In a hurry, Evans left behind the parcel I labelled: “To Kojo, by chocolate cream hero, on his birthday.” It was an unexpected but inevitable hurry. Days later, my husband chanced upon it, and that made the difference in my marriage of thirteen years.
Chocolate was my weakness, and I wondered why; I just needed to scent it and all hormones for the effectual cross-fertilization of warm human collaborative emotion starters came alive. James, my husband knew it. He used chocolates to lure me when I was a teenager. He used to steal from his mother’s shop to feed my huge appetite back then. Later, when he realized bars could not satisfy my avid hunger for the product, we switched to the cream.
For years on end, a bowl of chocolate cream was never absent in our home. During our honeymoon, I had a chocolate painter and I was a canvas. A bowl of fluid chocolate cream found its way into our bedroom. James got himself a paint brush and set himself to work. He painted all the edible parts of me with the cream. Later, he said it was a mistake so he was going to apologize.
Well, before I could accept his apology, he had to rid me of all art work, and he had to do this with his gustatory operative. He grumbled and walked off but came back like an obsequious sentinel in kilts. I was a sadist because I enjoyed the punishment I gave him. Eighty minutes on, I was screaming for him to stop because I was at the point of passing out.
Thirteen years into the marriage, the frequency curve just slumped out. I couldn’t even remember the last time he bought me a bar of chocolate. In a sense, he’s justified; he claimed the chocolate and my sedentary life made me obsess. Now he bought either Milo or Chocomilo for breakfast only, insisting I could make a chocolate meal or even its cream from what he’d bought.
It’s true I’m fat, very fat today after having my third child. I had surgery to suck some fats from my system but that really aggravated the situation. Now things have changed; I cannot fit into the front seat of an ordinary salon car. The other time, I went to Accra Mall with him. When I was having difficulty climbing the stairs he, as usual, helped me by holding my hand but that brought my regret on the trip. A female gossip blurted,” This man really loves his mother”. James told her to mind her own business. He should have left her to me. Yes, that’s one thing I hated about James.
In fact, my attempt at cheating on him didn’t materialize early. In the eyes of the world, I was a darling angel. He held the gate for me when we went out, served me at buffets, and held my hand. He would open the car door for me, and after opening, wait and shut after me. As soon as we entered our bedroom, however, it became a mouse and cat relationship. I chased after him and he ran away. He would be in the toilet for ages. He sometimes went to the children’s room and taught Kobby a topic in anticipation of his teacher’s class exercise and homework in the weeks to come, all because he’s running away and avoiding one thing.
So I called him a hypocrite expecting him to become angry; he just smiled. I did all to see if he was cheating, negative. My cousin tapped his phone line for me and monitored him for six months but she got nothing. We tried to see if he had another phone line, negative. Later, I planted a recorder in his car: negative. While placing him under surveillance, I denied him his monthly homage for five months hoping that would push him to the wall to cheat with vigor so we could catch him, negative. Even then he did not change his behavior towards me.
Now I felt ashamed, I’d accused him wrongly. I womanly went for my monthly grant and was denied. No saliva meal, no. Nothing happened for nearly a year now. Well, that’s because after the five month suspension placed him on had elapsed, he decided to extend it without any explanation. Hurtful. He’s keeping up appearances. If anything, he’s enjoying his marriage, not moi. So he pushed me to the wall to do the unthinkable.
I recalled Evans, my husband’s sister’s step son, who came to spend the weekend with us some eight years earlier. He was a teenager then but was well-endowed with a front tail- even then, he was a senior to James. Putting two and two together, I surmised he would be in his twenties now and he would be able to do a better job than James. I craved him for three days and three nights. I meditated on having him until he showed up one wet Wednesday morning when I was on sick leave. I faked the ailment because trusting me came naturally to James.
I was on the porch when he arrived. James had just left for Takoradi minutes earlier. He had no reason for coming; he just felt like seeing me. Asked why he didn’t come to my workplace, he did not feel like going there was his response. There and then, I sent him to buy me a small bowl of chocolate. Of course, he was amazed how I warmed it in the oven, applied it and asked him to work, he did. Indeed, for the first time in more than a decade, I saw pure joy. So we’ve been doing this for three years now.
I took advantage of the fact that James was an elder at church and that he wouldn’t miss Wednesday evening service for anything. Evans was due for maintenance work so I faked that feminine tiredness and slight headache again that evening. James was at his caring best surprisingly. I managed the verisimilitude of my drama script in order not to make James choose a nursing role over church that night. He bought me pain relievers and set me to bed before leaving for church.
Our home is a new residential area we’ve moved to, our own house. It’s isolated and un-walled. Our dogs provided security yet those dogs knew Evans too well. As soon as James left, Evans who had been waiting in the nearby bush came in through the kitchen door. We were far too ready to need preparation.
We tried a plastic chair and it broke. So we became the headmaster and the school girl on a kitchen tool. Evans of course was the headmaster and I, the school girl. We lost count of space and time. We only heard the revving of a car engine and humming of an air conditioner fun with a toot we could not say we knew not.
It was Evans’s birthday while James’s is a week away. Interestingly both men are called Kojo. Evans went the same way he had come in leaving behind the parcel. The shock was too real to bear. James back home? I met him at the front door as usual but with disheveled hair.
“I smell something,” he said.
“You closed early”, I said nervously.
“No….”
“You’re worried about me, I was sleeping….”
“Your hair….”
“Yes…”
There was a drawn pause. I exhaled and sneezed in a quick succession.
“Head Pastor said he dreamt someone came in and raped you while I was away at church”
“Jesus!” I blurted foolishly.
“So I’m here,” he assured.
“Serious… and who?”
“Someone!”
“When?”
“He said the intruder came in through the kitchen door”.
James made for the kitchen.
“James! I’m dying”, I sneezed, tining my fingers through my hair dramatically.
James came over and I fainted in his arms in a tableau effect.
……to be continued.
