Once finished, Xolani doused Amara with heated water from a pitcher, rinsing the back of her body before quietly uttering, “Turn around.” Amara was not shy in front of her co-wife; she stood straight, arms extended, chest high. Xolani paused, looking a little embarrassed when she moved to the full breasts, taking more care around the enlarged nipples and the distended belly. On her knees, Xolani lifted Amara’s leg on a stool and tended to the thighs, the calves, then back up to the dark curls between the legs. Blushing, Xolani washed the genitals quickly but tenderly. When she turned for the pitcher, she wiped her eyes.
Xolani was on her knees, drying her co-wife’s feet with a large sheet, when Amara cleared her throat and asked, “Shall we bathe you now?” Before Xolani could answer, Amara had her on her feet and was clumsily undoing her wrap dress. “As large as I am, our husband will not likely lay with me any time soon. He may come to you tonight, so you should be ready.”
Xolani’s eyes were wide, but she did not stop Amara from undressing her. “I suspect he’ll be with his favorite pet. We may not see him until your son is born.”
“Perhaps,” Amara said. “Later than that, if it is a girl.”
“If this is a girl,” Xolani chuckled as she laid her hands on Amara’s bare belly, “the next time we see Babatunde, he’ll be bringing us a new wife!”
Jomo sat back and watched the women laugh, and part of him wanted to join them. He knew, if they didn’t, that Xolani was probably right. Their husband had enough wealth for several wives, and enough sexual appetite for lovers in addition. Jomo told himself that Babatunde would have no other men, but it was only a dream. Soon Babatunde would tire of him, and seek out younger men to educate, protect and initiate into manhood. Jomo could see it as clear as the belly before his eyes.
He wondered, as the giggling women set about bathing the first wife, if he would ever have children of his own, wives to provide for and beautiful young men to satisfy his every need. Only Babatunde could decide when their time together would cease, and Jomo longed for it as much as he dreaded it. He worried that the arrival of children would only create more work for him, in Babatunde’s house and in his bed. More than that, he worried that their husband would forget about him altogether. And for a moment, Jomo wondered what life for him would be if Xolani and Amara were to disappear. Such thoughts disgusted him to tears.
Amara remained naked as she rinsed Xolani’s back. They giggled at some joke, but didn’t say much as Xolani tended to her own neck and chest. Suddenly Amara grabbed her from behind, one hand on her co-wife’s breast, the other on her flat belly.
“It’s been so long since I’ve felt my own body,” Amara explained sheepishly.
Xolani turned around, allowing Amara to gently fondle the smaller, perkier breasts before reaching hesitantly to Amara’s full, heavy breasts. “If I had been blessed by the gods to have children, I suppose this would be what I would look like,” she whispered as she rolled the nipples between her fingers. Amara exhaled slowly, and arched her back. Xolani smiled and leaned down to bury her face between Amara’s breasts before kissing them one after the other. She quickly lowered to her knees in the damp earth floor and slowly sucked a hardened nipple into her mouth. Whatever animosity the wives held for each other seemed to disappear, like Xolani’s hands disappearing beneath Amara’s belly. The second wife made a purring noise and threw her head back.
Jomo wanted to cover his eyes, because it had been so long since he’d been with anyone other than Babatunde, and because he’d never looked at a pregnant woman in such a way, and because he still couldn’t help resenting these women, their future babies, and their place in their husband’s life. But he couldn’t help it, not with Xolani leading her co-wife to the bed, not when they kissed slowly, more patiently than Babatunde ever would, and not when Amara lay back to invite Xolani to her glistening pudenda. Jomo knew his master disliked the taste of woman; he’d told him as much several times. Xolani appeared to enjoy it, as did Amara when she asked for her turn. The women giggled like naughty schoolgirls as they switched places and positions, to Jomo’s torment. He’d already been subtly stroking his cock through his pants when Amara reached into a nearby basket for a phallus-shaped wood-carved dildo. With this inside her vagina, and her co-wife’s lips and fingers on her clitoris, Amara climaxed into a fit of loud, triumphant giggles. Jomo pulled his cock free and began stroking fast, watching intently the way Amara reciprocated on Xolani with a slightly bent zucchini. The first wife was less vocal, but her climax was no less intense, and her moans of pleasure sounded like cries as Amara finished lapping at her sex. Jomo wondered what they would do next, wondered what they would do after, wondered if they would mind him watching. And then he heard Babatunde calling for him.
