HIS KITO STORY (EDITION 16)

It was a boring afternoon at the office. With no other alternative to keep my mind busy, I logged onto 2go, an app I hadn’t used in ages. I wanted to see if I could reconnect with some old friends and perhaps make new friends. I logged in and found none of my friends online. I navigated to the gay room. I sifted through the various chats and profiles present in there, before happening on a dude named Richard. It wasn’t long before we started getting acquainted.

Richard was thirty-two, a cute bottom, a graduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and worked with a company in Asaba, where he also lived with his wife who was then pregnant – at least that’s what he told me. In the following weeks, we chatted and talked on the phone more and more, and I felt drawn to him. I began to fancy him a friend.

About a month after we met, he extended an invitation to me to visit him in Asaba. He sounded so genuine and was persuasive, but for one odd reason or the other, I kept postponing my trip to Asaba. A part of me wished he would grow weary of inviting me and perhaps withdraw or abandon his repeated invitations.

HIS COMING OUT STORY (It’s A Family Affair Too)

As I lay on my bed early that April, my heart raced as I pondered over what may have transpired the previous night. I was left all alone in the sitting room as my mum and siblings held a discussion in the bedroom. This was quite unusual as we normally had our discussions together. The hushed tone of their conversation was far from comforting. Somehow, I knew I was the topic of their discussion.

Months prior to that time, I made the tough decision of telling my mother of my sexuality. She didn’t yell or wail, as I had imagined. Instead, she calmly told me that it was good I told her and even blamed me for not telling her earlier. She said everything was going to be fine. I blinked in disbelief as I heard her words. It sounded too good to be true –indeed, it was.

HIS KITO STORY (EDITION 15)

My name is Noah. I have always been a man of caution, threading carefully wherever I go, keeping my professional life separate from my personal life. I have being visiting Nigeria at least once or twice a year for work since the early 1980s. And in the course of my trips, I have amassed a handful of friends and acquaintances, both for business and pleasure. And both my business engagements and pleasure trysts had never given me any cause for concern, worry or disconcertion.

That is, until a trip I made to Nigeria in 2013.

I am a forty-nine-year-old bisexual British man, married with a lovely wife and son. Whenever I am back at home in the UK, I focus all my time and energy on my family. However when I am away for work, I try to indulge in a bit of fun with guys.

So it was on a trip to Lagos, I logged on to my gayromeo account and set my location to Lagos; that way I would be able to arrange a meet with a guy in my hotel when I was free.

And I did meet someone.

HIS COMING OUT STORY (Edition 4)

Truth be told, I never once believed I would ever tell this story because every bit of it hurts me daily. But here goes.

My name is Mitch and I am gay. I was born the only son and the second and last child in my family, and was raised in a Christian home where life and everything else we did revolved around God, the Bible and perfection. Having perfectionist parents didn’t help matters much as all of our daily activities as kids were modeled and maintained religiously by our parents. We had strict schedules which very rarely included TV. On the rare occasions when we watched TV, it usually was to watch Christian kid movies such as the Do-nut Man series, Psalty the singing songbook, or Mother Goose. It was on one of these rare occasions that I had a glimpse of the existence of a major part of myself.

I was four at the time and my entire family was watching one of the Do-nut Man movies, when I felt this intense attraction for a black boy in the movie. Not knowing what to do or make of the weirdness I felt, I began to cry (yeah, I can be sissy like that), thus drawing the attention of my parents. When they questioned me, I told them that seeing that kid made me feel lonely because I had no brother. That was truthfully, the only way I could explain what I felt at that moment. My dad accepted my explanation but I vividly remember my Mother giving me this odd look.

MOVING FURTHER AWAY FROM THE CLOSET

You came out to your family and a few friends, and no one ever talked about it at all. No one asked if you’d found love. No one asked if there was someone you were currently seeing, or even how you were feeling.

You came out from the closet and stepped into a room full of broken bones on a very squishy wooden floor, and every step you made was like a wakeup call to the wild animals that there was a foreign object in the room.

And you wondered: Which is better, the stifling closet or the awkward lounge?

Nobody talks about the next step after coming out. Scratch that. Nobody knows the next step after coming out. Well, here is an idea: if you are still in the closet, enjoy the comfy dark confinement. And if you are out, welcome to the living nightmare where all you once knew . . . well, life just became a blank, nasty slate.

A couple of months after coming out to my family, I began to notice that things were good, but not great, and definitely not the same. I used to be a loner even among my family members, but now I make loners look like party people on steroids. Most times, I just wish I remained in the closet where my worst fear was how long it would take my travel documents to be ready so I can move to Europe.

But I am out. And I am not going back in.

HIS KITO STORY (EDITION 14)

WRITER’S NOTE: My name is Teflondon. I have been reading Kito Diaries since last year, but never thought to contribute until now. And I must admit, I have been more than impressed by the work done here daily, from the articles posted to the comments and different opinions expressed. Before I start my story, let me follow a few protocols of ass kissing and butt licking. I want to appreciate Pink Panther first of all for bringing all this together, for making such a platform where learned LGBT can interact. I am not by any means an awesome writer, maybe average at best. And I am amazed at the brilliant minds of everyone that writes on this blog. I can’t write fiction because my mind is not as imaginative as the lot who do so. However, the story I have to share is real. Here goes.

