Kim seethes with rage. Why does this woman hate her so much? Why? Is this what she’ll live with as Sam’s wife?
No! She decides she’s not going on with the marriage. To hell with Sam and his mother. She decides to do away with the pregnancy.
“I’m leaving this village first thing in the morning,” she tells herself.
****
Mama’s eyes are misty.
Her heart aches. She needs not confirm. The look on her son’s face says everything. She had prayed against this!
So, she is traveling this route on account of another son? Her mind flies back some donkey years.
She was in the kitchen preparing breakfast when one of her husband’s cousins rushed into their house. He wanted to see her husband urgently.
He looked like he had seen the devil. She left what she was doing and rushed in to get her husband.
Her husband and his cousin discussed briefly in low tones and rushed out. In the afternoon of that day, the story was out -the man’s pregnant wife had a life threatening miscarriage. Before the end of that day, the details were out.
The man’s extra large pee caused it!
An early morning safari with his ‘heavy’ wife resulted in premature rupturing of the membrane! Mama, who was in her fifth year in marriage, was shocked beyond words.
She left her mouth agape in wonderment for a very long time. That incident opened a new topic for discussion among the married women in the family. Stealthily, they began to talk about hitherto ‘no go’ topics.
“Why would Papa Paul be doing it with force with his pregnant wife?” Mary asked no one in particular. “Men do not have control once they are in there and that thing no get conscience o,” Nse, the Calabar lady married to Sam’s uncle said and they all laughed. The women were in the kitchen.
The men where relaxing after dinner in front of the compound. Though the men were not within earshot, the women still spoke in whispers. Walls have ears, they say.
“But how can a pee burst the water? Is it a hammer? Nothing that one will not hear in this world o,” one of the women asked. “Maybe Evelyn threw her legs apart like the antenna of a television,” Nse said and they all laughed again.
“Nse! Na the thing between man’s legs dey kill Calabar woman,” the oldest woman among them, Mama Ben, said. “It can’t kill. Even the very big one no fit do anything.
I go conquer am. The small one is like an appetizer,” Nse said. “Now we know why Paul came back with you and no property after five years sojourn in Calabar,” Mama Ben said, throwing the women into another fit of laughter. “Am I not enough property?” Nse asked, reeling with laughter.
The women gossiped about sizes of pee and what it could do. Sam’s mum listened without saying a word. Obviously. She was a learner. It was that day she realised that some women do enjoy the feel of the pee in their caves of wonder. She never did, she hardly felt anything.
To her, only men were programmed to enjoy sex. She listened as they discussed sizes of pee. She realised that something was wrong with Sam’s dad. His pee was a wee longer and fatter than an adult’s thumb.
Apart from the first few nights after they go married, there was no more excitement for her. It got worse after having her first child, she could sleep while he huffed and puffed on her.
The good thing was that he usually covered her up very well after he was sated. Why keep awake for nothing? She felt nothing; it was like using a spatula to turn a tea-filled mug. Papa Sam never bothered. He was happy enjoying what he paid for anytime he wanted. That conversation with her fellow women changed a lot of things for her.
The next time she had to deal with that issue again was about 15 years ago, long after her husband, Elijah, had died. Her first born, Ojie, told her to get him a good girl for marriage. She was ecstatic. Very few young men would want their mothers to get a wife for them.
Before then, she had been worried that his age mates were fathers many times over. She got Ojie a well-behaved girl from a good home.
Less than a month later, the girl told her she was leaving. It was then she realised that Ojie inherited his father’s baby pee size! Of course, Ojie’s wife didn’t leave. She ensured that. She made her understand that size didn’t matter but the functionality. When she became pregnant two months later, she calmed down.
They have six children now and she wants to believe they are happy. She thought Ojie’s would be the last of such cases in her family.
Obviously, she would have to deal with a new one…Sam’s. If she could sort out Ojie’s issue, she should be able to handle Sam’s own. She made Ojie’s wife dirigible. But that girl that Sam brought home is something else. She looks like trouble.
***
Sam’s mother comes back to the present with a shake of her head. Sam looks up. He’s been wondering what is going on in his mother’s head. How could Kim spill his best kept secret…and to his mum! He had managed his secret very well.
Although he had been assured that he could grow his ‘man’ with some prescription drugs, he had been scared there could be side effect. While in the university, he had learnt from some savvy guys that a guy could get a woman into cloud nine with his finger and smooching before the show proper.
He learnt the tricks and became so adept at it that the woman would be moaning so senselessly that she wouldn’t care whether it’s finger or pee that was turning her tipsy and making her shiver uncontrollably. That was how he got Kim. He thought Kim never cared about size…until today. “Samson,” his mother calls him.
“Mama,” he replies. When his mother calls his name in full instead of the usual ‘Sammy’, he gets worried. It means he’s done something very bad.
As a little boy, a hot slap on the back would usually accompany it if he was lucky, and if not, he would get a thorough thrashing with a slim, supple cane got ten from the trees around the house. Well, if mama is going to thrash him now, it’s better she knows the full story.
“Mama, I really do not know why you hate Kim so much. She’s a good girl. Really, er..but that is not the issue now.
The fact is that she’s pregnant and we need to get married,” he spits the words so fast, as if they are hot. Mama’s face is indescribable. She stares at her son, eyes unseeing as she mulls over the implication of what her son just said.
Pregnancy before marriage? “Samson, what did you just say? Don’t you know our culture and tradition? The shame…the shame,” she wails. Then she turns to her son. “Samson!”
“Mama,” Sam croaks and clears his throat.
**********
Will Kim make good her vow and get rid of the pregnancy? How does Sam handle his mother? Let’s meet here on Sunday.
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