Getting knocked up before saying ‘I do’ is a huge taboo in Sam’s place but he didn’t tell me…not quite true. He did tell me very late…yeah, very late. He’s still interested though. Just that he’ll have a lot of convincing to do. His mother will go bonkers, his siblings too. Sam is angry and happy at the same time.
The little life growing inside me places him among the men, but coming earlier than expected, when he’s yet to decide on me, makes him mad. He can’t think of me getting rid of the yet to be noticed bump or even denying responsibility. He knows he’s been the sole tiller between my legs the past eight months since he talked marriage with me.
I couldn’t have dared his wrath… not exactly his…more of his village or is it his family’s deity? He took me through an oath which, by the way, reminds me of the tale of Okija Shrine in Anambra State. “Once you agree to marry us, you’ve automatically sworn to an oath.
You must have no other man beside me or the gods of our land will come after you. I don’t need to know about it,” he told me then. I had rued it. Do I love him? I think I could manage him.
Society demands that a woman has to get a husband, a ‘cover’, before she is regarded as responsible. Though I disagree totally with that phallic-minded thought, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to have a man run the ‘manly’ errands in the home.
Why should I climb on a stool, unsteadily, to change an electric bulb when a man could do that effortlessly? Why get up in the dead of night to turn the generator on or off, depending on the vagaries of the PHCN, when he is snoring close to you on the bed? For such little errands and more, the man is handy.
The prospect of Sam being a ‘cover’ becomes very attractive. Now don’t tell me that stuff about a man helping to keep the bed warm and making me moan with pleasure at nights. What are the sex toys for?
Those malleable ‘males’ make me moan uncontrollably without the he-goat grunts and smell which put me off most times…and wait for this, I can have them anytime I want without complain! “Hey, a responsible woman doesn’t behave like a sex-starved bitch. You have to rein in your feelings.
Announcing your pleasure through screaming places you among the bad girls,” he had once said during sex. Of course I paid him no attention, but screamed to high heavens. But I had worried at his dated behavior.
Which man doesn’t understand that the big O makes a woman scream senselessly? Only Sam doesn’t know, it would appear. I still accepted his ‘let’s live together forever’ offer. A man has other uses apart from the bedroom. I should have known that if he’s so dated in his thinking, his mother could be worse. I learnt that firsthand. “My daughter, is it that you couldn’t get more piece of cloth to cover your nakedness?”
Her mother had asked the day he introduced me to her. We had gone to his village to attend his cousin’s wedding. I felt uncomfortable. I was actually wearing my longest gown. Mama should have seen me in my micro minis!
The next day was worse. I was looking and feeling like a goddess in my clingy, low cleavage and back baring dress. I had twirled in front of the mirror for minutes in the room, admiring my drop dead shape and body fitting dress before making my grand entry into the sitting room where mama was waiting for Sam to take us to the wedding venue.
“What? Hope you’re not stepping out of this house in that thing that barely covers your nakedness?” she had asked, killing my gait immediately. I had shot Sam a dart of a look. “Mama! That’s what fashionable women wear in the cities,” he had told his mother in a patronising tone.
“Fashionable women indeed! I wish my arthritis-numbed knees could allow me. I would have turned that dress into something wearable,” she had replied. I was grateful for that arthritis. Let it hold her knees perpetually! I could imagine her dragging me by my ears back to the room. She looks the type that could follow with a slap or more.
“Mama was a notable seamstress. She made clothes for notable members of the community in those days,” Sam had said. Mama beamed from ear to ear. It was as if Sam had tickled her with those words. “I made clothes for many fashionable women. I mean responsible fashionable women.
There was a style I copied from Nelly, a popular musician then. I made it for Madam Cash and all her club members wanted the same style. For two weeks, my apprentices and I didn’t rest. We sewed into the nights.
The women were very happy…Sam wasn’t born then. His grandfather had come to my father then to ask for my hand in marriage on behalf of his son -your father…” Sam cut her off. He and other members of the family had heard that story more than 100 times. It’s one of her favourites. She could talk for the next five hours if he allowed her. “Mama, we will be late to the wedding if we don’t leave immediately,” Sam said, turning to the door.
“Okay o,” she said, her eyes darting all over Kim. “Oh leave Kim alone. She’s okay in what she’s wearing,” he said. “Ohooo…I didn’t know I’d live to see the day that young women will ‘shelf’ their nakedness for the world to see.
That is why many women remain on the shelf for life,” she said, looking with distaste at Kim. Kim shakes herself back to the present. After all is said and done, does she really wants to get married? To her, marriage could be cumbersome. She didn’t know her mother. She died few months after her birth and no one knew her father. Her grandmother told her very little about her mother.
The most information she gleaned from family members was that her mother, Kimberly, was a rebel who left home at 16 years and came back with lot of cash and a protruding belly. She died three months after having her baby.
The six months she lived at home before passing on at the age of 21, she said no word about the man responsible for her pregnancy. Today, 28 years later, she’s pregnant out of wedlock but the good thing is that the man responsible wants her and the pregnancy. But does she really want him? Sam’s brothers’ wives are great companions. They all look the docile wives who are all afraid of their mother in-law.
She could feel they love her fashionable dresses but are too afraid of their mother in-law and their equally dated husbands. They were all married the ‘proper’ way -before pregnancy – according to them. Pregnancy before marriage was usually discussed in whispers and solved with shotgun (quickie) nuptials in Sam’s community. That’s what he’s thinking of but first, he has to convince his mother to give her blessing to their marriage.
Throwing the pregnancy into the mix is a big issue. Kim smiles. She ain’t gonna have any shotgun nuptials. She’s gonna take her time in planning a grand wedding whether the pregnancy is visible to the world or not and no mother in-law is gonna tell her what to do! Today, they are going to see mama and she’ll make sure she’s wearing her bum shorts and crop top when they see her.
“What are those things you’re throwing into the suitcase? Shorts and minis? Where are you going to wear them? Do you realise we are going to the village to see mama? Please, pack wearable things…” Sam began but I cut him off.
“Look, I ain’t gonna be another woman because I want your momma to approve of me. If you want me as a wife, then we go see her on my terms or we don’t. I’m not desperate to get married…so make your choice!”
*******
Dear readers, you are right. We’ve started on a journey with Sam and Kim. How compelling can their story be?
You won’t know if you don’t keep a date with me here on Sundays.
