The Client

And somehow I'm the one who ended up in his bed.

We shared an account, me and Yemisi, close like that. Deji was the client, the big one, the deal she couldn't afford to lose, so she was always in his DMs keeping him sweet.

She was also always borrowing my phone, said hers was forever dead, I never thought twice. Omo, I was slow. Turns out she'd been using my phone, and my pictures, to bait him.

She'd feed him my photos like they were some fantasy of hers, test how far he'd go, then clear the chat before she handed it back. For weeks this man had been talking to my face and didn't even know it was mine.

I found out by accident. A notification slid in while she was in the loo, and I opened it. Ehn, my own body was staring back at me from a chat I never sent.

The night it turned, Yemisi had traveled for a work thing. I sat with my phone for maybe an hour, then I did the mad thing. I opened the thread and told him the truth, that it was never really her, that the girl in those pictures sat across from him in every single meeting.

I braced for wahala. Instead he just typed, slow, "so it's been you." He wasn't angry. He was tired of her games and something in him had already turned, and last last, something in me had turned too.

We started talking for real after that, late, the kind of texting that makes the work day drag. He'd hold my eye a beat too long across the boardroom and I'd feel it in my stomach.

Then after a late review he asked me to come by his place instead of heading home. Low music, a little something poured into two glasses, the door clicked shut.