Chidimma, beware, my dear.

Were you not the one I saw on Tuesday at Shoprite, driving away from the premises in a Toyota Highlander SUV and when I signaled at you with my car headlights, pausing to exchange pleasantries, you kept your pretty face facing forward on the road, your long-nailed fingers gripping the wheel with the practised ease of a seasoned driver?

Yes, it was you. At first I had thought that maybe you hadn't recognized me, but then it occurred to me that you had actually seen me but chose not to stop and greet me.

Chidimma, it seems you have forgotten...or rather, it seems your husband never told you. Maybe I will.

Chidimma I also heard that you occasionally throw tantrums when your husband wants to leave the house on weekends to go for business meetings. You sometimes demand that you would want to go with him, because you are his wife and would want to be a part of his social life sometimes. Now, I ask you, my dear: do you know where your husband goes to? Do you know how he keeps up his social connections to give you the pampered, sheltered life you now live with your two kids Michael and Michelle? I will bet you don't.

Your husband has complained to me that you are becoming too demanding; of love, of attention, of his emotional time and energy. Right now, he's making it seem as if the money and other social benefits you enjoy are inadequate. Oh, the nerve, Chidimma! The audacity!

Chidimma, your husband didn't tell you but he did not see you and "like" you and decided to marry you. I, CHOSE you for him. From a pictorial lineup of fresh-faced, nubile young women I personally selected you to be your husband's wife. Never forget that. Oh wait, you don't know that...yet.

Your husband never wanted to get married, did he tell you that? He wanted to leave Nigeria and elope with me to Canada or Switzerland, but I said no. I am an extremely pragmatic person and I considered how he could just leave his family name unfulfilled and run away. Nah, I told him; you are not leaving Nigeria, not with me and not with another person. I told him that he was going to stay here and get married and continue his family legacy whether he liked it or not. Oh, he didn't like it, but I am me, and your husband loves me more than Life itself, and whatever I say, he does. So yes, he had to marry. And I personally chose you for him.

And now you're giving him tough time? Ha, Chidimma, be careful!!

Did he ever tell you that before you ever saw his muscular chest, I was sucking his n1pples and bringing him to the peak of ecstasy through them while he quivered like a mass of jelly in my arms? Did he tell you that before you ever saw his unclothedness that I used to take his naked body ANYWHERE I wanted, any how I wanted, around his home and around mine? Did he ever tell you that before you chanced your made-up eyes on his phallus, I had been using it as mine and demanding and getting my pleasure from it? Did he ever tell you that I was the one that ordered him to get rid of his slim frame and hit the gym because I wanted him in peak form IN MY BED?!!! He didn't? Hm.

I am the only person he has said "I love you" to before you, and he only said that to you because I ordered him to.

So, please, Chidimma, tone down your demands. Tone down your bad attitude, and please learn your manners. I put you in the position you're in and I can take it away from you.

Your husband said that he is going for a meeting at Abuja with friends. He informed you that I was going to be there and he said that you had scoffed and dismissed my name as inconsequential. Ha, Chidimma. You do not like me, do you? Well, I don't like you either, and I can tell your husband to leave you...and he will.

You see, Chidimma, your husband is gay. He married you only because I ordered him to and he is taking such good care of you because I also ordered him to. Those muscles of his? Please. You need to see him clinging to me and whispering my name feverishly while I drill him. You need to see it!

So, dearest Chidimma, beware.

—fiction—

© Kingsley Adrian Banks

Kingsley Adrian Banks is releasing a new novel on all digital platforms soon.

Heaven bear me witness. I loved that girl Amara. I loved her in the way a man would love a woman he deeply cherishes and wants the very best for, not in the vapid, I-want-you-in-bed-then-dump-you shenanigans that is all the rage right now.

Amara was a sweet girl, sweet to the core, and very respectful and kind too. She personified goodness.

What Amara saw in me, I never knew and would probably never know. All I know is that she really loved me and cared for me and wanted the very best for me.

I wanted the very best for her as well... That is, until I became responsible for her death, this dearest Amara of mine.

Let me tell you how it all happened.

I met Amara in 2018. I was working then, in salaried employment, but like almost every other salaried worker around I was overworked and underpaid. Amara was in her final year in the University then. We met at DMGS roundabout, Onitsha; she was about to board a Kèké Napep to Upper Iweka and I was buying rock buns from a roadside vendor.

