated on. "It's that deep because I told him not to grope me. I told him severally!"

Ìbùkún huffed, still amused as he pulled out his phone. "But you let him kiss your neck?"

"That's besides the point!"

"Did you or did you not allow this boy to kiss your neck?"

My words died in my throat and I sat back. It felt like a balloon had deflated in my chest as Ìbùkún unlocked his phone and replied to a few messages.

"You're growing up, Sarah." He continued gently, "you shouldn't run away so much from sexual conversions..."

"I'm not running." I mumbled, very happy at the fact that I had interrupted him.

"You said he kissed your lips as well." Ìbùkún looked up, a cheeky smirk on his face, "where do you want him to keep his hands when he's kissing you? In his pockets?"

I glared at him then. Not subtly, in a way a child does when she is displeased with her mother. I looked him straight in the eyes so he could see the fury burning in ḿine.

"Oya, relax. When he grabbed your ass, what did you do? How did you react?"

I sighed and looked away. After the way I had reacted at his amusement I felt too ashamed to talk about my mixed feelings.

"I didn't react." I said quietly. "I was just still... And shocked. There was a part of me that liked it... Because I liked him."

"Exactly!" Ìbùkún raised his voice.

"But still," i said ignoring him. "What he did was wrong. I told him explicitly from the beginning that I didn't want to be touched or groped... And he just went ahead and did whatever he wanted. He said he wasn't going to ask me out for another nine months, how on earth did he even muster up the courage to grope me?"

"But you asked for a kiss—"

"It doesn't matter!" I snapped, shaking my head vehemently, "we discussed boundaries and we discussed them clearly. I told him everything I wasn't comfortable with and he said it was fine. He didn't have the right to touch me without asking!"

When he noticed how riled up I was starting to get, Ìbùkún took an exagerrated deep breath. It was obvious that he wanted me to do the same so I did. He placed a hand on my shoulder and neither of us said anything for a bit.

"So what happens now?" Ìbùkún asked suddenly.

"I texted him. I told him I didn't want to see him anymore."

"Ah ah!" He shouted, his hand flying off my shoulder, "that's too much. You know your future boyfriend will still touch you right? It's a relationship..."

"I'm not interested in someone who doesn't respect me or my boundaries. I don't want to be touched and groped because I don't want things to escalate. I put boundaries in place because God forbid something happens, he'll be the first person to evaporate."

Ìbùkún sighed, "so, you don't want to make out until marriage?"

"No!"

He smiled softly, "oya nau. I'll be here to laugh at you when you defy that promise.

We'd had that conversation three weeks ago. I like to pretend that it didn't happen, that the night we'd spoken was a pizza dream triggered by my bruised ego. Or better still, he'd only spoken like that because he was so exhausted from the match and the stress of it all had messed with his thinking. Yeah, that was probably what had happened, he hadn't been clear headed.

But deep down, I knew my delusions were like baskets that believed they could hold water. Unfortunately, doctor love wasn't as picture perfect as I'd once thought.

We'd agreed to go see a play in the evening so I wanted to confirm. He'd developed a habit of ditching me to see Mariah recently so my mind was tinted with doubt. I picked out his number and called him. It rang out till Airtel told me the obvious. I tried again three more times and on the fourth try, my heart had fully sunk.

I already knew what had happened.

Trekking so quickly to education had given me leg cramps but my panic numbed the pain. I tried calling him again, the wind whipping my face and braids but he still didn't pick. When I had finally made my way through the street and reached the clearing that led to his hostel, I realized how irrational i was being. It was definitely about to rain and I'd rushed to the residence of a person that I hadn't even been able to contact.

Luckily for me, my guts were still in working order. Ìbùkún was seated in front of his hostel on a makeshift bench that was usually reserved for the roadside cobbler. He was seated there, staring into the distance like he was under some sort of spell. I rushed towards him and waved my hands rapidly in front of his face but I got no response. If I hadn't had an idea of what had happened to him, I would've actually slapped him.

"Ìbùkún!" I snapped, "Ìbùkún please, speak to me."

Finally, he grunted deeply like it was taking every cell in his body just to communicate, "i didn't pick your calls, Sarah. That should've told you that I didn't want to talk."

I shook my head, bitter and pissed at his attempts to push me away. "You're not going to go through this alone. I want you to tell me what happened."

He looked me in the eye, some feeble attempt to scare me I guess. But the deep, darkened bags under his eyes and the lines that were forming on his face gave him away. He had the expression of an old tree that had weakened with age.

"Please let me be there for you, the way you've been there for me." I pushed our odd conversation to the dark crevices of my mind and decided to focus entirely on him. "What happened?"

"Mariah." He whispered. His voice cracked for a moment but he quickly composed himself and cleared his throat, "she broke up with me."

I exhaled and gently took a seat beside him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him closer.

"Did she at least say why?"

"Yeah," He wheezed, "but it's irrelevant."

I wanted to say that I didn't understand but he was two steps ahead of me. He unlocked his phone with a finger print and showed me a video.

It was Mariah. I could recognize the flawless yellow skin and slim face anywhere. She was running a hand through a curly, sleek wig that I was very sure couldn't be less than 120 k. In the next cut, she was wearing it and blowing kisses at the camera.

"Thank you, chief Zuzu!" She squealed with a toothy smile. Then the video ended.

"Well, that's pathetic. She left you for a guy called Zuzu?"

The comment made Ìbùkún smile just a little, "it's a stupid nickname. He's one of the professors in Philosophy—"

"He's what?!" I sat up, aghast. Ìbùkún shot me a look and I settled down apologetically.

"They met at a club while she was still seeing me. I told her it wasn't a good idea to get close to him but she said it didn't matter since she was a mass comm student. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd loose my girlfriend to a man old enough to be my grandad."

I sighed, "I'm so sorry."

Ìbùkún shrugged, "I know for sure she's with him now because she made a video in his office and posted it a few minutes ago. Hs ashen hand was on her thigh."

I smiled a bit at his comment. "Well... Clearly, she has no class. Imagine dating a man who is threatened by a student.

Ìbùkún nodded, "Real..."

We sat together for a while, my hand around his shoulders and his eyes focused on the street. The weather had relaxed a bit since we'd started talking and while it was still windy, the sky was beginning to clear up. Pedestrians weren in such a hurry to find shelter anymore and the cars were moving at a regular pace as well.

"I guess I'm no longer qualified to give you relationship advice anymore." He quipped dryly. I bit my lip, resisting the urge to tell him that he'd lost his certification the last time he's given me advice.

"Probably not... But I'll definitely still be ranting to you about the clowns here that pose as students."

He smiled, genuinely this time. "Same here, Sarah. Same here."