Holes Before Bros

Well, before I delve into this story, I’ll like to thank everyone who’s been sharing my stories and supporting me all this while. It’s because of you I do this and no one else.

So I got a random call from a lady called Baaba. According to her, she’s been married for ten years now, and her story is scary but fascinating and educational as well. I stayed on the line for close to two hours as she narrated her story for me to write. She started….

“By the time I’m done with this story, there will be mixed feelings amongst several people but I believe God wants me to send this message across to anyone heading into marriage. Many at times, we enter into marriages having considered our partner’s financial statuses, sexual compatibility, their family, way of thinking, religion, etc., but one thing we usually fail to consider, is our partners’ spiritual lives. Well, I believe my story can pretty much give you an enlightenment as to why this factor is very important in every relationship.

Our Twitter Wedding

Nana proposed to me in July 2012 after dating for three solid years. What a ride it was. To me, he was the best guy I had ever dated, the only one who respected my decision to be celibate until marriage. Yes, I was untouched and I wanted to keep it that way until the day my husband takes off my gown on our wedding night. My exes hated the idea, but Nana came into the picture and assured me he was going to observe ‘the wait’, not only because he was also a virgin, but due to his respect for me. That was when I realised he was the right man for me. I won’t lie and say it was easy. Many a time, we had been caught in very compromising situations, situations I can recall as “almost-sex,” that’s if that word even exists. I mean, on countless occasions we would make out until we were both yearning for it. But I always stood my ground, no matter how tough it was.

We got married and our wedding videos were all over twitter. I was unfazed by people having their noses in my business, all I wanted was to have as much time with the love of my life, just making love from dusk till dawn, anywhere, everywhere, any how. My wish was granted when my parents booked a vacation for us in Paris for our honeymoon. I honestly don’t remember us having serious conversations during those eleven days, all we did was shag, every single day. We surely made up for our years of sex-starving each other.”

Listening to this lady talk on and on about her sex life was really making me uncomfortable. “Can we move on past the sex please?” I asked. She laughed and said, “Sorry about that Nana Asempa, I just had to reminisce on the good old days; the beginning of our marriage was the best, I’m sure of it.” She said that while her voice crumbled at the end, seeming to break down in tears. I calmed her down and asked her to take a deep breath before she continued.

My Poor Husband

“Two years into our marriage things began to sour. My husband had been job hunting for years after being laid off by his previous employers. I had now turned into the breadwinner. Between my job, my father’s apartments, (that were in my name) and a restaurant in Osu, was what put bread on the table. Nana could attend over fifty interviews in a year. The situation got even more frightening when he got fired just three weeks after he was employed, for theft claims without any concrete evidence. He was clearly made a scapegoat for an offense he did not commit – my poor husband. He lost his self confidence and began to look down on himself. I always made sure I was there to keep encouraging him, telling him he was going to have his breakthrough soon, but it wasn’t easy. My despair started two years after our marriage because I wasn’t getting pregnant.

Barren!

We tried on countless occasions to get pregnant. Don’t even think we were not having enough sex, we were boning each other frequently. Regardless of his unemployment issues we were still very much attracted to each other. Our mums kept asking countless questions about our inability to have a child. I would cry uncontrollably on many occasions whenever we visited a family friend with kids, it always got to me. We visited the fertility clinic at least once a month. We ran every test possible but our results always came back negative of any sort of infection. We were both clean and very much compatible. Low-key, I wished there was something wrong with either of us, just so we could know exactly how to tackle the issue. It’s always tougher to deal when the doctor keeps telling you, “oh you’re fine. Just hang in there, and pray, you’ll get pregnant soon.”

Our Bundle of Joy

Our prayers were indeed answered not long after. One morning soon after clocking in at work I ran to the bathroom and threw up twice. My menstrual period had delayed so I was able to put the pieces together and realised I was pregnant. “I’m pregnant” was what I wrote on a small note and placed under Nana’s plate during dinner. I sat opposite and had a large smile on my face the whole time. Nana had just returned from yet another disappointing job hunt. “Why are you smiling so much my love? And why do you keep staring at me?” I smiled as he asked me and told him, “I’m just lucky to have you.” – But that was just a few minutes before he jumped for joy after reading the note. He flooded my face with kisses and started shedding tears of joy. We hugged each other and reassured ourselves of our love and how we were both going to raise our new bundle of joy with endless love and affection. That was one of our most memorable days together.

