“Hello?”

“Mrs. McCarthy, good morning.”

“Uh, good morning. Please, who is this?”

“Madam, I’m sorry, but I can’t disclose my identity right now. I just want to inform you that your son is on his way home and he’s… in pretty rough shape.”

“Jesus! What happened? Was it armed robbers? Is he-“

“Oh yeah, and another thing. When Damien comes home, there’s something he has to tell you. Something very important. There’s some secret your boy’s been hiding from you, and it’s really vital you hear it.”

“What secret? My friend, what-“

The line went dead.

***

“Chale, Stickles, how far with the treatment? Them manage stitch up the ofui ein face?”

One of the shattas nodded and gave a thumbs up as he stood by the door to the building where they had gotten some medics to treat Damien before he was sent back home.

“Good, good.” Nico returned the thumbs up and opened the back door to the ash Nissan Altima he stood next to. He peered in and smiled at Lily, who was quietly seated. “Ohemaa, we’ll be leaving soon, okay?”

Lily nodded.

“So, are you ready to let them know?”

She sighed. “Well, I’m scared. But, I’ll do it. I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Nope, you don’t. Abi it’s you that made this demand, so you for do am.”

She nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll do it. I just hope he does what he’s supposed to do.”

“Oh, na Lily paaa. After the way we’ve straightened this idiot out, do you think he’ll disobey us?”

Lily smirked. “Well… I guess he won’t.”

“Of course. My boys will be watching him, so he knows better.”

Lily nodded. “True, true. That’s good. Coz despite everything, I’ll be very happy if it all goes according to plan. Abi you don’t mind?”

“My dear, once everything is done the right way, I can’t complain. Whatever makes you happy is what I’ll accept. That’s all that matters for me, to see that you’re happy and satisfied.”

“Thank you, Nico. I’m so, so grateful.”

“Anything for you, my lil sis… chale, you make ready? Alright, Lily, let’s get moving! Back to Donkorkrom we go!”

***

“Damien! Damien, where have you been?” Madam Doris demanded, rising to her feet as her son, looking weak and stitched up, entered the living room around 10 am that morning. “and what… what happened to your face? Jesus, were you kidnapped? Was it armed robbers? Kwashey boys? Are you okay?”

Damien sighed as he shook his head. What a horrid twelve hours it had been.

From getting ambushed to getting pummeled ruthlessly to getting issued with orders he did not want to obey, it had been a rough couple of hours for him. It felt like an eternity since he was in the midst of his friends, feeling very important as they hailed him for being a sneaky player. Now he was back home, badly injured from that brutal beatdown and badly upset about a sudden unwanted change in the trajectory of his life plan.

“Mama, I’m okay for now. Some medics have already attended to me,” he said quietly.

“Are you sure? No, Damien, you still don’t look good. See, lemme take you to the hospital-“

“No, no, no,” Damien cut in. “No need for the hospital. I’ve been taken care of. I’m okay.”

“Damien, you don’t look okay. You don’t. please. Let’s go to the hospital…”

“No, Mama. No need for any hospital,” Damien insisted. “I’ll be fine. I just want to sleep. That’ll help me right now. Please. Just let me sleep. I beg.”

Without even stopping, he walked on to his room, barely paying heed to his mother’s exasperated sighs as he headed straight for his bed and crashed on it, sleep taking over him within sixty seconds.

***

When he woke up a few hours later, his mother was sitting on the bed. She had the most solemn of looks on her face.

Barely considering the fact that her boy had just woken up, she went straight for the kill. “Damien, what happened? I dunno what happened for you to come back this morning, looking so bruised and battered, but as a mother, I obviously can’t let it go under the rug; I need to know. Also, some private number called me this morning and said there’s some secret bi you’ve been hiding from me. Please, do you know anything about that?”

Damien sat up and sighed. He knew Madam Doris wouldn’t let this go; she would sit on his neck until she got the information she needed.

And boy, he did not want to give her the information!

But… he had already experienced one of the most horrid times of his life, and his safety depended on doing what he had been ordered to do. So he had no choice.

“Um, yeah. There is something I have to tell you. And uh, it… it kinda has to do with what happened last night. Mama, the truth is, I did something very wrong back in Donkorkrom. Very, very wrong, and uh, I need to come clean with it. So, there was this jollof seller’s daughter I met when I was there. And… I was very much attracted to her, because she has a lot of body, so I… I got close to her. And I… I convinced her to sleep with me.”

He looked up, saw the look of displeasure on his mother’s face, and looked down again and continued.

“So… for like six months, she would come over to my place and we’d have sex, and she’d go back. And… and I… I lied to her that I wasn’t doing national service and that I would be settling in Donkorkrom. I did that to make her feel like she can trust me and so she’d keep coming around for more. And uh… when it was time for me to return back to Accra… I didn’t tell her anything. I… I just packed up and left without saying a word to her.

