Loyalty is For Dogs II

"To ruin a man properly, you must first make him trust you."

Trigger Warning:

Features sexual assault, sexual acts, revenge porn, and an unhinged main character with questionable morals.

I’ve been accused of many things: heartlessness, seduction, even witchcraft once (Michael’s words, not mine). But never laziness. I take my work very seriously.

So seriously, in fact, that I’ve spent almost two years on this little project of mine.

One that requires my body and brain, but luckily, not my heart.

I knew that to create a true work of art, I had to gather diverse experiences. My masterpiece needed to be a real report on the process of breaking a man. Bad men, to be specific. How the perpetrators react when they become the victims.

You might be thinking… But Mide was nice.

Well, let’s talk about Mide. He was… pleasant. Predictable. The type to buy flowers on birthdays and apologise mid-argument. I liked him. Enough to test him.

But it wasn’t his calm demeanour that caught my attention. It was what he had in common with the other victims I’d chosen: he was, objectively, a bad person. I already told you about Michael and his disgusting opinions, didn’t I? Met him on Twitter, FYI.

So, back to Mide, the soft boy.

We met at one of those chaotic Lagos house parties. The ones where the host starts by saying something like “we’re all adults here,” and then everyone proceeds to get too drunk to remember their own names while playing a very carnal game of truth or dare.

When the bottle landed on Mide, someone asked: Truth or dare? He picked ‘truth’.

Then came the question: What’s one dark secret you’ve never told anyone?

Now, I don’t know what compelled him to confess. Maybe the alcohol. Maybe the illusion of intimacy; it was a small group of six of us playing among a crowd of strangers. Maybe he thought his secret was safe.

His confession?

He told us about a night from secondary school.

He and his friends had done the unspeakable to a girl in their class. They cornered her into the boys’ bathroom one evening during prep. They even recorded it. Not their faces, just hers. Her vulnerable body. Her fear. And they threatened to release the video if she ever reported them, so she didn’t.

He claimed he regretted it now. He had been attending therapy and had apparently vowed to spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it.

Therapy, reformation, redemption arc. You know the drill.

Maybe that’s why he was such a perfect boyfriend.

But I wonder if she ever got the same chance to heal.

Anyways, you understand now why I felt nothing when I made Deji pick up Mide’s call that night. The call came in mid-action, and I felt nothing but peace when I moaned into the receiver loud enough to make Mide’s heart shatter into a million pieces while my body reached ecstasy.

Mide really thought we had something special. God forbid.

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Now, as for Deji, my current subject. Why him?

We met at a clothing store in Victoria Island, and he looked like chaos in a leather jacket from the outset. His eyes scanned my body the second we bumped into each other. His voice? Smooth, confident, and compelling.

I smiled. He noticed. Hook, line, and future heartbreak.

But the real reason I chose Deji? He was married. Wedding band and all, shamelessly flirting with me in public. A walking contradiction. Perfect specimen.

He stopped wearing the ring after the first time we met. He even claimed it was just a fashion accessory when I brought it up later. Cute.

Like I said, he’s observant. But not that observant.

To crash and burn this relationship, I won’t just cheat. That would be too simple.

No, I’ll “accidentally” send him a view-once video of me making out with someone else (my next victim) — with a cheeky little caption like, “GIRLLLLL this man is so hot 😩🔥”, as if I meant to send it to my best friend, Zainab.

At the same time, I’ll send an anonymous video of Deji and me going at it to his wife. (Yes, I have her number.) The footage is carefully edited. My face never appears. Only his.

But first, I need him to fall just a little deeper. He’s already telling me he wishes he had met me before his wife. But Yoruba men and their sweet mouths; I don’t buy it. Not yet.

I need him to mean it.
I need him to be ready to leave her for me.

Then, she’ll leave him first.
And I’ll leave him too.

God, I’m getting giddy just thinking about it.

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Deji is number 7. He’ll be the subject of Chapter 6.

He would’ve been Chapter 7, but let’s just say one of my previous victims wasn’t worth a full chapter. Let’s call him the control group. Every study needs one.

Yes. In case it wasn’t already obvious, I’m writing a book. Not just a novel, a thesis of sorts. An artistic experiment and academic inquiry.

Each guy is a chapter. The theme? Betrayal, morality, the myth of male innocence, and the elasticity of female rage.

To be authentic, I had to play the villain, not just for drama but for data.

However, as much as I would like to claim this is nothing personal, there’s a tinge of personal vengeance in it for me, to be honest.

Not from personal experience. I’ve never given my heart away, not really.

But I grew up in a world that made examples out of girls.

A ridiculous fact — every single one of my close female friends has been cheated on, manipulated, or abused by their partners. Every. Single. One.

The day Zainab came crying to me with a black eye was the day something in me broke. That was the day the experiment began.

I’d been thinking of writing my first novel, and I got the very bright idea to make it a karmic tale. I decided that if society loves making women cautionary tales, I’ll write one they can’t ignore.

I’d become the predator.

For research, of course.

In a few months, I’ll wrap up the experiment, sit with my editor, and publish a masterpiece.

I hope you’ll read it.

And don’t worry about the men who came before Michael or the ones lined up after Deji. Each one got or will get every ounce of devastation he deserves.

Their stories, when I finally tell them, will be absolutely delectable.

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Author’s Note
I hope you’ve enjoyed the two-part series that was this twisted piece of fiction.

If you haven’t read Part 1, check it out here:

Loyalty is for Dogs

This is the last issue of my newsletter for the month of May, and I’m so grateful for everyone who is reading it and who has read any of the write-ups I’ve put out so far.

Starting this newsletter was incredibly important to me for many reasons.

I wanted to take ownership of my writing and finally write what I wanted, not what I was made to write. I also wanted to finally put my work out there for visibility because, though I don’t always enjoy being perceived, it’s important for me as a writer. Finally, I’m doing this to share what I love doing with other people while sharpening my skills through consistency.

I’m very proud of how consistent I’ve been this month, even though it’s not easy to have a weekly newsletter. I will endeavour to keep this consistent for as long as I can while staying true to myself.

That said, I am creating monthly themes to guide my output for each month. This will start from next month, the theme of which will be ‘CONTROVERSY.’

Yes, you heard that right. So buckle up.