This is a short fiction story. None of the characters are real!

Ada was a strikingly beautiful woman with an amazing curve of softness. She was endowed in every way to make her a complete woman. She was the most astonishing girl Dave had ever met. She was easy to talk to and fun to be around. The attraction was instant when they met. There was something about her that excited and calmed him all at once.

She had the appearance of gentle intelligence, as if even her wisdom had a feminine quality.

The only problem was that she was his wife’s very close friend.

He has been married to Joy for 6years and they had two beautiful kids to show for it. They enjoyed a lovely marriage and barely had reasons to disagree for long. This was partly because Dave’s job in the refinery keeps him absolutely busy to the teeth or so it seemed.

He worked shifts every week and spent most of his adult times at work or so it seemed. But he was highly responsible too. Joy could not deny this. He provided for everything at home without flinching or complaining. Joy didn’t have to do much around the house although she claimed to be an “entrepreneur” knitting sweaters for the local primary schools within the estate. With the business, she made good enough money to complement whatever her husband provided. It also kept her busy during the times when she wasn’t breastfeeding their second child.

She couldn’t complain too.

She only had to mention whatever she needed casually to Dave and he had it delivered to their doorstep within days. 

He also had a healthy appetite for sex. They had the romp in the sheets twice in a month; most months.  She was glad he wasn’t the sexually demanding type she had dreaded when they first got married.

Ada was her closest friend and she was visiting that evening to break some good news to Joy.

“My husband just got a fabulous job last month and we will have to relocate back to Lagos in a couple of weeks. I am so excited!” 

Ada had a loveable personality and she was giddy with excitement as she explained the perks of her hubby’s new job to the curious couple.

Dave joined in the felicitation while keeping an eagle eye on her firm fleshy mounds that peeked from above her top. He wore his smile like a badge as he chorused congratulations with his wife. 

Joy did not need a soothsayer to tell her that her friend’s husband wore his lust on his sleeves. His eyes darted around her body as though searching lustfully for her skin; any skin to ogle on.

She paid him no heed until he asked;

“So what happens to your apartment here, when you leave?“

“We plan to rent the apartment out so we can get some money to move our furniture and other things to Lagos” she replied enthusiastically.

“My husband has been speaking with a few agents. I trust he would have this sorted in a few days.” she added.

She announced that she needed to hurry on before her husband returned from the mid-week church service. Her husband was a pastor at one of the new generation churches on the outskirt of the town.

She stood up to take her leave and Joy walked her dear friend to her Honda saloon car parked right outside their bungalow.

While they were outside, Dave picked up Joy’s mobile phone. It was unlocked thankfully. He quickly scanned the dialed list for Ada’s number. He punched her number into his phone whilst looking intermittently at the entrance porch hoping Joy wouldn’t walk in.

He dropped her phone awkwardly on the ottoman just moments before the entrance door opened.

A silly smile grazed his face as he grabbed the television remote control.

Mission accomplished.

*******

No one feature made Dave so handsome, though his eyes came close.

He was strikingly handsome from the depth of his eyes to the gentle expressions of his voice. He had the kind of face that stopped you in your tracks. He was used to that too; that sudden pause in a person’s natural expression when they looked his way followed by overcompensating with a nonchalant gaze and a weak smile.

He knew the effect he had on ladies and Joy felt lucky to be his doting wife.

Dave was 32 the next few months and he had a crew of his best buddies from work whom they shared about everything together. They hung out every other night and had a lot more in common than being colleagues at the refinery.

Tomiwa was the hunk. He had the body of a model. His smile was the prettiest thing about his face. He smiled with his eyes even when his lips were sealed. He had the most amazing set of dentition. In the eyes of his wife, Ifeoma, he was perfect save for his receding hairline.

At first, Tomiwa had worried himself to death over his baldness, but he soon gave in after his researches proved that the bald gene come from the maternal side. All he had to do was to look at his maternal uncles. They had the moon on their head!

Nnamdi was the oldest of the lot. He was the nerd of the group too. Most times he was the reasonable one. The one that questioned their logic and rationale. The one they often made silly jokes about because he didn’t take alcohol or smoked like the rest of them. His friends silently considered him a tad slow, but he knew he had to take his time when it comes to navigating the life they lived.