Something in the both of us clicked.

You can say it was love at first sight.

*

The love I had for Amara made me want to do the very best for her. It made me want to take her to exotic locations and pamper her, buy her the most expensive things, this girl of mine who wanted nothing from me but for me to succeed, to make something out of my life and make my family proud. And not only that, to make her proud too. I wanted to make Amara proud to have a man like me to hang onto, to introduce to her friends and family. I wanted her to smile and be happy. I wanted her to buy the best wigs and frontal and closure money could buy to adorn her stunning head. I wanted the best car for her and the best clothing and beauty accouterments on her.

That was what led me to Asaba, to meet "Uncle Baba", as he was popularly called amongst the Asaba Yahoo Boys. You know them; you must have seen them driving around Shoprite and other spots around Asaba and Onitsha in their very expensive cars--mostly the high-end Lexus SUVs and the Mercedes GLK series--with iPhone mobiles dinging with calls and messages and pings and credit alerts. Yeah, those boys. You know them; I know them too.

I wanted to be like them.

Uncle Baba's home was just off Koka Junction, Asaba.

"You want to make money," Uncle Baba said to me. It was not a question; more like an affirmation of my journey to his house from across the Niger.

"Yes, Baba."

"You want to chill with the big boys. You want to be one of the big boys."

I nodded. I remember that my nod was very vigorous, just like the nods of some of you women often are when you are in the club and one of the "big Boys" approached you to ask if you had a boyfriend and you denied it.

"Go there. Wash your hands." Uncle Baba pointed to a clear bowel of water in a corner of his stunningly appointed living room.

I literally sprinted to the bowel and washed my hands, then returned to my chair opposite the rotund man and awaited his verdict.

For long moments Uncle Baba said nothing to me. He just sat there, stone cold and unmoving. At some point I wanted to jolt him with a question, or a slap, or a shake, just to be sure that he remembered I was still there in the room with him and that he was not alone.

"Some of the men that come here, I tell them to eat their own feaces," he said finally. "Some, I tell to sleep with mad women and even mad men, without condoms. Some, I send back home because they are not destined to make it in this life and can only enjoy whatever gains they make here within, at most, one year, before they die under horrible and mysterious circumstances. "

" So? " I demanded impatiently.

" I need a sacrifice from you."

I leaned forward. I was eager to do it, to do anything, all for this woman I loved.

" I need Amara."

"What?" I demanded, slamming back in my chair as if he had jolted me with a thousand watts of electricity. "Which Amara?"

"I need Amara. I need her heart."

I shook my head. I did not understand. I was here because I was ready to sleep with a mad women. I was ready to eat my own excreta with bread and even to do that in public. But what was this man talking about Amara's heart for? What on earth did that even mean?

"You shall cut out her heart and you shall bring it to me. That is what is required of you. You have twenty days. Do that within twenty days or you will die. Gbuleke will come for you. Amara is the sacrifice, or you are. It is your choice."

*

For nineteen days after my visit to Uncle Baba I could not eat well, I could not sleep well, I could not function well, and I could not be myself. My work as a lawyer suffered, such that I noticed that my boss was even sidestepping using me for certain matters in the office. Amara noticed it even though I tried to hide my discomfort and anguish from her.

"You can tell me what the problem is," she begged me. Oh, did she beg, did she, my darling Amara with the beatific smile and the sunny disposition.

I did not tell her what the problem was.

On the nineteenth day, with just one day remaining for me, I steeled myself, deepened my resolve.

I visited Amara at her small one-room apartment. There, we made love... For the last time, we made love to each other, then I ate with her and drank with her. Unknown to her, I spiked her drink with a laxative which lulled her to sleep within moments. Then I did the horrible deed of kill ing her by striki ng at her head...with a large pla.nk I struck, over and over and over and over again, until blood spurted and splashed around everywhere.

I was weeping as I did this horrible deed to my darling Amara, then I got the organ Uncle Baba had requested for. I deleted all traces of myself from her phone, destroyed every single trace of me in her social media, and even ripped and took away our photos together and other items that belonged to me.

*

Uncle Baba showed me where to bury the heart, which I did, with tears streaming down my eyes.

"Go home. Within one week, you will see an outcome."

