By Tormhen David
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references to homophobia, blackmail
The day we met, I had just resumed school. The term had started long before I resumed but I couldn't resume with everyone else because I had gotten sick before the resumption date.
My mother nursed me to health and as soon as I was strong enough, she took me to school. We said hurried goodbyes before she left.
You, like me, were in your first year. Just two boys in a crowded yet, lonely boarding house. When the boarding master showed me to my room, you were my roommate.
But about twenty other boys were my roommates. A large room. Two long lines of bunks stretched on either side, each student with his own cupboard where he had the fragments of his life locked away. I had my cupboard, I had my bunk directly opposite yours.
Even though we were roommates, we didn't see each other when I arrived until later in the evening when we were about to leave the dormitory for the usual night prep. A routine you all were already used to, one I had just stumbled upon.
When we met, our eyes held our gaze for a moment before you asked my name. I told you. Then I asked yours. You called it out with a smirk on your face, “Sam.”
You were just another boy. Just another little black boy like me. I paid you no mind. I was still trying to navigate through this new routine. I was still confused, still homesick.
The next day, what woke me up at four in the morning was the ringing of a bell. My eyes opened but I remained on my bed, pretending to sleep like everyone else.
Then, suddenly and without any warning, I heard a loud bang on the door of our dorm room. Chaos erupted. Boys tumbled down from their bunks, bumping into each other as they raced to the door.
I followed. Outside, under the dark morning cloud, we sang hymns of worship. A boy prayed, another preached, another prayed again. With the closing of the second prayer, the boys scattered.
Some, to fetch water into pails for their morning bath. Others, curling back under their blankets. I did the latter.
After bathing, we dressed in our uniforms of white shirts paired with navy blue shorts. Then, we packed our bags and headed to class.
Breakfast. Lessons. Lunch. Afternoon prep. Siesta. Dinner. Night prep. Days folded into each other like a familiar rhythm. A rhythm we had to endure until graduation in our sixth year.
A month in, I had finally gotten accustomed to it. It was no longer new, no longer strange. Confusion faded. Homesickness lingered. But reality had long dawned on me: I would not be able to go home again until the end of the term.
Then, one morning, after the chaos, after the prayers, after the boys scattered, I went back to my bed, curled under the warmth of my blanket.
I was still under my blanket when I felt someone climb in. The power was out. I couldn't see who it was. But I made room for him on my little bed, wary yet accepting.
The mornings were chilling, the blankets too thin to do anything against the harsh morning winds. And having another boy beside me felt warmer, humane in its simplicity.
He laid there for a while. Then, he rose abruptly, leaving me cold and disappointed. But my disappointment was not to last long, mornings have a rhythm.
The next time power went out, he returned. Whispering an instruction into my ear, ”Scoot over.”
I did.
He climbed in. And when I asked his name, he whispered back into my ear, his warm morning breath carrying the tune of his name, “Sam.”
I knew then. The boy from the opposite bunk. My mind raced with questions: Why was he in my bed? What happened to his?
But while I questioned myself, you left abruptly. Leaving me at the mercy of the chilly morning wind that kept blowing into the room through the open windows.
Two mornings passed. On the third, when the power went out, the same ritual. ”Scoot over.”
Again, I complied, muttering your name under my breath to make sure it was really you. You answered. That morning, while we laid on my bed, basking in the warmth of each other's bodies, your hand brushed against me.
At first, I thought nothing of it. The beds were small and the space tight, mistakes were bound to happen in such situations. There was absolutely nothing to think of.
Three mornings passed. And when you slipped into my bed again, you were bolder. Your hand did not brush against me. You took me into your palm.
My eyes flung open at your touch. My pulse race. My heart thumped. Shock and confusion wrestled with an undeniable rising warmth.
I laid still. Rising steadily in your palms. Melting slowly into your soul. You took my palm and wrapped it around you. I followed your lead, our hands entwined, exploring, discovering, awakening.
