The world as I saw it was but a blur, till then like crystals I started to see filth for filth. Ten years ago I had just seen my first beard, it was while I woke erect and perplexed. Erect because biology said at that age my body would start to respond to cold and seek heat in moist places; between a lady’s thighs. Perplexed because these new feeling had without a moment’s notice jumped me so hard!

“What nonsense is this?” my heart beat sporadic dum-dum and my brows they shone with sweat. It was morning, so I pulled my blanket closer “maybe it’s the cold,” I said to myself. It was a soft fluffy blanket which until that moment had no colours. I woke up to see the brown and blue stripes. For the first time I felt it’s smooth texture against my skin and there in my room all colours came to life. My bed, the floor and walls took on new feels. I could hear the house rousing for the day but I struggled with shame, how did this thing between my legs work such cunning on me.

“Dolapo!” Mother called, “have you said your prayers?” It was then I realized that it could be that my prayers the night before were insufficient, maybe the devil had taken a hold of my body parts. “Wait, did I pray before sleeping?” I wondered aloud. “Hmmm,” that was the sigh I made and with it a resolve that father could not know I had given the devil my body. The way I saw things that morning could only be a result of being plagued by demons from the darkest parts of hell. Suddenly everything had a taste or smell, It was like been jerked awake from a thousand years of sleep.

“Let us pray,” father’s voice like the reverberating sound of big drums, rumbled. “Our Father in heaven, thank you for a night without mishap. For another day where we live life for your name sake. Forgive us of trespasses we know of and the ones we know not…” His words then brought them back to me, father had said something that culled the memories of my trespasses, it happened while I slept.

In my dream that girl on the late night show—the one whose hair bounced with the wind, she showed up and asked me to take a swim. We were naked, stripped to bare skin next to the pool. I peered into the water, it was clear and she smiled back at me. “What evil?” I thought, I never knew till that moment that my dream self could think. Father had always warned us about the women that come to us in our dreams, he said they would plague us till we are dragged down to hell. I screamed the holy name in my mind but she just smiled back all innocent and enchanting, so I thought maybe she was harmless after all. It turned into a nightmare when every night she would come in my dreams, my pajamas would be wet every morning. I perspired at the thought of shutting my eyes to sleep.

There was this scripture, the one about a strange law working in my body. I knew that girl was my nemesis, she provoked my body part to do silly things at night! How was I going to tell this thing between my legs, that I never wanted it to rise except on my instruction.

Then on my fifteenth birthday, I thought it was a dream. “Hello mate,” it said. I stared under my blanket, jaw agape. “Shit! This demon has gone all bonkers and bold. Now he makes my standing boner to talk?”
I cautiously raised the blanket and looked again and there it was, giving me a coy smile. I waved at it and said “hi, what’s happening here? You know boners don’t talk right?”
“Hahahahahahah, dude. Hahahahah,” it wiggled and toppled over my thigh in a fit of laughter.
“Shush! Don’t you know you could wake the whole house and then I would have to explain that I am talking to my boner. Then I will be bundled up and locked up and treated for some mental illness because my boner speaks?” I was frightened and about to lose it, he stared at me unblinking.
“And so? What if you got locked up? We would be buddies always and remember we are not done talking about the things that matter to us both.”
“What might that be?” I queried.
“The girl…”
“Shhhh! Which girl, which—which girl are you on about?” my brows were dripping a flood of sweat, I was just waiting for mother to call my name. She did finally after twenty minutes of torturous grilling, my mystery remained tucked in as I scampered out of bed. That whole day, my hands cradled my groin—necessarily to muffle the errant demon in my pants.

***

“Father I have sinned, again. I was just thinking of myself and this part of me. That mysterious idiot talks like a fool.”
Twentieth year had come, I had a lovely birthday away at school. My prayer times had turned to a confessional. I like to think God replied because like my boner, it seemed to me like even apparitions were stalking me. I became that “church boy” with a fervour hotter than Moses in the wilderness.

I could practically hear God breathing down my neck, saying things like “don’t listen to that demon in your pants! I made you to rule it and not the other way around. Stop dreaming about the girl in the night show, yes! that one with her hair bouncing in the wind…”
“Which—which girl are you talking about? I don’t know any girl Lord…”
“Hey dude!” a voice interrupted my communion, it came from my pants. My head shot up making a quick check, I was alone luckily. “Don’t you think it’s time we had that talk about the girrrrlll?” it leers at me in jest.

I was in the school chapel, I had taken a day off school work to concentrate. The situation wanted a remedy so badly, my dreams had become like walking into a fog. One minute my eyes would be heavy trailing the edges of my study notes, I would be drowsy from reading one sentence over and over. The next moment, I was back at the pool staring at her luscious lips. Her smile would taunt me, flicking her hair she would wink and blow me a kiss.

Those eyes were the most captivating part of the dream. She would turn full face to stare at my bare chest and then up my neck, she would linger on my mouth and then up till she holds my gaze. It was totally a silent exchange, none of us said a word to the other. There usually would be a thick blue fog dancing around her face and hair, then it would start. That hysterical laugh, right from underneath me. Just when I wanted to feel the assuaging relief of bursting climax, it would startle me.

I grew to hate my boner. It became a source of endless irritation for me. “If a member of your body causes you to sin, cut it off! For it is better that you lose one member than for your whole body to burn in hell.” I heard this message from the altar one more time on my twentieth year, it was the Sunday after my prayer at the chapel. I was convinced that God spoke through the Pastor. That judgement rang in my ears, it bounced around in my head—to cut it off!

“No! no dude, don’t do this to us. I never meant to be a nuisance, at least remember the good times. All the times you tugged at me; neck, shoulder and all. Remember the times I made you happy, we were a team and you can’t deny that…”
“Shutup!!! Just shut your noise,” I yelled back. It was me or him that day. I had with me a properly whet knife, it glistened in the dark room. By the edge of the bed I had opened to the passage, my eyes remained glued to that line “cut it off.” It wiggled in my hand, “trying to wriggle free is not going to help you. This ends today! You have made life miserable for me, you lowlife slimy snitch!”
“Calm down bro, Dolapo let’s talk this through…”

It almost sounded like I was hearing my mom’s voice coming from down there, my nausea rose. Why my own boner had gotten so bold to make life so miserable for me, join hands with my invasive dream girlfriend to fill my life with an endless thirst for the next orgasm. Now it was mimicking my mother’s voice!

My eyes were still trained on that line—cut it off, I held on to my shaft and mustered courage. Then I fell one swift blow right across, over and between my legs. There was blood everywhere, my heart shut down for some minutes and I woke up writhing in pain. A burst of wind from my window flipped the Bible pages as I scream, my hostel mates were now at my door trying to get in. They heard me scream, but there I was on the floor all weak and bleeding out.
My eyes went to the open pages. I could hardly see but it was like someone in the room there with me pushed it closer. “Will the hand then say to the ears, I need thee not?”

They say that we are born into sin and thus condemned before we could even take responsibility. However that day ten years ago was my initiation, all I had before then was a blank sheet with nothing to compare my impressions of life with. It was all black and white till that day when I woke up and hated a part of my own body enough to want it detached.