Within one week I developed a very painful boil on the underside of my penis. The boil just materialized one morning, just like that.

Within two days--as the boil got more painful, so painful that I could barely move--I developed another incredibly painful boil under both armpits. I could not put my arms down properly.

I called Uncle Baba.

"I told you that you will see an outcome," he said, sounding cryptic.

"What do you mean?!" I roared. "I came to you for money and did what you asked me to do! Why am I not seeing the money!"

"I do not control the outcome of what you get. You can get money, or you can get madness, or death, or diseases...only very few people get money. Maybe you were not destined for it."

*

Three days after my call to Uncle Baba, my boss fired me.

A day after my boss fired me I developed a severe itch all over my body. Multiple tests could not detect anything wrong with me.

The boils remained, and they got more painful by the day.

*

I cast my mind back to my Amara, my darling Amara.

I had ended her for nothing. But I know I am going to go join her in the afterlife. That is why I am putting out this story for you all to see it. By the time you read my story, I will be gone, hung from a ceiling fan, gone from the world, joined to my Amara.

Please, I beg you, do not be like me. Walk the straight path. It pays.

*

This story was written and originally published on Facebook by Kingsley Adrian Banks and can be found here on https://www.facebook.com/100016029948856/posts/1084259298785058/?app=fbl

Kingsley Adrian Banks is a Nigerian Novelist whose novels are available on Bambooks, Okadabooks and Amazon.

I read this book Weeks ago. Ordered the paperback from Amazon.

KingsleyAni1993:
I received a free copy of Behind Closed Doors from the author in exchange for an honest review of same.

Blurb:

What would you do if you were a homosexual in a country where being gay is severely frowned upon and considered a taboo? What is the ultimate price to pay if you were different, gay?

Lagos playboy, son of an ex-beauty Queen; and sole heir to the Johnson fortune, Henry Johnson, is facing a stunning controversy because of his sexual orientation . . . He loves men, yet the thought disgusts him and throws him into turmoil, that is, until he encounters Phoenix, a bisexual male stripper and prostitute who is wildly ambitious and will do anything to climb the social ladder. Phoenix is the one man that opens his eyes to the taste of the forbidden fruit, to what it feels like to hold another man, to kiss another man, and to bed another man.

One taste of the forbidden gay fruit and Henry knows he's trapped. Trapped between Society's expectations, his duty to his family, and his hidden love of men. Set against the backdrop of a sprawling, decadent Lagos City, and from there to the outer edges of Eastern Nigeria, where being gay is unimaginable, a gay romance unthinkable, the consequences of being caught frighteningly debilitating and cripplingly suicidal, Behind Closed Doors is a story of hidden passions that take hold in the dark where same sex love thrives.

Henry will be forced to look deep within himself to unearth the man beneath, to make the toughest decisions of his life as it concerns Phoenix, a young man whose destiny becomes irremovably entwined in his. He will have to question everything he holds dear, everything Society has taught him. He will be forced to question his very existence.


My review:

Are you ready for an explosive novel that delves deep into the gay narrative that sets Nigerians afire? Are you ready to revisit the issue of the forbidden nature of same-sex attraction and love, against a backdrop of the country’s poverty, strive for survival and the divide between the ultra rich and the crushingly poor? If yes, then Kingsley Adrian Banks’ debut novel, Behind Closed Doors is the perfect opener to examine Nigeria’s same-sex narrative.

Behind Closed Doors is a gay fiction that centres around a character, Henry Johnson, who is the heir to the family fortune of one of Lagos’s richest, oldest and most powerful families, the ultra rich Johnsons. Growing up, Henry is besieged by the highest level of domestic violence—in the form of his father always raising fists to his mother—and that helps to shape the core of who he is. But he is deeply assailed by a horrible, crippling fear of his growing sexuality—a sexuality that is centred with frightening exclusivity on boys alone.

Coming from “rich stock”, as most Nigerians would lightly put it, he’s forced sexual experimentation with few girls, and found, to his growing chagrin, that he feels nothing for women. He remained conflicted, until he encounters a young man known only as Phoenix, with whom he explored his innate, basic desire, and found, to his utter horror, stunned pleasure, and exponential disgust, that he loves everything about the male anatomy.

