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| Prostitutes hanging out on the streets. Courtesy Naija.ng. |
Do you think a professional prostitute, who has lived in a brothel for years will ever repent in the real sense of the word and become a good Christian?
Do you think she would ever turn a new leaf, live normally, and settle down for marriage, in case she had not married before joining the illicit trade?
Do you know why I asked these questions? I did so because of the ugly and regrettable experience I had in the hands of a former prostitute, whom I married some years ago. I hope you wouldn’t mind if I share the story behind these questions with you?
While working in Lagos some years ago, I lived at a place called Olodi-Apapa. During those years, I used to patronize prostitutes in their brothels, almost every blessed day, just like most young people who live in towns and cities.
Three of the brothels I used to visit regularly to patronize those prostitutes were Iwayemi Hotel, De-Latu Hotel and Bank Hotel. While Iwayemi was located on Emordi Street, De-Latu and Bank Hotel were located on Idewu Street and New Road, near a place called Achakpo, respectively.
Among the three brothels, De-Latu Hotel was my most favourite. I loved it more than the other two because it had more matured and beautiful girls and women than its competitors.
There was a particular prostitute I usually patronized whenever I visited De-latu Hotel. Her name was Chizoba. I liked her more than her colleagues because of her tantalizing physique. Above all, she never disappointed me in the delivery of her service.
After patronizing her for about two years, she became my girlfriend. As a result of that, we started exchanging visits. She sometimes shopped and cooked for me, especially whenever I was away to work.
When I was preparing to get married in October 1988, I decided to consider her for marriage. My thought to marry her was based on her good behaviour and on the story about herself, which she shared with me. She said she went into prostitution because she was orphaned at a very early age, and was brought up by her maternal grandmother, who also died a year after her biological parents had died.
It was while telling me the story of her life that she revealed her real name, Chizoba, to me. Before then, I had always known her as Tina. She said she adopted Tina as her name at De-Latu Hotel because she didn’t want to disclose her real name for obvious reasons.
She left the brothel immediately I proposed to marry her. After meeting with her relations and kinsmen at her village and doing all the necessary things required of me, I wedded her on Saturday, August 12, 1989 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in the Cardoso area of Ajegunle.
I was very excited when she became pregnant, few months after our marriage. The major reason for my excitement was because of the negative prediction of one of my friends, who never wanted me to marry her. He predicted that she would never get pregnant, let alone giving birth to a baby, after living in a brothel and probably procuring several abortions.
Contrary to my friend’s prediction, my wife gave birth to a set of twins, all boys, on Sunday, April 23, 1990. That particular friend of mine could not believe his eyes when he visited my wife at the hospital and saw her with our babies. Between 1990 and 1999, we were through with the number of babies we planned to have.
In December 2001, something happened, which caused me to start suspecting my wife of infidelity. Before that time, I had never done so, even when I knew where I picked her from.
…to be continued
Story By Emeka Nwite
