He sat outside the house, a stick which had been chewed half-way hung in between his dry lips, spittle sat at the corners of his mouth as he drove the stick deeper into his mouth, sticking out his tongue to do the same work on. He sucked up phlegm from all regions of his mouth and gathered momentum to spit it out. Woe betide anyone it touched. Its effect will be just as disastrous as one who had been bathed with acid. Unfortunately, Bisoye chose that time to leave home for work. Both their eyes met, held and travelled to the front of her skirt, her crisp grey skirt suit which now bore the thick phlegm, with some of it hanging down and dropping to her shining Jimmy Choos. Her jaw clenched as she balled her fist. It was a Monday morning. Why did he have to choose today to display his madness?
Otunba’s chewing stick hadn’t stopped its work. All he did was spy at her for a fraction of a second and continued. She took a roundabout turn and walked back into her apartment. It was a miracle her husband had been called on an emergency earlier that morning. The house was so quiet, at least her apartment. She had loved the home when they bought it two years ago. Though she’d have preferred something more private, like a duplex or even a bungalow, she hadn’t minded the block of flats. It was decent and they moved in right after they married. It was her loneliness that had brought her trouble with Otunba. Otunba saw himself as some kind of landlord because he bought the first flat and five others which he placed for rent.
Right there in the living room, making a mental note never to wear the clothes again, Bisoye got out of the soiled clothes and picked up her phone. She called in sick at the advertising agency she worked as a client-service officer and then flung her phone on the table to lay on the couch in her red, lacy two-piece. The one Bode had bought and Kolade loved to rip apart when they made love. She lay, facing the ceramic ceiling, just like the day it had all started.
It was after the wedding and Bode had wanted them to honeymoon in the UK but as usual, work had come before her so they’d had to cancel. She couldn’t face up to her friends so she just decided to turn off her phone for the period. It had initially seemed okay marrying a neurosurgeon but she hadn’t known it could ever get so lonely. Bode was a lot caring and attentive when they were dating than now when they were ‘happily married’. His phone never stopped ringing, like he was the only neurosurgeon in the Nigeria. Well, they weren’t many. That night, Bode had just returned tired from work. She had fed him and they just lay there in the living room. The mood had seemed right and they had started getting out of their clothes until the phone rang. One thing she was certain about was that he’d go into a mad rush of love making before he jets out, but he didn’t. He just got up, his glorious body glistening in the candle light, got into his clothes and left after a murmured apology. After he had had her engine revved up and running!
She had sat in the balcony, bent on drinking herself to stupor. There were no friends to call-she was still on the pretence of being in the UK- no one to talk to and not a friendly neighbour anywhere around. She felt all alone until she saw a silhouetted figure move from the balcony besides theirs. There was a red light swinging from up in the air and falling to its sides. It was a male and he was smoking. She strained to see if she could get a clearer picture of him for she didn’t know any neighbours when he caught her movement. He moved towards the banister. That was the closest he could get. She got up towards him, moving to her too.
“Hi”
She nodded, watching as his eyes bored into her night wear, she had just donned it on, completely nude beneath. If his hands could go further, they could have attacked her with venom, because her nipples rose wantonly. He was shirtless, a jeans trouser riding down his waist. He reached out his hands, they barely brushed hers but the effect was electrifying. She couldn’t quite remember if they had spoken or words had been superfluous, all she could recollect in her drunken state was his hard, taut body stretched over hers like wrung wire.
“Invite me in.”
The distance from the balcony to the main entrance was far enough for her to get back to her senses but all rational thoughts eluded her.
There was no room for second thoughts, no kisses, no foreplays. They both needed sex and they gave heavily. And she thought her husband was gorgeous! Kolade had a body made for women to stare, salivate and shiver. They had sex like she had never had in her life.
“I’m so sorry we both got carried away.”
Reality had dawned and the shame was unbearable. He picked his trousers, the one she had assisted him in flinging to a corner of her living room!
He looked from her to the wedding photo frame. “My name is Kolade. I’m sorry I don’t make a habit of sleeping with married women but…”
“Get out!”
She had slammed the door just as he put his foot out and she cried, cried for her recklessness.
But it hadn’t ended there. Kolade came back for more and stupid as she was she needed the attention, the way his eyes made love to her, his touch which was as delicate as porcelain and his kind words. He was separated from his wife, not legally, but bottom-line was he was an unhappy, lonely man who convinced her till she began seeing herself as unhappy too even though she lacked for nothing and would have been happier but for Bode’s crazy schedules. It became so bad, that Kolade knew when Bode left home. He slipped in almost immediately; tearing at their clothes until that eventful day she had been stupid not to have bolted the door and Otunba had walked in on them, right there in the living room. He made sure he made eye contact with them both before apologising on entering the wrong apartment! For heaven’s sake it wasn’t a face-II-face house where you could mistakenly enter someone else’s room. But ever since then, it had been hell for her and well Kolade too because it was his wife who had bought the apartment and she was Otunba’s niece. She was on a course in the US and was back. They weren’t even separated.
If Otunba tried blackmailing Bisoye, perhaps it would help rather than the public frustrations he meted out on her; like spitting on her, pouring water on her and all.
Kolade rushed into her apartment one evening just as Bode left the house; he was in a state, saying Otunba claimed he couldn’t hold it up anymore. He was being a traitor holding that kind of information. He wanted her to act like nothing of the sort had happened, should Otunba spill, but even at that it would take a miracle not to be out of her marriage barely a year after they just married. But she hoped, prayed and somehow waited for Otunba’s next mischief. She hadn’t seen Kolade too and it was already four days after he had come to hint her on the development.
Bode got home late after work. The moment she opened the door for him and saw his face, she knew something was wrong. Her insides took an elevator ride when Bode nodded his head and didn’t respond to her greetings. The chair made a hissing noise as he fell into it.
“I take it you didn’t hear Otunba was killed this morning? It must have been some hired-assassins. His head was bashed-in with a pole.”
That was enough for her to collapse, which she did.
#
Oyster
Pearls & Oysters 