Finally, Ugo was the most stylish of the lot. He dressed to kill. He was always a sight for sore eyes. Good looking with a charming disposition. He also had a fully bearded face that exuded boyish exuberance and cuteness. He loved the fast life, partying, clubbing, drinking binges and everything in between. He was also a natural flirt. Nothing got past him. His wife, Modele had in the past fought off his ex-girlfriends vehemently in order to have him all to herself peacefully. Sometimes he was just egoistic and a plain emotional bully, at other times, he was the sweetest lover she could ever wish for. To her, he was a paradox of some sort.

All four friends had one thing in common.

They were chronic philanderers, neck deep in debauchery.

This short story is about how far they went!

**********

Dave met the crew at their normal rendezvous with great news after work. The boys raced to the lounge as soon as they got his message on their private WhatsApp group.  The message left them in suspense. 

It wasn’t unusual to get such a message, but when it was from Dave – the default leader of the group, they took it seriously.

“Hey buds, got some news.  I think its time we get a small crib where we can pay rent instead of spending so much money on hotel rooms with our girls” He scanned their faces for agreement. The boys nudged him on.

“And I think I may have found a perfect house us. It is a 4 bedroom apartment and completely secured”

“How did you find the apartment?” Ugo queried as he shut one of his eyes in an animated attempt  to light a cigarette with a match stick.

“Remember Ada, my wife’s close friend?” He paused for effect.

His friends looked on knowing it was a rhetorical question.

“She is relocating back to Lagos. Her husband got a fancy job. I have been to the crib before, its in a cool estate in the centre of the town. And guess what?”

Everyone looked on again as Dave took a moment to scan the looks on their faces.

“Its a four bedroom apartment and its downstairs. We all get to have a room each to ourselves and we won’t have to pay hotels for short stays”

“True” Tomiwa agreed.

Even though Tomiwa was the only one to respond, they all knew deep within themselves that they spent an awful lot of money paying hotel bills every week which included for drinks and food expense.

The boys were quite notorious for their antics with ladies. They either made out at the back of their SUVs with the air condition turned on or took turns to share the same hotel room to save money.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t afford to pay for hotel rooms with the kind of money they earned as “oil workers“, but they frequented the hotels far too often spending half of their take monthly homes on meals, hang-outs and short-let apartments or hotel rooms.

They were notorious with the guest houses in the town too. Rooms were reserved for any of them even when they hadn’t decided which lady to take there.

Sometimes during their night shift at the refinery, Tomiwa would sneak out in the dead of the night to meet with one of his girlfriends right at her apartment.

He would leave the next morning just before the break of dawn to sneak back into work. Nnamdi often provided cover for him during those times.

Ugo was known to share a bed with four girls every day of the weekend. Sometimes they took turns to have intimate moments with him one after the other, at other times, he would be treated to the pleasure of their company at the same time. He never shared those moments with his friends.

In the end, these men would return home every day exhausted and spent, blaming the rigors and intensity of work for their lack of interest in sex with their partners. Most times, their wife’s pitied them offering nothing but words of encouragement.

“Would the house come with the furniture?” Nnamdi asked.

“Where in God’s heaven did they find this guy” Ugo joked.

“We would have to furnish each room ourselves. But we will split the rent 4-ways” Dave added.

“How many apartments are in the building?” Nnamdi asks, looking visibly concerned.

“Four apartments in all. But that isn’t a worry. Ours is downstairs. We will be fine” Dave could be very assuring when he wanted anything done.

“I am making arrangement to secure the flat quickly before they find someone else to pay for it. Are we all good with this?” Dave asked standing up to signal the end of the discussion.

“Good” they chorused.

****

The next morning, Dave got one of his numerous girlfriends to call Joy’s mobile phone to make enquiries about the apartment.

She posed as the new occupant, inspected the house and agreed on terms.

Within a week, a quarter of the rent was contributed by each of the friends and the apartment was secured with the keys handed over to Dave.

Within the next two weeks, Tomiwa and Ugo handled the renovation of the apartment. They painted the rooms, tiled the floor, installed split air condition units, purchased a generator and replaced the window frames and glasses, making them tinted.

The excitement amongst the friends was palpable. They talked about nothing else during their evening hang-outs. They couldn’t wait to move into the apartment and nothing else was good enough a conversation if it wasn’t about throwing their first party once they moved in.

In the fourth week since paying, they took full possession of the apartment and moved in.

***

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