“Please Sir, can I talk to you?” I turned and faced the young woman who stood before me. She was about 26 years old, well-dressed and sophisticated. When I was able to listen to her, this is what she said to me: “When I was a student in the High School, I went out to seek experience because many of my friends were doing that. In the course of it I got pregnant. The boy who made me pregnant gave me money and I got an experienced hospital attendant to help me to commit an abortion. Many people did not know about my pregnancy and, so, I was able to continue life as normal after the abortion was committed.

Then four years ago I got married. We have been waiting and waiting in vain for our baby to be conceived. Each month I say to myself, “It will happen this month,” but nothing happens. Each time I have my monthly period, I hate myself and a voice inside me says, “You murdered your first child, why should God give you another one?”

I do not know what to do with myself. I hate all the boys who had sexual relationships with me. I hate the boy who made me pregnant. Above all, I hate myself. I am useless. What can I do with myself? I have never told my husband that I once committed an abortion. I instead lied to him that he was the first man in my life. I fear that someday he will know the truth and our marriage will end.

You have talked about the love of God for abortionists. Can that love include me?”

****

He was 19 and in the High School. He accepted no criticism. He did everything to prove that he was right. He did everything to draw attention to himself. Then one day, he confided in me.  This is what he said: “I am very lonely. I do not know who my father is. It is as if I came from nowhere. Each time I ask my mother to show me my father, or at least to tell me his name, she just looks into the air and says nothing. I feel like taking up a gun and shooting her and then shooting myself, and then it will be a happy end.”

*****

She was the most intelligent student in the entire tribe. Normally, girls were not allowed to go to the University in this tribe. The people could not afford it and, besides, they thought that things might go wrong with the girls in the course of the many years at school. Because she was so brilliant, her teachers pleaded with her parents to relent and let her be educated. They gave in and sacrificially sent her to Remareke University in Nadagu. It was the early days and the laws of that University were strict. No unmarried girl who was pregnant could continue in that University.  She went in the way of the wayward and an “accident” occurred. She was dismissed and sent back home without the diploma she had gone to seek. The parents were heartbroken. The teachers were disillusioned and the villagers named her baby “Diploma.”

****

I was visiting one country on a scientific tour. At the earliest opportunity, I made contact with the believers and was invited to speak at a meeting arranged particularly for wives of the University teachers. At the close of the meeting, an elegant lady of about forty-five asked if she could have a private talk with me. We arranged a meeting for the next day. At that meeting, I just sat for two hours while she poured out her sad story. This is what she told me: “I was a virgin at the time of my marriage and all through my life, my husband has been the only man in my life. I loved him and trusted him. However, five years ago, I discovered that he had been untrue to me for all the years of our married life and had children with other women. I saw the children and they all resembled him. From then on, my heart was broken and my deep love for him turned into bitter hatred. He apologized to me and was truly repentant, but my heart was closed to him. Everyday I sit at table opposite him and the sight of him makes me feel like ending my life and his own. We have money, position, respect from people, everything we need but, finally, we have nothing.”

****

“I wish I had not married you,” said he in anger to her. “You are cold and not responsive. My girlfriends were wonderful. How can I forget Caroline or Josephine or sweet Vivian? They knew how to go about these things and here am I doomed to live with a frozen being. What shall I do? You will stay at home and be cold to yourself. I will go out and have fun and, some day, it will be goodbye.”

****

She walked into his apartment. However, today she was not as gay and as confident as she normally used to be. A distance seemed to have built in between them. She was afraid to get near him. There was a slight dislike in his attitude towards her. “John, I have something to say to you, but I am afraid. I hope when you will have heard it, you will not be angry and unhappy. May I say it?” “Say it at once,” was his answer. “Please John, I cannot see my period. It is now seven days overdue and I am hopelessly worried and frightened. What shall we do? Maybe the thing we feared has happened.”

“Do not tell me your stupid nonsense,” replied John. “Go and look for your period and be sure to find it. Why do you come to me? How can I be sure that I am responsible? Is there any guarantee that you did not give yourself to other boys as you gave yourself so easily to me? So I am the fool you think should take the responsibility? You are mistaken. Leave my house at once and never come back. I do not want to see you any more.”

The above are real life stories. As I heard them from one of the parties involved in each case I could not help asking the question, “Were they really enjoying the sexual life?” They had all gone into it with the hope that they would enjoy it, but did they accomplish their purpose?

TO BE CONTINUED ...