Kingsley Adrian Banks wrote this book with a fresh take on the gay issue. He took the time to explore the cultural stereotypes Nigerians adopt: of the effeminate “gay” man who actually does not sexually identify as gay but as bisexual, though society has branded him gay because of his gender presentation; of the “straight-acting” masculine male who is the embodiment of the societal ideal of what a heterosexual man is, but who is hopelessly, forcefully gay but can “blend” in and pretend to be straight in order not to be stigmatized for his sexual orientation.

At times Banks’ writing is quite hefty, dark and evocative because of the pain and sorrow and hatred he manages to infuse in heavy doses throughout the entire book, but when he touched on the core aspects of his chosen themes—same-sex relationships, society’s hatred of the feminine male, and invariably the forbidden nature of same-sex relationships in Nigeria even before same was eventually criminalized by Goodluck Ebere Jonathan—his writing flashes with deep insight.

From forced heterosexual unions, to the furtive gay relationships undertaken in small doses at those times of newly introduced mobile phones into the Nigerian market, those times of Jazz in Lagos clubs and endless dancing and visits to friends and family because of the lack of telecommunications infrastructure, “Behind Closed Doors” explores the deepest and darkest part of physical relationships, especially when examined through the clouded Nigerian lens of bigotry, hatred and sanctimonious censorship.

Banks may not have lived as an adult through the Nineties in Nigeria’s Lagos, Onitsha and Calabar, but he explored the relationships and human dynamics with a timelessness that rings through even to our current times. In “Behind Closed Doors” he distinctly captured the Nigerian essence, the life as it is lived both in the affluent homes and among those with poverty threatening to crush them—all tinged with the secrecy of what literally goes on behind closed doors: the illicit affairs, the maltreatment and severe abuse meted out by husband to wife or wife to house servant, the in-bred hatred for anything not known and understood, and of course, the ever present condemnation of the public if they discovered your own sins.

Like the few other writers who have actively explored same-sex situations and relationships in full-length Nigerian novels, Banks did justice to a topic that would never die out, particularly given that Nigerians view same-sex romantic relationships with great disdain and now that same-sex romantic relationships are outlawed in Nigeria, punishable by up to fourteen years imprisonment.

In “Behind Closed Doors”, Banks explores what would have been the ordinary lives of Nigerian men, but lived through the black-tinted lens of a society angry with anything that goes against the heteronormative norm they are used. Unlike many gay fiction books, this book is frank in portraying the dark truth and reality of what it means to live gay in Nigeria, a country that views it as a serious taboo for someone to be gay; a country where gender non-conformity is viewed with suspicion, automatically branding you as a gay man or woman, even if you aren’t.

A seeming master at unmasking the deepest and darkest secrets many people live with, Banks deftly explores the double life being gay can make a person live in Lagos, while navigating the underbelly of Nigeria’s most populated city and the myriad tales it has to offer.

Simply put, “Behind Closed Doors” is a cultural narrative, showcasing things in Nigeria as-is, while offering absolutely no hopes of a better tomorrow or for love for any person who is unfortunate enough to not conform to the Nigerian Society’s demands.



Link:

https://okadabooks.com/book/about/behind_closed_doors___adult_only_18/33776

Ebook: https://paystack.com/pay/v9ncxdbjsx

Amazon Print:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DSX91JH?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

Hm.

Ijelekhai19:
Please who has a free copy of behind closed doors.
I really wan a Read that book buh dont have cash to purchase it..
You can forward it to my email at ijelekhaiemmanuel@gmail.com If you got a copy to

What would you do if you were a homosexual in a country where being gay is severely frowned upon and considered a taboo? What is the ultimate price to pay if you were different, gay?

Lagos playboy, son of an ex-beauty Queen; and sole heir to the Johnson fortune, Henry Johnson, is facing a stunning controversy because of his sexual orientation . . . He loves men, yet the thought disgusts him and throws him into turmoil, that is, until he encounters Phoenix, a bisexual male stripper and prostitute who is wildly ambitious and will do anything to climb the social ladder. Phoenix is the one man that opens his eyes to the taste of the forbidden fruit, to what it feels like to hold another man, to kiss another man, and to bed another man.

