By Fattyma Ibrahim

“I was ready to be jealous of her. I wasn’t ready to feel left out in my own bed.”

In this week’s Sex and Relationship column, SOSO on why she said yes to a threesome with her boyfriend and a woman she barely knew, the rules that nearly didn’t hold, and the morning-after conversation she still replays.

Some people fantasise about it quietly for years. Some joke about it at brunch and change the subject. And then there are women like SOSO, who said yes to the idea out loud and then had to live with what it actually felt like.

SOSO is 29 and lives in Abuja. She and her boyfriend of two years had the threesome last year, with a woman they’d met through friends. She says it neither ruined nor rescued their relationship. It just told her things she couldn’t un-know. This week’s column is her story, in her own words.

SOSO’s story

"I'd like to tell you it was purely his fantasy, but that wouldn't be honest.

Kelechi and I were on the couch watching a movie, and a scene came on, and he said, “Imagine.” I laughed and threw a cushion at him. But a few weeks later he brought it up again, properly this time, in the car outside my place, engine off, like he was confessing to something.

I’d like to tell you it was purely his fantasy, but that wouldn’t be honest. When he said it, my first feeling wasn’t shock. It was recognition. I’d thought about it before, and mostly I’d thought about a woman. I just never said it because I didn’t know what it said about me, or about us. So my first reaction to him was a joke, “You’re a wild one,” and my second, silent reaction was “Oh no, I’m curious too.” lol.

The conversations before.

We talked about it for almost two months, and I don’t mean one big talk. I mean little ones in the kitchen, in bed, once in traffic on the expressway, where he said “I need you to be honest about how you’d feel if she liked me more than she liked you” and I had to look out of the window for a bit.

The person we settled on was Chidera. I’d met her at a friend’s engagement party the year before and we’d kept in touch, mostly memes and the occasional lunch. She was easy to be around, very direct, no games. I was the one who mentioned her. Kelechi was surprised. I think he expected me to hate the idea of someone we knew.

The three of us.

We didn’t bring it up at once. I met Chidera alone first, at a place in Wuse 2, and I said it the way you’d tell someone you had bad news: “So, this is going to sound strange.” She put her fork down and said, “Is this about the thing where you and Kelechi want a third?” I nearly choked. Apparently, she’d guessed months ago from how I looked at her at one of our launch together. So, yes, I was mortified.

Then the three of us had dinner. It was the most awkward and honest meal of my life. Nobody touched their food. But Chidera set her own terms straight away, and that’s when I relaxed. She wasn’t a guest star in our fantasy, she was a person with her own preferences.

The rules

We were like a small committee. Everyone got tested first, and protection was non-negotiable. Anyone could stop at any point, no explanation, no sulking. Nobody would be pressured to do anything they hadn’t agreed to. We picked a neutral place, a rented apartment, not our bed. And we had a word, “pepper,” which meant everything stops, right now. I remember Kelechi asking, “Why pepper?” and Chidera saying, “Because nobody says pepper by accident,” which is the most sensible thing anyone said all week.

The rule I added at the last minute was that we would all have breakfast together the next morning, because I didn’t want anyone to disappear and leave it hanging. That turned out to be the smartest rule and the most uncomfortable one.

The moments before

I was a mixture of everything, honestly. I was excited, I was nervous, and I was slightly nauseous. My hands were freezing. I’d changed clothes three times, then ended up back in the first thing I picked. Kelechi kept humming, which he does when he’s anxious, and I nearly told him to stop and then realised it was actually comforting.

There was also a small, quiet worry underneath that I didn’t say out loud: what if I look back at this and it turns out I didn’t want it as much as I thought? I think that’s the part people skip when they talk about having a threesome.

What it was actually like

"It was the most communication I've ever had in a bedroom."

It wasn’t like the movies. It was less smooth and more human. There was laughter, real laughter, at the start, mostly because the air conditioner in the apartment wouldn’t stop making a noise, and we had to pause because none of us could keep a straight face. That broke the tension better than anything we’d planned.