*

This happened a few years back. And I remember it all, because the turn of events changed my life forever.

I was listening to my James Blunt album on my iPod, seated outside my (father’s) house. There was no light and my dad was not home, as he always isn’t. I was very broke, and so had no money to buy fuel for the generator. I was also bored. And as any spoilt twenty-one-year-old fresh graduate of a prestigious private school would do when he is bored, I put a phone call through to a friend, Tolu. Tolu was my supplier of hunks, and I was looking for him to hook me up.

HIS COMING OUT STORY (Edition 3)

“I’m Gay.”

I finally dared to look up. I wasn’t sure what I saw those eyes. Could it be pain? Anger? Shock? I couldn’t define it. I looked back down at my feet. I just had my pedicure done and at the moment, it was the most beautiful thing I could stare at. It gave me joy and sudden hope that whatever the outcome, these beautiful feet would take me to a place where I can be me.

“Are you sure? Why didn’t you ever tell me?” The voice sounded so far and strangled, I couldn’t recognize it.

I looked up from my feet and met those eyes with a piercing gaze of my own. Why? You’re seriously asking that question? Really? Give me one good reason why I should have told you? You always had something hurting to say when the word ‘homosexual’ comes on the news or is randomly passed around by your club members during afternoon tea and some crumpets. Tell me how I could have said something to someone who has an agenda against us. TELL ME!

“What? What do you mean?” My words came choked up.

HIS KITO STORY (EDITION 13)

Writer’s Note: There will be pauses in between the narration of this story, to analyze the things that got me suspicious.

It was a throbbing Thursday, and I just had to hold something that throbs, anything actually. My not-so-real name is Adrian anyway, and Christopher was my throbbing Thursday rendezvous.

Let’s go back to like few months before throbbing Thursday. Christopher and I had been chatting on Facebook for quite a while. I’d had my eyes on him for quite a while on the social media, but I didn’t know how to get him to look my way.

Then his father died! Yay, this was my chance. Okay, I didn’t mean to take advantage of a man’s death, but the heart wants what it wants. Mine wanted Christopher. Did I mention Christopher is over 6ft tall, light in complexion, well built, and when I say well built, I don’t mean the steroid-induced-well-built, I mean the evidence-of-good-workout-well-built. He always reminded me of a sculpture of a Greek god.

On the day his father died, he posted the info on Facebook. I promptly chatted him up. He responded. Before then, he had the habit of forming Mister Busy for me. Luckily for me, he had my time that day. I offered my condolences and I asked his permission to write a piece in honour of his father. He gave me the go-ahead. I put pen to paper and came up with something real, not too many smart words, and he loved it. He posted it on Facebook, and it got a lot of positive comments. We started chatting a lot more than before, and I was like, Mission accomplished.

The Unintentional Kito Story

It was a few weeks to the end of the second semester. Everyone and everything was in a frenzy of activity. Everything was on fire brigade mode; from students rushing to tidy up loose ends on their final year projects to indolent lecturers who suddenly awakened from their long deep slumber to realize that they were far from covering all their topics and therefore resorted to scheduling insane hours of extra lectures at all kinds of insane hours of the day. The frenetic and breathless pace of everything on campus was so palpable you could just reach out and touch the tension with your bare hands.

And so it was one Thursday afternoon, the chapel service had just been concluded, and the crowd began to disperse in small groups and cliques. I, together with my classmates in the Management and Science department, were headed towards an empty class which I had earlier chosen on the instructions of our lecturer. We were scheduled to have a few hours of extra classes in a bid to cover the semester’s scheme of work for Communication Skills II. I was halfway there when I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to carry my notebook along with me to the chapel. I turned and made a quick dash towards the hostel to pick up the notebook, leaving my roomie who I was earlier walking and chatting with.

HIS KITO STORY (EDITION 12)

My kito story is not quite the kito story.

I’m Ade, 22 and I have been and known I was gay for all my life. You know that kind of gayness that’s hard to miss and can be spotted from 100 miles away? I was once nominated as the “mother general” of the student hostel where I live (story for another day).

After I finished Secondary school a few years ago, I decided to move to Abuja. I had heard so much about that city, how it flowed with milk and honey, how there were lots and lots of ‘generous’ and rich gays, and how there was an abundance of good sex to be had. I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that if I managed to move to Abuja, it would only be a matter of time before I snagged my own rich, loving sugar daddy. I was emboldened by the story of my role model, Madonna, who hitchhiked her way to New York City with just $20 and is today a globally famous star.

Itching to recreate my own story of the rise to stardom, I left my lovely Osun State and moved in with an aunt who lived in one of the slums on the outskirts of Abuja. It was a squalid and depressing place, a universe away from the bright glittering mansion dripping with opulence that I yearned and craved for. But I never once let the ghetto depress me or kill my dreams; I was sure that this was only a temporary phase and soon, I would land exactly where I wished to be – in the arms of someone rich and loving, who would take care of me, and who I would love and give myself to totally.

I held on to that dream for two years.