Chapter Twelve
"She gestured to him to follow the kitchen side and burst into laughter, " Hehe-hey!...Lati…Lati!"
She called herself and stepped to the windows closing each one of them with the song Love In Tokyo.
He came to the kitchen door, she halted her song and hastened to finish closing the windows.
After closing the windows, she ran down and opened the kitchen.
The flowers housing the birds near the windows of the down floor were bending and standing in the waves.
What rain! Is he going to sleep here? Her mind jigged at the thought of two of them in one big house alone and rain falling.
Some people like it but not Lati
Jackson jumped in from the roaring rain.
She jeered at him," Short boy," giving him a tap on the head, and felt bewildered at her boldness.
She made way for him to go up and followed behind.
" You're bold now, can you act… bla bla?" She heard the voice ridiculing her and assured herself: Lati, tonight is for real.
She had subtly pulled the only seat, a black leather two-seater close to the bed where she would tell him to sit and measured the space between the seat and the bed with her leg.
She must start with cause and effect, she cannot just grab him.
She told him to sit down on the black leather seat.
" My legs are in pain again, take that ointment and massage them."
The oil had been kept in the seat deliberately.
She stretched one of her legs to him sitting on the bed.
"Yea, press it deeply…yes, yes, the other," she instructed him.
Poor Jackson, he was determined, pressing the oil into the two toes one after the other.
"So, that day, you carried me?" she asked him.
Jackson nodded but did not look up.
He was pressing her toes hard with all his might.
"You bathed me?" she posed the question.
Jackson's arms trembled hearing that.
"...am just asking…Ok, na you baff me, huh?" She spoke in broken English.
He nodded.
"Hmm!" she exhaled," Husband material," she said.
Jackson just nodded without looking up.
"Look up, Jackson," she told him but instead of looking up, he kept working on the toes one after the other.
" Yea," she screamed, "...getting it, to my knees, Oh…to my knees" Without cause and effect as she is doing it, she can't just grab him as the mum said, no, she can't.
One story must lead to another
"Yea, to my knees, Jackson." She was singing it like a chorus.
She pulled up the dress to her knees by herself seeing he was not going beyond the knees.
It was an off white-nightdress sewn to be loose on her, she was not wearing a bra.
She posed another question as he was not ready to massage an inch above the knees.
"If na you commot my dress and baffed me…now, commot my dress mek I see,"
Jackson, still facing down, trembled.
"Jackson? C'mmon,na you I de talk to."
He nodded.
"Okay, remove my dress." she freed her leg from his grip.
Gradually, he rolled the dress up from the helm and stopped when he saw her white underwear.
"Are you afraid, c'mmon remove it," She lifted her butts.
Because her hips were wide, the underwear was rolled down to her toes and it was like the shape of a chain of cloth around the ankle.
She freed her legs from it and collected it from him like it was more important to her and covered it beneath a pillow.
The rain had begun, could it be because of the cold, she did not remove the nightie?
She opened her legs and folded her knees.
"O Gawd!…what are you waiting for Jackson?
She was badly in need of a man and the delay was getting dangerous.
When she saw the short and large penis as it peaked to the maximum with swollen veins, she opened her mouth wide, whiffing ha-ha-ha.
"Suck me…suck me…oh Lord…oh Lord." She was rather gasping out. Was she dodging the penis or first desire first?
The length of the clitoris already was about 3 cm outside like a tongue desiring a kiss.
Jackson did not fall her hand. He began to suck her, suck her, suck her.
She was crying heaven and earth, rumpling the bedsheet, with legs, with hands…
Jackson, like a wicked lover, continued, sucking her, biting her, the labia majora, minora…sucking, licking.
When he mounted on her, he did not last a minute, he released.
She hissed and pushed him out.
"Help me," she told him, taking off the bed sheet because of sperm.
"This is a preamble, no qualms," she said and pushed him out as the rain had mellowed down and took sway of the makossa dance.
It was a victory dance. She carried her baby. " Baby baby," She kissed him, "when is your sibling coming, huh? By daddy King or Jackson?" She carried him to the kitchen despite the late hour, fed him with his favorite cake, and laid him back.
"Lati, you have crossed the Rubicon…hehe-hey." she laughed…not only did she laugh, she asked herself, but it was also a damning question," Lati, he won't impregnate you without all the Oohs…ahhs?"
"I know myself," she assured herself and laid back on the bed."Mama Sara told him I'm looking for belle…what else? She had told him everything. No need to tell him to impregnate me," she said to herself, "but the law stands, whoever that is the father of the child must, I repeat, must die!... and the witness too!"
By six in the evening, she ran down the steps tam tam tam, going to the king." I won't give him the space he craves for, crudest Lati, he will know me!"
She pushed in the door and he was there.
"My lonely husband, brooding over your birthday?"
Flopping down into him, King fenced her off, he was muttering into a phone. He got up to the window, she was watching him.
He paced from one end to the other, fidgeting with the curtains." What is making King worried? Elder Mary? What did she tell him?"