Red all over!

But it was short-lived. A few weeks after, I woke up in the middle of a cold Wednesday night, feeling very restless and uncomfortable, and with a pain in my abdomen. I looked to my left, Nana softly snoring, fast asleep. Headed to the kitchen to get myself some water. I stood there for about thirty minutes before I started feeling a bit better. With heavy eyes, I switched off the light and made my way back into the bedroom. Immediately I sat on the bed, I felt the sharp pain and tried my best not to scream. I bit my lower lip so hard it became sore. Then, I felt a thick liquid run down from in between my thighs, as if someone had spilled a sachet of water on the bed. I looked down only to find red oozing out from in between my thighs. That’s when I screamed. My screams woke Nana up, but I didn’t even tell him anything, he saw the direction of my gaze and all I heard from him was “Oh my God, no!”

That was not the only time I had had a miscarriage. It happened three more times; four miscarriages! My husband and I were going through the worst time in our marriage. I started regretting getting married, because all I had done since then was get depressed. I had been married to an unemployed husband for six years and battled with four miscarriages. My mother-in-law started to despise me, trying to turn her son against me. I was slowly becoming suicidal. I would occasionally wake up at dawn and burst out into tears.

The hyped Pastor

Even though Nana’s mother turned against me, calling me barren, my mum didn’t. She used to visit occasionally and kept encouraging me to pray.- That was one thing I had failed. I was not as prayerful as I used to be, I started losing faith after all the suffering. But my mom always kept pushing me to keep the faith. She would constantly invite me to church which I always turned down. But one Friday night, I followed her to an all-night service. I needed to speak to the so-called powerful prophet this woman had been hyping all year round.

It was quite a small church. I felt really uncomfortable when I first got there, the people in attendance were low-to-middle class, the walls of the church were unpainted, the floor not tiled. It was quite obvious it was a startup church that I was sure needed to exploit the congregation’s money in order to complete the furnishing. But I began to have a change of heart when we went deeper into prayer an hour later. It was as though my spirit felt at home. I was praying in tongues and singing praises like I had never done before. But during prayer, something interesting happened, that turned my whole life around. The pastor called me to the altar and urged the congregation to pray for me as he could clearly see a marine spirit meddling in my life and marriage.”

She took a pause in her storytelling, asking me if I go to church to which I answered yes. She took a deep breathe again and said, “Well then, you should not play with with your prayer life, regardless of your religion, take your prayers really seriously.”

And with that she continued her tale…

“These Pastors can lie oo”

“After thirty solid minutes of intense prayer, the prophet asked for some silence from the congregation, looked at me sternly and what this man said was what frightened me the most. – “your husband has a connection with a marine spirit, a spirit he got from another woman. That spirit has been the cause of all your sorrow. Praying for you alone won’t solve your problems, we rather need to pray for all three of you; yourself, your husband and the lady, at the same time, to exorcise that demon and break the connection once and for all.” I gasped for a second, opened my eyes and looked at the prophet. I could not believe what I had just heard. These prophets say whatever they please and extort from people. I was not going to be another victim, there was no way I was going to believe what he had just told me. It was a blatant lie. “Bring me your husband and the woman and let me pray for them. You can take your seat.”

As I walked back to my seat, I pitied myself. I could not believe I had stooped so low to have listened to this old woman, by bringing me here to this low-level church, with a fake pastor who has bewitched his congregation into believing in him. I was disgusted. I drove angrily, cursing myself the whole time, and parking intermittently to shed a few tears. Upon arrival home Nana approached me, sat me down, and calmly asked me to tell him what had happened.

“Is that what the prophet told you?” Nana asked, after I had vividly narrated the whole church story. He did not utter a word, pulled me close and gently put my head on his shoulder and rubbed my arms. For about ten minutes, he said nothing. Rather strange. I looked at him and asked, “why the silence babe?” He smiled and said, “I’m just sad it’s all my fault, if things were going on so well for us, you would not have had to go to that church.” We hugged and buried the issue. Well, that was what I thought.