I won’t describe the rest, but I’ll say this: nobody warned me how much of it is talking. We checked in constantly. “Is this okay?” “Yes.” “Do you want to switch?” It was the most communication I’ve ever had in a bedroom, and that surprised me. It made it feel safer, and I think it made it better.

What I didn’t expect was where the discomfort came from. I had prepared myself to be jealous of Chidera, of her attention, her body, what Kelechi might feel. I had not prepared for the moment when the two of them fell into a rhythm and I was, for a minute or two, watching from the side of my own bed. It wasn’t anger. It was a strange loneliness, the feeling of being present and not included. I said “pepper,” quietly, and everything stopped immediately.

Chidera asked if I was okay, Kelechi held my hand, and we sat there for a bit. Then I said I wanted to keep going, and we did, and I was fine. But I’ve thought about that pause more than about anything else that night.

The morning after

Mehn!….it was Awkward, and I mean genuinely awkward. It was one of those mornings where everyone is being extremely polite, like we were strangers at a wedding. Kelechi kept offering people water. Chidera stayed for the breakfast I’d insisted on, said “This is nice” about five times, and then left earlier than she’d planned. She texted me later: “Thank you both. You two are lovely. I’m okay, I promise.” I still have that message.

I don’t think any of us were ashamed, but something had shifted, and none of us knew where to put it.

The conversation afterwards

"I scrolled through Chidera's Instagram more than I'd like to admit, and I know he did too."

Kelechi and I talked that afternoon, and it was not pretty. I said, “I felt weird, and I don’t know what to do with it.” He said, “I felt a rush I don’t know how to explain without sounding careless.” I said, “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.” We both cried a little, and then we both got quiet.

We took about a week where we were polite and careful with each other, and it was horrible. Then one night he said, “I keep thinking I hurt you,” and we talked for hours. It took about three months to really get through it. There was a stretch where I scrolled through Chidera’s Instagram more than I’d like to admit, and I know he did too, and we eventually laughed about it. That’s when I knew we were okay.

Did it bring us closer?

I’ll say both. It brought us closer because we had to be brutally honest, and it created tension because being honest showed us where we were insecure. It didn’t become just something we experienced together. It became something we had to work through.

As for feelings for Chidera, I did feel a kind of tenderness for her. She was kind to both of us, and I didn’t expect to feel protective of her afterwards. And yes, I worried Kelechi might feel more than he said. When I finally asked, he said, “I feel grateful, not attached,” and I believed him, mostly because he’d been honest about everything else.

What I’d tell my earlier self

Say the uncomfortable thing before, not after. I mean all of it: the jealousy you’re pretending you won’t have, the fear that you’re doing this to keep someone, the small “what if I’m not okay.” Don’t wait for the night to find out.

And don’t do it to fix something. If it isn’t something you both want, for your own reasons, it will show.

In conversation with SOSO*

I asked SOSO what people misunderstand about threesomes when all they’ve seen is porn or social media. She didn’t hesitate. “That it’s effortless. It’s not. It’s a lot of planning and a lot of talking, and if you’re not ready to have a hard conversation afterwards, you’re not ready.”

Would she do it again? She took a long pause.

“Maybe not. But I wouldn’t undo it. If I did it again, I’d want it to be exactly as careful as that time, with the same honesty, and I’m not sure I’d be able to guarantee that.”

And the question I left for last: when she looks back, does she remember it more for the sex or for what it taught her?

“The sex is honestly a bit of a blur. What I remember is the pause. The moment I said ‘pepper’ and everything stopped, and nobody made me feel small for it. That’s when I understood that I could trust him, and that I could trust myself to say the thing. I learned more from that minute than from the whole rest of the night.”

SOSO, Kelechi and Chidera* are pseudonyms used to protect the interviewees’ privacy.

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