One taste of the forbidden gay fruit and Henry knows he's trapped. Trapped between Society's expectations, his duty to his family, and his hidden love of men. Set against the backdrop of a sprawling, decadent Lagos City, and from there to the outer edges of Eastern Nigeria, where being gay is unimaginable, a gay romance unthinkable, the consequences of being caught frighteningly debilitating and cripplingly suicidal, Behind Closed Doors is a story of hidden passions that take hold in the dark where same sex love thrives.

Henry will be forced to look deep within himself to unearth the man beneath, to make the toughest decisions of his life as it concerns Phoenix, a young man whose destiny becomes irremovably entwined in his. He will have to question everything he holds dear, everything Society has taught him. He will be forced to question his very existence.








https://okadabooks.com/book/about/behind_closed_doors___adult_only_18/33776

It's available on Okadabooks and Amazon. You can also search the author on Facebook and order same directly.

Hathor5:


Thank you!


Nigerian literature has always been a delight so I must read this book and it seems the author has the potential to meet my expectation that Nigerian authors are among the world's best.

This! ����

Book: [b][/b]Behind Closed Doors

Author: Kingsley Adrian Banks

Genre: LGBT fiction

Pages: 303 (Amazon Print)

Blurb:

What would you do if you were a homosexual in a country where being gay is severely frowned upon and considered a taboo? What is the ultimate price to pay if you were different, gay?

Lagos playboy, son of an ex-beauty Queen; and sole heir to the Johnson fortune, Henry Johnson, is facing a stunning controversy because of his sexual orientation . . . He loves men, yet the thought disgusts him and throws him into turmoil, that is, until he encounters Phoenix, a bisexual male stripper and prostitute who is wildly ambitious and will do anything to climb the social ladder. Phoenix is the one man that opens his eyes to the taste of the forbidden fruit, to what it feels like to hold another man, to kiss another man, and to bed another man.

One taste of the forbidden gay fruit and Henry knows he's trapped. Trapped between Society's expectations, his duty to his family, and his hidden love of men. Set against the backdrop of a sprawling, decadent Lagos City, and from there to the outer edges of Eastern Nigeria, where being gay is unimaginable, a gay romance unthinkable, the consequences of being caught frighteningly debilitating and cripplingly suicidal, Behind Closed Doors is a story of hidden passions that take hold in the dark where same sex love thrives.

Henry will be forced to look deep within himself to unearth the man beneath, to make the toughest decisions of his life as it concerns Phoenix, a young man whose destiny becomes irremovably entwined in his. He will have to question everything he holds dear, everything Society has taught him. He will be forced to question his very existence.


My Review


Are you ready for an explosive novel that delves deep into the gay narrative that sets Nigerians afire? Are you ready to revisit the issue of the forbidden nature of same-sex attraction and love, against a backdrop of the country’s poverty, strive for survival and the divide between the ultra rich and the crushingly poor? If yes, then Kingsley Adrian Banks’ debut novel, Behind Closed Doors is the perfect opener to examine Nigeria’s same-sex narrative.

Behind Closed Doors is a gay fiction that centres around a character, Henry Johnson, who is the heir to the family fortune of one of Lagos’s richest, oldest and most powerful families, the ultra rich Johnsons. Growing up, Henry is besieged by the highest level of domestic violence—in the form of his father always raising fists to his mother—and that helps to shape the core of who he is. But he is deeply assailed by a horrible, crippling fear of his growing sexuality—a sexuality that is centred with frightening exclusivity on boys alone.

Coming from “rich stock”, as most Nigerians would lightly put it, he’s forced sexual experimentation with few girls, and found, to his growing chagrin, that he feels nothing for women. He remained conflicted, until he encounters a young man known only as Phoenix, with whom he explored his innate, basic desire, and found, to his utter horror, stunned pleasure, and exponential disgust, that he loves everything about the male anatomy.

Kingsley Adrian Banks wrote this book with a fresh take on the gay issue. He took the time to explore the cultural stereotypes Nigerians adopt: of the effeminate “gay” man who actually does not sexually identify as gay but as bisexual, though society has branded him gay because of his gender presentation; of the “straight-acting” masculine male who is the embodiment of the societal ideal of what a heterosexual man is, but who is hopelessly, forcefully gay but can “blend” in and pretend to be straight in order not to be stigmatized for his sexual orientation.