It was an easy decision; Jomo raced away from his master’s voice, and found a bed of his own, under the stars, away from chores and duty and frustration, and stroked himself to release, all on his own.
The roar of the children, the villagers, and the chanting medicine men soon fell away, leaving Babatunde to linger on his deathbed. Age had come upon him before he was ready, and all but his first two wives had left the house, chasing after their own children, their own younger lovers. Whatever sickness had robbed him of his sight and strength had left his hearing nearly intact, so he could clearly discern Xolani and Amara on the other side of the large communal house, whispering to each other. Soon they were joined by a male voice he didn’t at first recognize.
Only when his wives cried to the man, kissed him and called him Jomo did Babatunde finally understand what he’d missed. Little more than an arm’s reach away, the three comforted each other with their kisses and bodies. Did they think him already dead, he wondered, as Jomo complimented Amara on her ability to suck his cock, as Xolani described how delicious her co-wife’s sex tasted, as both argued over who would fuck Jomo first? There Babatunde lay, filled with regret at all the four of them could have shared, if he’d not been so selfish with his love. Had he ever told any of them, or his other wives and lovers, that he loved them? He was too sick to tell them now, and they were too involved with each other, cheating him out of his rightfully earned and owned pleasure. He wished he could hate them, but the sounds coming from his lovers left his heart light as he began to fade. Babatunde wondered if ever before a man had died with both tears in his eyes and an erection in his pants, as the ancestors came for him.
RENEWAL
Delilah Night
I stood in the mall restroom looking into a mirror—at a stranger. I’d been wearing this tank top for three days. My hair looked dull. I surreptitiously took a whiff and winced. My shorts, once sassily tight on my curvy ass, were hanging onto my hips by a prayer. Two bouts of pregnancy in two and a half years, each comprised of nine months of puking, had left me thinner than I’d ever been.
Immediately I dialed my closest friend in Singapore. “Jen, why didn’t you tell me I looked like hell? I thought you were my friend.”
“You look like the mom of two kids under the age of three. Which you are. You have enough to deal with without me critiquing your fashion choices. And besides, you’ve lost so much weight—I think you’re looking great! Cara, buy yourself a new dress, ask your helper to watch the kids a bit longer and get a pedicure. You totally deserve it! But don’t beat yourself up for looking like a mom. You are a mom. Speaking of which— NATHANIEL ADDISON MASSI, PUT THAT DOWN NOW! Gotta go.” The line went dead.
I looked back at the woman in the mirror. She didn’t look like the kind of woman who’d greeted her man with a plastic tarp, frosting and sprinkles on his birthday and then invited him to decorate her as his ideal birthday cake and eat her. She looked like the kind of woman who would yell at kids for spilling sprinkles on the floor as she pushed a gigantic bra strap back into place.
I frowned. When did I start wearing…? Right, nursing bras.
Well, my life and my marriage might be shit, but I didn’t have to look like it. First things first: Adam had bee
n weaned for over a month now. Not even bothering to step into a stall, I reached back and undid the monstrous clasps. Liberating my breasts from their polyester prison brought a grin to the stranger’s face in the mirror. As I left the bathroom, I thrust the nursing bra into the trash.
Justin and I met in college. He was a business major with a laser focus on landing a job on Wall Street. I was a dreamy history major more interested in learning about the history of women and sex than in any practical application of that knowledge post-graduation.
