THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER

And so, I got a sugar daddy. He was a reverend father in the Catholic Church next to my school. Even though I never thought of the idea of priests getting paid for their service in church, I knew this man was loaded with money. He was well connected with politicians and big men in Enugu state.

The best part about having this reverend father as a sugar daddy was that nobody suspected anything. I would often go to meet him for my Friday evening “prayers”, and the next morning, I would get a credit alert from a “donation” the priest made into my account for my non-existent sick sister.

It was all fun and games until I fell pregnant. Predictable, isn’t it?

I had to go all the way to Lagos to meet an elderly woman who secretly did abortions for young girls who did not want their gist to be exposed.

I almost died during the abortion and it was at that moment that I knew God was punishing me for sleeping with His anointed.

But it didn’t end there, I still went back to the reverend father’s bed from time to time. But this time, I was more scared than ever.

I stopped the sex and I lost my only source of income.

I learnt that if religion cannot stop you from having sex before marriage, pregnancy scare will.

I had to get my life together and tried to be the girl that my mother groomed me to be. But it was too late. Mummy’s Chioma Obiakaeze was dead and gone. I had to survive on the little money I had left from my sugar daddy’s “donations”.

At age 23, I learnt that being perfect and trying to please everybody is more exhausting than trying to make a Yoruba demon loyal. My mother and a few aunties came to visit Enugu for a wedding. I got rid of all my Jezebel outfits and put on my Holy Mary Mother of God clothes to impress my mother. But I hated how ugly those clothes made me look. I hated how I had to put on a “perfect child” act for my mother and the aunties at the wedding in order to feel accepted.

The aunties said I would make a good wife. But in their own interpretation, it meant I would make a good “doormat”. The aunties telling me to go and get married makes me not want to get married more. I was not going to join them in their misery of Doormat Kingdom.

At age 24, I finally went back home after I graduated with a pass mark, after having multiple carryovers these past few years.

I lied to my mother on the phone that I graduated with a 2:1 but the certificate was still in school. I thought she was going to scold me for not getting a first class mark, but it seemed like being away from home for a long time had soften her spirit for me.

But she didn’t know what was coming for her.