At times Banks’ writing is quite hefty, dark and evocative because of the pain and sorrow and hatred he manages to infuse in heavy doses throughout the entire book, but when he touched on the core aspects of his chosen themes—same-sex relationships, society’s hatred of the feminine male, and invariably the forbidden nature of same-sex relationships in Nigeria even before same was eventually criminalized by Goodluck Ebere Jonathan—his writing flashes with deep insight.

From forced heterosexual unions, to the furtive gay relationships undertaken in small doses at those times of newly introduced mobile phones into the Nigerian market, those times of Jazz in Lagos clubs and endless dancing and visits to friends and family because of the lack of telecommunications infrastructure, “Behind Closed Doors” explores the deepest and darkest part of physical relationships, especially when examined through the clouded Nigerian lens of bigotry, hatred and sanctimonious censorship.

Banks may not have lived as an adult through the Nineties in Nigeria’s Lagos, Onitsha and Calabar, but he explored the relationships and human dynamics with a timelessness that rings through even to our current times. In “Behind Closed Doors” he distinctly captured the Nigerian essence, the life as it is lived both in the affluent homes and among those with poverty threatening to crush them—all tinged with the secrecy of what literally goes on behind closed doors: the illicit affairs, the maltreatment and severe abuse meted out by husband to wife or wife to house servant, the in-bred hatred for anything not known and understood, and of course, the ever present condemnation of the public if they discovered your own sins.

Like the few other writers who have actively explored same-sex situations and relationships in full-length Nigerian novels, Banks did justice to a topic that would never die out, particularly given that Nigerians view same-sex romantic relationships with great disdain and now that same-sex romantic relationships are outlawed in Nigeria, punishable by up to fourteen years imprisonment.

In “Behind Closed Doors”, Banks explores what would have been the ordinary lives of Nigerian men, but lived through the black-tinted lens of a society angry with anything that goes against the heteronormative norm they are used. Unlike many gay fiction books, this book is frank in portraying the dark truth and reality of what it means to live gay in Nigeria, a country that views it as a serious taboo for someone to be gay; a country where gender non-conformity is viewed with suspicion, automatically branding you as a gay man or woman, even if you aren’t.

A seeming master at unmasking the deepest and darkest secrets many people live with, Banks deftly explores the double life being gay can make a person live in Lagos, while navigating the underbelly of Nigeria’s most populated city and the myriad tales it has to offer.

Simply put, “Behind Closed Doors” is a cultural narrative, showcasing things in Nigeria as-is, while offering absolutely no hopes of a better tomorrow or for love for any person who is unfortunate enough to not conform to the Nigerian Society’s demands.


Purchase:

https://okadabooks.com/book/about/behind_closed_doors___adult_only_18/33776

Here's the link to this dark, Lagos saga:

https://okadabooks.com/book/about/behind_closed_doors___adult_only_18/33776

I just currently finished Behind Closed Doors, debut Novel of Nigerian author Kingsley Adrian Banks. It was gifted to me in return for an honest review.

The blurb:

What would you do if you were a homosexual in a country where being gay is severely frowned upon and considered a taboo? What is the ultimate price to pay if you were different, gay?

Lagos playboy, son of an ex-beauty Queen; and sole heir to the Johnson fortune, Henry Johnson, is facing a stunning controversy because of his sexual orientation . . . He loves men, yet the thought disgusts him and throws him into turmoil, that is, until he encounters Phoenix, a bisexual male stripper and prostitute who is wildly ambitious and will do anything to climb the social ladder. Phoenix is the one man that opens his eyes to the taste of the forbidden fruit, to what it feels like to hold another man, to kiss another man, and to bed another man.

One taste of the forbidden gay fruit and Henry knows he's trapped. Trapped between Society's expectations, his duty to his family, and his hidden love of men. Set against the backdrop of a sprawling, decadent Lagos City, and from there to the outer edges of Eastern Nigeria, where being gay is unimaginable, a gay romance unthinkable, the consequences of being caught frighteningly debilitating and cripplingly suicidal, Behind Closed Doors is a story of hidden passions that take hold in the dark where same sex love thrives.

Henry will be forced to look deep within himself to unearth the man beneath, to make the toughest decisions of his life as it concerns Phoenix, a young man whose destiny becomes irremovably entwined in his. He will have to question everything he holds dear, everything Society has taught him. He will be forced to question his very existence.


My Take:

This book is...painful to read, to be honest.