By Bunmi Sofola

“FALLING in love with an older man is like running before you can walk,” observed Nkechi. She’d attended single-sex private schools all her life. Until in her late teens when she found herself in a university environment awash with different male shapes and sizes and of varying ages.

“Until that point, the only men I’d had any daily contact with outside my family circle, were a handful of male teachers—and they were the no-nonsense type.

“The first couple of years were spent drinking in the freedom of living away from my parents and having both male and female friends. I dated a couple of guys but nothing serious happened. Until we had a new head-of-department in my third year. Apart from lecturing, he was supposed to steer us through college by being responsible for students’ welfare. To this day, I don’t know why he singled me out from the others to embarrass me. He made fun of my efforts in class, the clothes I wore and the books I read. This was very strange to someone used to more traditional teaching methods—but I soon realised the other students took no nonsense from him by answering back whenever he robbed them up the wrong way, so I did the same.

Relationship

“One day, he asked me to stay behind when I wanted clarification on one of the topics he was teaching. We were on our own and I decided to ask why he was always picking on me. I was mildly surprised when he put his arm around me and asked: ‘Don’t you realise it’s a sign of affection?” It’s probably obvious to any adult reading this what I should have done. But I was still an impressionable teenager with no real experience of boys. Now this tall, slightly-greying man was telling me he loved me. Did I hear warring bells? Of course not! Instead, I tumbled headlong into a crush that was to consume my every waking moment for the next two years. At the start, I didn’t expect my feelings to be reciprocated. He was my HOD who was also married. The shift from subtle flirting to physical contact was a smooth one. It started six months later when the university was on break. I was alone with him in the office when he kissed me. I was so elated I kissed him back. ‘You understand you can never tell anybody about this?’ he asked. I said I did. I would have done anything for him.

As far as I know, I was caught in what I believed to be a grand romance. I was still a virgin but I didn’t tell him in spite of our heavy necking that would eventually lead to the act. I didn’t want to pin him down to anything or rock the boat with a conversation about what we were doing. So when we finally got down to having sex, it was a let down for me. It happened a few weeks after my 20th birthday. He couldn’t make the party but he wanted to bring me a present. I think we both knew what was about to happen because my parents would be at work and my younger brother was still in school. I had the house all to myself.

“He’d made a special effort with his grooming and when he kissed me, he asked huskily where my bedroom was and as if in a trance, I took his hand and led him upstairs. We sat awkwardly on the bed, then he took off his shoes and asked me to lie down next to him. Like I said, the sex was awful, made worse by the fact that my Mum would soon be arriving from work. When she did some 30 minutes later, we were in the living room with some soft drinks between us. She was a bit startled to find a lecturer in the house. I had no time to process my emotion, but he, on the other hand, launched a charm offensive, assuring her it was no problem to have brought a book I badly needed for a course.

“ After that first time, which he never knew was my first time, we fell into a pattern of having sex when my parents were out. It was a long holiday and I was very lucky not to fall pregnant because we didn’t use contraception. One day, I asked him if we were having an affair. ‘If that’s what you want to call it,’ he said. I don’t know how I expected it to end as nothing about the future was discussed. The snatched moments we had in his office, his car or my parents’ house weren’t wasted on talking. But I believed it was love. Well, what did I know? He was after all, my first boyfriend.

“At the end of my studies, he congratulated me on making a second class upper. He wished me all the best of luck and promised to get in touch. Only, things would be a bit hectic for him over the next few months as his wife was heavily pregnant! I remember starring at him, my eyes filled with tears—it was all I could do not to cry.

How could I make a scene? I’d never even told him how I felt, never staked a claim or admitted how much I loved him. He probably thought it had all been a bit of fun for me too. He had no idea what the last two years had meant to me.

‘’It would be an understatement to say I was heartbroken I managed to hide my feelings from my parents and friends, staying in my room for most of the time before my youth service. I thought about contacting him, but I had no way of doing so—he lost his mobile phone just before I left and I didn’t have his new number. Of course there was no contact from him. Did I mean nothing to him at all? I’ve never understood what he saw in me or why he did it. I still feel a pang of loss, probably as things ended so abruptly and he never explained his feelings. I was left hanging for years. I wasn’t interested in boys of my age. They seemed so immature and there wasn’t the same excitement factor.

“I didn’t fall in love again until after my youth service. I’ve been married now for years, but I still think about my lecturer. I’m not sure you ever forget your first love. I hear he’s done well for himself and is the head of one of three posh secondary schools. Ironically, it’s now his job to sack teachers who abuse the trust of parents who are paying a fortune to send their children there. I’ve often wondered if I was the only one. It would be flattering to think so, but I doubt that was the case. He took the risk with me—it would be naive to think he didn’t try it with other girls.

I don’t want to sound bitter, after all, I should have known better. Now that I’m a mother of three children, I look back at my teenage self and feel sorry for that girl. I can see how vulnerable she was. As for my callous user, I hope that baby his wife was expecting then was a girl. And I hope she gave him sleepless nights as a teenager, staying out all night with her rebellious boyfriend. At least that way, he’d have known she wasn’t being abused by her teacher….”