At first glance, we looked totally wrong for each other. He was tall and fit. His thick brown hair was ruthlessly groomed. Even as an undergraduate, Justin was rarely seen without a tie. I was short, and my body showed my preference for books over the gym. I wasn’t fat, but I would never be referred to as “svelte.” I had messy red hair too often kept in place by a pencil for lack of anything else on hand. I owned nothing that needed dry cleaning. And I had long since eschewed bras as too constrictive on my C-cups (it wasn’t like they were DDs, I’d once told my mother in exasperation).
There was something magnetic that kept pulling us together; that shared fondness for Mel Brooks movies bordering on the obsessive, the way we’d talk on long drives to nowhere in particular, the way we scraped money together all semester to travel all summer…and the sex.
Justin’s buttoned-up exterior, as it turned out, was the iron suit worn by a man raised in a family whose motto was “What will the neighbors/members of our synagogue think?” He hadn’t been allowed to get too dirty or come home too late. It was unacceptable to have a less than stellar report card. If he did an extracurricular activity, he’d better become the president /star/captain. He didn’t color outside the lines. My slapdash approach to life was a rebellion and then a door to freedom for him, especially in the bedroom.
“Do you want to lick this off?” I had giggled, gesturing to the melting bit of ice cream that had fallen into my cleavage. He’d been staring at it with laser intensity. Little did I know the monster I was about to unleash with that question. That one act—messy, uninhibited and full of laughter—invited him through a door he never wanted to close again. Or so I’d thought until recently.
The sex had been incredible. Justin hadn’t been my first, but he’d been the one who listened to me and made an effort to figure out what would drive me crazy. He was the one who’d discovered what would send me over the edge into the kind of orgasm that makes you feel like the world is telescoping in on you. He had a wicked grin and the kind of charisma that somehow talked me into sex in a bathroom at his little sister’s bat mitzvah. On vacation in Chicago, I found myself making out with a statuesque brunette. His sexual adventurousness found a matching spirit in my own.
When we’d moved to New York after graduation, he’d worked crazy hours. When he arrived home, no matter how late, he never failed to pull me to him under the covers. He’d wake me with his mouth, with his fingers, with his cock.
Marriage didn’t change a thing for us.
“A sex club. Want to go? We can just watch,” he’d murmured as he nuzzled my neck. “Fifteen minutes. If you’re not comfortable, we leave. It’s our vacation; let’s do something crazy.”
I’d clutched his hand as we’d entered the building. Justin encouraged me to direct our exploration. Hearing moans of pleasure curved my lips. Compliments directed at my cleavage and my legs assuaged my nerves.
Justin began to give me gentle kisses. Watching a lusty blonde with three men made me wet. Soon we were making out against a wall, Justin’s hand darting into my panties to tease my clit.
“I want to do something,” he’d said as I widened my stance to give him more access to my pussy.
“What?” I’d asked distractedly, willing to try almost anything if he’d just keep doing that.
“Let me spank you.”
My eyes, which had been shut to better focus on the stirring orgasm, flew open. “Why?”
His hand moved from my clit to squeeze my ass. “There’s plenty of people here who’d love to spank that ass of yours, but only I can. Let me show off that you’re mine. Make them jealous.”
“Jealous?” I liked the way the word tasted in my mouth.
“Jealous.”
I nodded my consent. Justin led me to the red plush couch and sat down in the middle. He patted the seat next to him. I knelt next to him, allowing him to lower me over his lap. One of his hands braced my body, keeping me balanced. The other slid up and down my legs before lifting my skirt to my waist and exposing my green lacy panties.
I braced, waiting for the strike, but was surprised instead when his fingers slid beneath the lace, dipped into my wet pussy and then danced over my clit. Relaxing into the strokes of his fingers, I let Justin toy with me. I had completely forgotten the public aspect until I heard a strange voice ask if Justin would lower my panties to let him see my cunt. I felt the cool air of the room caress my skin as Justin complied.
“Beautiful girl you have there,” the voice said. “Can I?”
“Sorry, she’s mine,” said Justin just as I’d tensed with worry.
His words relaxed me. Justin wouldn’t let anything or anyone hurt me.
Justin’s thumb teased my clit. “Do you like knowing you made a stranger hard at the sight of you?”