“So basically, yesterday… I don’t know how, but… her older cousin found me, and he was with her… and a fight occurred… and I… realized I’ve done a lot of wrong… and I need to rectify my mistakes. I’m sorry, Mama.”

Silence followed after that. Damien knew that was no good; Madam Doris’ silence after hearing such things meant a serious lecture would pop up soon.

“Do you have her picture?”

Damien missed that. “You say?”

“I said do you have her picture?”

“Ummm, yes, yes.” He then took out his phone for Donkorkrom contacts, opened his gallery and opened the first picture of Lily he found before showing it to her.

She stared at the picture for a few seconds, then placed the phone on the bed and stared straight at him.

“So Damien, you mean to tell me that while you were doing your national service, you went to lie to a girl and use her body for your selfish satisfaction just because she has big breasts and a big buttocks? Ei, my son, is this what I taught you? Is this what your father taught you?”

Damien hung his head low, already dreading the heavy rebuke he was about to receive. There was a reason he kept his lascivious lifestyle hidden from his mother.

“Damien, sex is not something you carelessly engage in because your hormones have been triggered by what you see. Sex is sacred. Sex is a special thing. Sex is something you must reserve for the matrimonial bed. If you’re jumping into bed with someone, it shouldn’t be because you’re attracted to their body and you want to enjoy it. It’s deeper than that. Ehhh! Now look at the trouble you’ve gotten yourself into. Ei, when will you young boys learn that keeping your zip up saves you from a lot of trouble?”

Damien remained silent.

“Look in the Bible. Many great men fell because of this failure to control their sexual desires. Look at David. Because of sexual appetite that he didn’t control, see what it led him to. Adultery, murder. Look at Solomon. After all the wisdom God blessed him with, what was his downfall? Women. Marrying so many women and letting his obsession for them kill his passion for God. Damien, how do you do this to some young girl and think you can get away with it? Huh? How do you lie to a girl just so you can have sex with her and think all will be well with you?”

Damien simply let out a sigh. There was nothing he could say.

“I’m not happy to see you in bad shape like this, but with what you’ve told me, I honestly can’t be too angry with whoever this cousin is. Because you’ve demeaned this girl and disrespected her. Any man who loves her will be angry and will come and deal with you, and rightfully so. Who wouldn’t be angry? Do you know what your father would have done if some foolish boy did that to Dora or Yvonne? Oh, Damien, I’m really disappointed in you. I really am.”

As a few moments of silence followed, Damien was sure the lambasting was over.

That was only a quarter of the storm over, though. The toughest parts still lay ahead.

“So when you say you need to rectify it, what are you looking at?”

Damien began to wring his hands nervously. This was the most uncomfortable part of it all. Yet he had no choice.

“Umm,” he started, “I… I-I was thinking that… somewhere next week, we should go and apologize to her parents… and uh… as placation for taking their daughter’s honour, I… I’ll take her as my wife.”

Madam Doris jerked at the mention of that last word. “Wife? Herh, Damien, what’s wrong with you? You that you are still struggling to provide for yourself? You want to take her in as your wife? With what money? Herh, did the beatings change something in your brain or what?”

Damien winced. He knew that wouldn’t go down well with her at all. Of course, it didn’t go down well with him, either. But Nico and his goons would not spare him if he didn’t follow the script. “Yeah, Mama, I know. I know it sounds someway. It’s just that… the guilt is really weighing heavy on me. I made plenty of promises to her. I told her I’d do so many things for her. Even though I knew I wouldn’t do any of them. So… this… feels like a way of making it up to her, I think.”

Madam Doris shot him a look of disapproval. “Hm. I see. And you want me to follow you there?”

Damien’s eyes lowered. “Uh… yes, please.”

“Hm. I see.”

With that, she rose to her feet and walked out of the room. She wasn’t ready to continue this conversation with him. She’d continue later.

Damien sighed and placed his head in his hands.

He had never expected things to go this way. Not in his wildest imagination. This matter was supposed to have come to an end the very moment that bus exited Donkorkrom. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about how to apologize to Lily’s parents for banging their daughter without doing the needful, or having to deal with his mother finding out from his own mouth what he had been up to. Yet, now he was.

It now looked like falling prey to his senses and chasing that girl just to get into her pants was a really, really bad idea.

“Damnit, chale. I really f**k up oo. I really, really f**k up…”

Oh yeah you did, Damien. Nobody asked you to go get into Lily’s pants and run off afterwards. Now you’re dealing with the repercussions.

Well, let’s see how this ends for him…