The Confession

Two weeks later, he called me to the sitting room and told me he had something to discuss with me. The serious look on his face frightened me. His gaze never leaving the floor as he sat on the centre table he said, “I have a confession to make. I hope you will forgive me. I want you to know that I love you very much, I always have and always will. I’ve never cheated on you and never will I. Before we got married I did something very stupid. What the pastor said to you, well…..well….I had already been thinking of it for some years now, and I feel he might be right.”

Every possible scenario was rolling through my mind like a movie but I didn’t interrupt and let him continue.

“Holes Before Bros” Season

“At a point our lack of sex was frustrating me. Yes I was a virgin, but I really wanted to lose it. The boys and I had a tradition every December, we called it the “Holes Before Bros” season. It was what people would call our “hoeing phase.” – we would occasionally step out to clubs and pubs, and randomly pick on girls to shag. Even though I never slept with them, I always entertained them and sometimes made out with some of them. But the December we got married, I actually went farther than I had ever before.”

“What are you saying Nana? You mean you had sex with a random lady? Explain please! Go straight to the point and tell me what you did!”

He exhaled and wiped a tear. “I had way too many drinks that night. I was going home with the boys and we stopped at the Nkrumah Circle traffic light. We saw a couple of ladies standing by the roadside. As we waited for the lights to turn green, Jones called them over to join us in the car. Even though his approach was quite cheesy, the three ladies approached our car. Jones lured them closer, as he jokingly hinted at us six having a good time together in one hotel room. Well, that was what I thought, but the dude was dead ass serious.”

“We booked a cheap hotel room when we got to Achimota. The rest of the guys were all excited and quite pumped up for the night ahead. I saw Kevin slide a condom into his back pocket but I’m sure I was the only one nervous. The boys were going to have sex with these girls whom I was guessing were prostitutes, and it felt unreal. Michael locked the door behind us and Jones went straight into the bathroom to freshen up. The others stayed drinking and smoking with the ladies. One of the ladies, who’s name I can barely remember, approached me and asked me to calm down, gave me her bottle of beer to sip and started rubbing her hands over my chest. Jones came out from the bathroom with nothing but his boxer shorts and a boner. As we burst out into laughter at his boner, one of the ladies walked to him, got down and started having an oral session with him, right in front of our eyes. Those girls were just crazy. He then threw some pills to Mike which I was guessing was an aphrodisiac and asked us to take one each. Now that was when all hell broke loose.

Thirty minutes in, I was drunk, high, horny, very energetic and very excited. I grabbed the lady who was making advances on me, stripped off her clothes and started getting nasty. A few minutes into making out, I had totally forgotten everything. I saw the boys on the other corners of the room, already humping the ladies. I wasted no time and started thrusting into the girl, so hard she screamed the loudest in the room, – not bad for a man who just broke his virginity. It got really intense and I climaxed into her.”

The Pastor was right

I screamed immediately and stood up at once. “Wait, wait a minute, you climaxed into a prostitute Nana? You had unprotected sex with a prostitute and went on to release your seeds into a her? Are you mad Nana? And you put that same filthy manhood of yours inside me? What??? I’ve heard enough. I’m sorry I do not want to continue listening to your story. I’ve heard enough.” I stormed out of the room and broke down halfway. I cried, Lord knows how much I screamed my lungs out. I remember giving him a dirty slap as he tried to console me, but I was not sorry.

It took a whole week to get over the issue and come to terms with the fact that the prophet indeed could be right. I started making necessary arrangements for us to go see the prophet. But then, the Herculean task was to get to the prostitute.

Finding the Prostitute

We made several calls in hopes of finding her. Luckily for us, Michael remembered the name of the prostitute he had sex with that night, and told us without letting his wife find out. She was called Nana Ama, a.k.a “Love” and she worked at a bar in Labone. So we located that bar and asked the owners to help us find the lady. Though it was after many years, they were able to help us with her digits.

