I met Felix at a rooftop bar in Lekki, on one of those nights Lagos pretends to be Paris. Wine glasses clinked against the neon skyline. He leaned in like he knew secrets I wanted to hear.
Felix was older, soft-spoken, polished. He worked in tech, or so he said, and drove a matte black Benz that smelled of imported leather and expensive intentions. From the start, he made his interest clear.
He said I was beautiful, but that my body could “match my potential” if I just considered “a little enhancement.”
He wasn’t the first to hint at it. Friends had done theirs abroad and came back shaped like dreams; hips full, waist snatched, followers doubled. I’d scrolled through Instagram late at night, staring at their transformation videos, wondering if maybe, just maybe, it would be my turn next.
So when Felix offered to pay for a BBL in Turkey, no strings attached, according to him, it felt like a shortcut to the version of myself I’d always imagined.
“Let me take care of you,” he said, his smile smooth as melted chocolate. “Consider it an investment.”
I should have asked, “An investment in what?”
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The clinic in Istanbul was pristine, all white walls all white walls and gleaming steel, smelled like antiseptic and fear.
The surgeon spoke in broken English, tracing lines on my hips with a marker. “More curve, yes? Like Kim Kardashian?”
Felix held my hand as they put me under. “You’re going to look incredible,” he murmured.
When I woke up, my body was aching and swollen. Tunde Felix fed me painkillers, adjusting my pillows, his eyes gleaming with something I mistook for pride.
“Wait till you see it,” he said. “You’re a masterpiece now.”
When I eventually returned to Lagos, Felix accompanied me. He kissed my forehead like a proud sponsor. The first few weeks were bliss. We went shopping, had quiet dinners, and joked about how I’d make him broke with this new “hotness.”
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But the mood shifted soon enough.
He stopped calling me babe. He started saying things like, “I hope you know this wasn’t free.” Or, “You think I sent you to Turkey for sightseeing?”
Then came the installment plan.
“If you can’t pay back in cash, pay in kind,” he said one night, leaning on my doorframe like a debt collector. “I’m not a philanthropist.”
He meant sex. Scheduled. On demand. Installment by installment.
I said no, at first. He laughed. “So you want to eat life with a big spoon and pretend someone else picked the bill?”
The truth is, I didn’t have the voice to fight him then. Not after I’d posted the new body all over my page. Not after the comments that said “Soft life loading.” Not after friends commented “God when?”
So I gave in for a while. Until I didn’t.
I eventually blocked him, deleted the pictures, and started over. The body stayed, but the shame took longer to leave.
I tell this story now not for pity, but so someone else knows that nothing is ever truly free when men think your body is a transaction.
Some debts are too heavy to owe.
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