Married But Available

by B. Nyamnjoh

  “To people who spotted them in hotspots around town and frowned on what they saw, she would retort: ‘Do you have to be married to dance together or to have sex with each other? Do you have to marry someone because you have sex with them? Is age a barrier to love? The language of love knows no frontiers and has no taboos.’

  “When the girl’s parents heard of this, they were mad and said their daughter was disgracing them. But their threats did not disturb the love relationship. Instead, their daughter transferred most of her dresses to the ex-MP’s bedroom.”

  “Just like that?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  “There’s more,” said Britney. “She had two children while in secondary school, and the ex-MP was now taking care of these children even more than he did his own.”

  “Really?”

  “It happens,” said Britney. “All this reached his wife’s ears abroad, since two of his children were already in secondary school and could communicate directly with her by email or phone. When she was about to come back home after her studies, she made all necessary arrangements to stay in Sakersbeach instead. Being from a wealthy family, her sisters arranged for a house in Sakersbeach, so when she finally arrived, she did not bother herself about going to Pawa-Town. She stayed in Sakersbeach where her children met her for a family union without their father.

  “Stories that went into the air revealed that the new girl was the fourth wife to the ex-MP. Since the man was wealthy, it was believed that each woman came to eat her own share of the cake. But before this girl could leave for Muzunguland, the man’s business was in a slump. The third wife, the one who is a nurse, now lives in Sakersbeach where she occupies the post of a director. Of her husband and her she tells friends: ‘Our love is dead and buried, with not even its feet sticking out.’”

  Lilly Loveless looked up from her notes and around at their surroundings and noted out loud, “So, she was able to create a new life for herself. Imagine if she didn’t have those rich helpful sisters, though.”

  “Meanwhile,” continued Britney, “the teacher is still in love with this ex-MP and businessman that was. People say he has used charms to keep her, since he knows he is financially down, and wants this girl to take care of him eventually. “The truth is, they’re not completely living together because the girl’s parents have never really smiled on their relationship,” Britney concluded. “Her parents have always cautioned: ‘kissing a Mboma can be deadly.’”

  Sometimes, Lilly Loveless wished it was possible to go deeper – to know more about the girl, her family and what went on in her head. She also wished there was a bit more about the men and their motivations in these relationships. At the same time she knew Britney got as much information as she could and she really couldn’t ask for more. The stories revealed a sociological phenomenon and, put together, started to indicate certain trends. Unanswered questions in some were answered in others. And the scarcity of reasons why men did what they did was, in part, a reflection of power dynamics between men and women in society.

  By now, the red ball sun had fused with the haze, introducing orange streaks into the sky and taking the blue through a series of shades. Expressive expansive clouds hung nearby and hugged certain crests. Lilly Loveless hugged herself to send warmth from her arms down to her toes and looked over at Britney, wondering what she was thinking about as she looked into the horizon.

  Britney looked over at Lilly Loveless to ensure she still had her pen in her hand. “Let me tell you about the neighbours of a friend of mine. She lives down in Puttkamerstown and her family has lived side by side for years with a couple with six children. The father was a worker with the palm plantation and was able to pay school uniforms and fees and supplies and transport for all six children. And the mother would earn money for food selling cakes, Mekemewel, koki and similar such items at the market. So, they managed, despite difficulties, even if they had fallen out of love already, until the man lost his job because of impending privatisation. He tried all he could: setting up a small boutique at the house, driving a taxi, looking for a new job, doing odd jobs. But he only had irregular pay at the best of times and it was difficult to make ends meet. Many are called but few are chosen, so says the Bible, which he now understood from personal experience,” continued Britney, her gaze still caught by the distant horizon.

  Lilly Loveless remarked the distraction in her face. Could she be missing someone? Her boyfriend, perhaps? Lilly Loveless resisted the urge to find out, not wanting to take Britney’s concentration away from the story started.

  “So at this point,” Britney recollected herself, “he lost respect for himself and the family lost respect for him. He was no longer the breadwinner he had been. His wife stopped sharing the matrimonial bed and that was devastating for him. And, we don’t know for sure, but we think he went looking elsewhere for someone to prop him up and to escape family pressures. This didn’t help the financial situation at the house, because, you know, those women willing to prop up men’s egos don’t do it for free. They too are after something.”