And that is how we met. Two strangers connected by shared chaos, by early morning chills, by the muted symphony of a Nigerian boarding school.
On some mornings, when the clouds were still dark and the chilly morning wind blew, we snuzzled up on my bed, breathing heavily on each other in the dark. When the sun peeped through the clouds, we were just strangers.
Children, we might have been. Experimenting, discovering what it meant to feel alive in someone else’s hands.
To you, perhaps, I was just a curiosity, an experiment, a passing thrill. To me? You were an awakening. A revelation. A trembling in the chest I hadn’t known existed.
Morning after morning, for three years, you slid into my world. My bed. My hands. My body. Time moved slowly, unbearably, beautifully.
As time moved on, we grew. We could no longer fit on my little bunk bed. The power stayed, the mornings brightened. And then, slowly, the dark mornings disappeared, and so did our shared secret.
We stopped being roommates after our first year. I had school fathers as the years followed. They were prefects and I was more than welcomed to come stay with them in their rooms.
But neither my school fathers nor the blocks of buildings separating us could sever what we had. And because mornings were no longer dark, we moved under the dark veil of silent nights when everyone went to sleep.
The last night we met, I fell asleep waiting for your knock on my window. You knocked a couple of times before I woke up. You were mad at me for wasting so much time.
I apologized. I told you I had fallen asleep due to exhaustion. You asked me if I would wait for the next night. I said I was fine. For some reason, I could never bring myself to say no to you.
We left my window and made our way into the bush. Into the ultramodern bathrooms. In one of those bathrooms, you kissed me. I kissed you back and our lips locked, our warm breaths burning our noses.
In one of those bathrooms, your hand moved to hold me and it met me hard. You stroked and I moaned into your mouth. Because the bathrooms were not roofed, the moonlight shone on us brightly, painting our shadows on the floor like colours on a canvas.
Under the moonlight, as our bodies turned blue, I reached out and took you into my palm. I stroked, you moaned into my mouth, quivering with pleasure in my hands. And with each other in our hands, we kept stroking, our breaths heavier with each stroke.
Even though the world has convinced boys like us that we are broken things that need fixing. Deranged creatures in dire need of rehabilitation.
Under that moonlight, as we held onto each other, we were not broken things, neither of us. We were cracked pottery, mended with lacquer and flakes of gold. Whole, complete unto each other.
That was the last time we kissed under the moonlight. The last time you held me. Before a boy blackmailed a confession about us out of me. I do not know if he blackmailed you too. You never spoke to me about it.
You moved on without me. You moved on and got yourself a girlfriend, leaving me still yearning for your touch. You moved on and broke my heart even though I failed us first.
Even now, I wonder. If the blackmail hadn’t happened, if I’d stayed silent, if forgiveness had been simple. Would we have met one more time under the moonlight?
As I type this now, there's still a part of me that wants to stand under the moonlight with you. A part of me that wants to kiss you. A part of me that longs for you even though I know I would never have you again.
Tormhen Ivan David is an emerging storyteller drawn to the quiet, complicated spaces where identity, pain, love, and survival intersect. His writing lives at the crossroads of queerness and life with sickle cell disorder (SCD), exploring what it means to exist, to endure, and to be seen in a world that often looks away. As both a writer and an advocate, he is committed to breaking silence, challenging stigma, reshaping narratives, and carving out space for voices too often pushed to the margins. His stories are not just told; they are felt, layered with vulnerability, resilience, and a refusal to be erased.
His piece, To Be Sickled, featured in Lit eZine, an international literary magazine dedicated to amplifying diverse voices, marks an early step in his growing literary journey.
Based in Nigeria, Ivan is actively engaged in local advocacy efforts and writing communities, using both his voice and his presence to build spaces of awareness, empathy, and change. Still at the beginning of his publishing journey, he continues to hone his craft with intention and urgency, believing storytelling to be both a form of resistance and a bridge to connection.
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