My body answered his question as I became even wetter. He chuckled, and his hand withdrew. I was wondering what he was going to do next when his palm landed with a sharp smack on my ass.
“Naughty girl, aren’t you?” I knew he was checking to see if I wanted to continue.
“Yes,” I’d whispered.
“Louder.” His voice grew sharper as his hand came down again.
“Yes, I’m your naughty girl. I like it,” I’d moaned when a staccato rain of slaps landed.
I was rewarded with long teasing strokes on my clit and a finger plunging into my cunt.
Alternating waves of pain and pleasure: my ass began to burn with the same hot fire that my clit was chasing. Slap! “Are you a slut?” Slap! Slap! Slap!
“YES!” The reward for the right answer on my clit. My clit would then light on fire with need as my ass cooled, only to be denied just before orgasm.
“Please, Justin…” I begged, my eyes wet with desire and pain.
“What?”
“Let me fuck you,” I whimpered.
His hands moved and I was free. Shakily, I stood and reached for the bowl of condoms sitting on a table nearby. A strange hand dipped in and passed me one. I thanked him absently as, transfixed, I watched Justin open his jeans and free his cock.
I straddled and sheathed him, not caring if the entire population of California was watching. Hungrily, I began to ride him, kissing the lips that had been denied me during the spanking. Orgasm flooded me, hitting with the force of a category-five hurricane, sending my hips into a spastic frenzy of motion. Justin groaned as he came moments later.
We were both a bit disoriented as a small spattering of applause signaled that our viewing public knew we were done.
“Thank you,” he’d murmured as he’d kissed and praised me in the hotel room that night.
In never forcing and never demanding that I try anything, Justin made it safe to try everything.
Things had changed, though. Maybe it was the move to Asia three years ago. Maybe it was having Liz, and then Adam eleven months later, almost to the day. Apparently breastfeeding wasn’t the effective birth control my midwife had billed it to be. Isolation from our friends and family, ten thousand miles and twelve time zones away, hadn’t helped. Maybe Singapore, with its rigid social customs and conservatism, was exactly the wrong place to bring Justin; he’d seemed to slip back into that quiet and socially correct armor he’d discarded back in college.
These days, when Justin walked through the door, there were no enthusiastic kisses or gropes. He’d play with our kids as I tried to give an abbreviated recap of the day and reheated his dinner. We’d put the little ones to bed and then he’d wa
nt to zone out in front of the TV with me. On weekends, he’d either “pop into work for a few hours” (translation: the whole day) or we’d take the kids out.
In bed, after he thought I’d fallen asleep, I could feel the mattress vibrate as he jerked off to porn on his iPhone. When we did have sex, it was the kind of paint-by-numbers progress of kiss, breast/pussy/cock play, penetration and done rut that I had always sworn we would never let ourselves fall into.
Now in the mall, I was a woman on a mission. I started on the top floor and systematically began to shop. Not spending like a woman out for revenge on the husband I felt isolated from (the woman in the mirror would’ve, and had, gone on that shopping spree at Toys R Us), but instead buying pretty clothes. I studiously ignored shorts and tank tops. I pretended flip-flops didn’t exist.
Several thousand dollars and far too many bags to take on a subway car later, I stood in the taxi queue, waiting my turn. Other women had more impressive shopping bags—from Prada, Burberry, Louis Vuitton—but I had more of them, which made me feel triumphant.
Once home, I made my selections from the purchases and packed a suitcase. I kissed my napping toddlers and thanked my helper profusely for her willingness to keep an eye on them overnight.
“To the Conrad Hotel by Suntec City, please?” I asked, as I settled myself in the backseat of the cab.
The room I checked into was a step up from the kind of room we’d always stayed in during college. The kind of room we’d pictured when talking about how one day we’d “really make it and can blow money on nice rooms and sexy trips.” The kind of room in which we’d planned to stay in and fuck all day. Sadly, it had been years since we’d stayed in and fucked anywhere, much less a hotel.
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