We hurriedly made it to an area in Teshie, Herty was her name, and she was now a veteran in the game, many years down the line. We used the location Nana Ama gave us and we were sure we had found her. She opened her door when we knocked and my heart started beating so fast when I saw her. Interestingly, she did not recognise my husband, he was just one of her numerous one-night stands. I could not utter a word when she asked us of our mission, I was just sizing her from head to toe, wondering what my husband saw in her. Nana stepped in saying, “We’re messengers of a prominent pastor, who is very much interested in having a one-night stand with you.” He had to tell her something believable.

“Sorry but I don’t do this anymore, I have my girls now so you would have to choose which one you want.”

We tried a little more convincing and finally had her accompany us on a certain Friday night.

Our Redemption

We got to the church quite early and took the front seats. Herty kept asking if we were sure the pastor wanted to spend the night with her, I guess she was dumbfounded seeing the poor state of the church and wondered if he could afford her. Halfway through the praises, she tapped me and whispered into my ears, “am I supposed to sit through the whole service? I need to move please, time is money!” She was getting impatient so I spent the next half an hour convincing her to wait until service was done in order to have a good time with the pastor.

And just like an answered prayer the pastor called us to the altar. He made mention to the congregation that he was about to break out a spirit that had been troubling my marriage, and that was when Herty looked at me and frowned. Little did she know her life was about to change forever.

Ten minutes into our prayers and I was sweating like a fish. The pastor had asked the congregation to stretch forth their hands towards us in prayer. The church was echoing with loud shouts of tongues and praises. I opened my eyes for a second and saw Nana praying with so much energy I had never seen before, with his hands clapping feverishly. Herty on the other hand, had started feeling uneasy, winding around as if she was dizzy. The pastor approached her and smeared some oil on her forehead and to my amazement, she started jumping and screaming on top of her voice. She was so loud her voice surpassed everyone else’s. The pastor summoned two of his associates to help him with the prayers, that was when I realised how serious the situation had gotten. For the next forty minutes, Herty kept winding and rolling on the floor. I started getting so scared I wished I did not have to be present, but the thought of my sufferings and cries kept me on my toes.

The pastor asked for some silence and moved closer to Herty, who kept talking to herself; it looked as though she had gone bonkers. He said a few words in tongues and asked her to speak up.

Her mouth opened and an unnatural voice spoke, “why are you worrying us? We have been inside her for the past fifteen years.”

I took a few steps back, as I witnessed for the first time in my life, an exorcism.

“We have made her sleep with over a thousand men, and all these stupid men have been married to us, we own them now! They are also having troubles in their marriages. Hahahaha!” She started laughing out so loud afterwards until the pastor had had enough and started smearing some more oil on her forehead. The screams got louder and the room was filled with dust.

Then silence as Herty laid unconscious on the floor, the battle had ended, she had been set free. The pastor walked up to my husband, laid his hands on him, and said some prayers as well.”

New Beginnings

That was two and a half years ago. Nana and I moved permanently to Kasoa, one of my father’s homes he left for me. It has this huge and beautiful lawn area, in which I’m seated comfortably talking to you at the moment. “Laura, take it easy don’t run, I’ve told you to always walk!” – yes, that’s my beautiful daughter running around the house. She’s turning two this July, and yes, the prayers did work. Nana is currently furthering his education in Computer Science in Russia, and has started his business on the side which is picking up so well. I can’t be more grateful to God, it’s been a rollercoaster ride these past few years. As for Herty, Nana said he last saw her a year ago, preaching at American House Bus Stop at East Legon, I believe she’s been saved.

My faith in the Lord has been rekindled. I never skip Sunday or midweek service. I have grown my relationship in Christ and I’m so proud to tell the whole world what he has done for me. I would like for you to tell the whole world to pray for their partners, married or not, for its really important to pray for your partner, before and during engaging in any sexual activities with him or her, – you’d be surprised to know what the Lord is saving you from. It really does not matter if you’re Christian or Muslim, just pray, pray for your wives and husbands, pray for your boyfriends and girlfriends, and even pray for yourself, you never know who you’ll be sleeping with in the near future

Edited by Zala Awity