She fixed her feet into her slippers. Before she could scram away, King had held her, twisting her arm." What…what did you…what did you tell her. Bastard!" He pushed her and she fell.
Not done, he grabbed her hair pulling her with a bunch of hair in his fist like one dragging a stubborn goat to the slaughter.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!"
Crying under the severe pain, she headed into him and both of them crashed, it was the king that the mirror cut.
She ran out, ran back, carrying him from the pool of his blood, he was too heavy.
"Oh! What will they say, that I killed their brother…because I could not give them a child? " She knelt beside the body, called the doctor, called Mama Sara, called Elder Mary:Come o…come o…mek una come….Dr. there's an emergency pls.
* * *
She blocked the way, as the doctor
and two nurses were carrying him away on the stretcher.
" He needs to be stitched, Your Highness," pleaded the doctor
She shook her head and the doctor asked, "So we could use any room here?"
They moved him into a room.
All through the night, Mama Sara, with the nurse left behind, begged her to sleep, but she did not.
She had called Elder Mary to whom she told everything, hoping to know if she was the one he spoke with, and what she told him.
Ruth had said to approach him with the evidence will be scary. Was this his anger that she meant as scary?
Princess Yemi had already arrived before Elder Mary and Ruth.
" You are a dangerous gift, ask your mother! " her voice was acidic at Lati
" Me? What?" Lati did not get well
"Oh, you think you're married," She spat at her to understand it well.
Yet, Lati saw it as a puzzle.
King tried to speak peace but the nurse cautioned him not to react because of his pain and the stitch on his face.
Ruth and Elder Mary quenched the war of words. Mama Sara and the nurse had already saved another bloodshed before their arrival.
* * *
She was not a kid when she married King. Why call her a gift?
"Mummy," she called her mum.
"Queen, how far?"
"Mummy please…please….keep that for now!" she was highly angry, her heart was broken. It was not her mum's fault but to whom will she complain, and vent her anger?
After all, she hurried her:marry marry now see what the marriage had caused, plus the fact that each time she talks about divorce she counters it as if it is an abomination.
"Then what is it? I told you no rival there. But if you leave the palace, you are on your o." she drew her earlobe.
"Mummy, was I a gift?"
"Gift? What kind of question is that?"
"Was I gifted to the king?" repeated Lati.
After two seconds," What happened?" her mum asked.
"Mummy, am asking!"
Lati's angry foot stomps could be heard through the phone.
"How old were you when you married?" she asked her.
Of course, she was twenty-three, after law school.
So, it would be silly to ask her mum if she was gifted to the king.
Princess Yemi's hatred of her, right from immemorial, has been like the hatred between God and Devil.
If she sees how to poison her, she will.
"But Lati, crudest Lati," she extolled herself," from now henceforth, the Lord shall bring your enemies under your foot!...hehe-hey," she laughed as usual.
"Mummy," she told Mama Sara who came in." before I said if I get pregnant, I will go with it and call King to come and see his child. when I give birth, abi?"
"Yes," agreed Mama Sara.
"But, now…from now henceforth."
Mama Sara's ears widened. She told that she will be here in the palace, take in, and bear the child.
"Very good, crudest! That's what I want to be hearing…how would you leave your position, because of a useless princess, a spinster for that matter."
"Her sister said she's a diabolic fellow that blocks people's way."
" She can't do nothing," Mama Sara assured Lati. " if she does A, I do C…we go see who go tire."
* * *
Nothing to fear again Lati. Jackson and King, no going back.
If King likes, let him get stitches even on his manhood, I will not give him the space he craves for.
She loosened her wrap before the mirror and swayed round," Fine girl…look at." she turned her back again and turned to her front again, weighing her breasts in her palms."Bastard King, see what he's missing."
She sat down and began to look closely at her face.
Her face and mirror. Two inseparable things. She probed the face here and there. "Fine girl, no pimple."
"Still I can't rest," she responded to herself, tied back her wrapper and went to the window, and hung, calculating and looking to see whom she wanted to see.
The preamble is gone. I have to make him a part of this house. My goal is my goal even if I am behaving carnally.
She saw him under the electric light, came out, and flashed him.
He looked up and saw her signal. She does not want to be texting him or speaking on the phone with him.
Just as she signaled, he bent like a soldier and passed through the flowers unnoticed and she opened the kitchen door for him.
Because of Mama Sara, at least, she does not want him to be using the front door.
She lives alone in the five-room apartment with a wide space that contains her car, dress line, a very long one and the kitchen was at the back while the maids' quarter was across the first lane in the palace and at the beginning of it was the security house.
Between her apartment and King's were diverse flowers and a few trees– an almond tree was right under one of King's apartment's windows.
The spare room and store were built together between her apartment and the King's; a place was created for the house away from the flowers.
Jackson entered and she turned the key.
Tonight will be the beginning of the secret affair she hopes on.
Will it produce pregnancy?