  “Pay for propping?” asked Lilly Loveless.

  Britney wasn’t listening. She went on. “He apparently started investing what he could get from brothers and uncles in his activities outside the home instead of in the children. At one point he left the house and didn’t return for many nights. His wife and six children were left in the dark when the electricity was cut. So they managed with kerosene lamps. The worst part of it was when the water was cut. The woman had to come to the neighbours daily for buckets of water for washing and cooking. She had to appeal directly to the brothers and uncles of her husband, explaining that their contributions were not going toward the children’s school fees. ‘There’s a lot less to him than many people think,’ she said of her husband.

  “She was the one now doing everything to hold things together and trying to make ends meet. Other girls in the neighbourhood had fallen into prostitution and she was doing everything she could to keep her daughters away from that. She decided to turn to the church for help and was advised to be strong during this time of difficulty, until her husband could find work. She went to the sisters at the women’s association. She finally decided to plead her case before a court of justice because she couldn’t stand her husband depriving their children of their due, with his subversive attitude to responsible fatherhood. The case is taking for ever as famine and hardship threaten this woman and her children. We don’t know what the outcome will be, but this woman is currently without hope. She now calls herself Mrs Tri-ye-sep Nobody. Her plight is typical of many women in Mimboland today.”

  Britney rose from the rock and walked toward the horizon with her back to Lilly Loveless. “I’m discouraged,” said she, “when I learn about such predicaments. If I were in a similar situation, I wonder how I’d manage.” She turned suddenly to Lilly Loveless and said, “How would you manage?”

  Lilly Loveless, taken aback, then noting Britney’s tearful eyes, rose and gathered her things. Scenarios started unfolding themselves in her head. “Let’s talk about it as we descend through the misty forest back down to Puttkamerstown,” she told Britney, putting her arm around Britney’s shoulder, with a reassuring lingering kiss.

  ***

  The kiss by Lilly Loveless intrigued Britney. Like the first at Britney’s place, it was warm and tensed, the sort of kiss a man like Providence would give her. It made her recall the very first time she felt weird towards another girl. This was in high school several years ago, and the woman in question was a nun. Was it her life as a nun that intrigued Britney? They were doing a common course in History. Britney found her intense. Britney would find herself staring at the nun during class and wanting to know her better. Soon they found themselves having a drink after class and discussing their lessons. The drink was natural guava juice which the nun brought along with her from the convent. Eventually, their conversations touched other topics. Britney would venture questions about life in the convent. And the nun seemed equa
lly curious about Britney’s former life in the village and life in the city where she balanced work and school.

  Was it the ‘forbidden’ that drove them both? After a few weeks, they no longer sat across from each other to drink their guava juice, but side by side. She would touch Britney’s hands and Britney would touch hers. She would touch Britney’s leg, and Britney couldn’t resist reaching out for her thigh. Britney yearned to feel her lips on hers, her hips on hers. Her chest pressed up against Britney’s, who could no longer focus on her words. Britney would just listen and utter, ‘Uh-uh, uh-uh,’ as the nun’s warm thigh spoke through Britney’s palm. Before their next meeting, Britney negotiated, from a single friend with an office job, the keys to his two-room place with bare cement floors. Would she accept Britney’s proposal to drink guava juice there, instead of at the little neighbourhood football pitch where they usually went? She did, and Britney was surprised, after locking the apartment door behind them, to turn and find that her clothes had already come off. Britney thought, ‘Wow, those big boobs belong to a nun.’ She couldn’t wait to get her hands on them, to drink her purity, to taste her Puritanism with debauchery and conviction. Britney took her to her friend’s bed and they devoured each other. It became a routine. Britney asked her if she didn’t feel guilty knowing that the Almighty was watching. She said that she wouldn’t dare to undress if she wasn’t sure God was having his siesta. Britney couldn’t believe her ears.

  History lectures were every Tuesday. Britney dreamed of Tuesdays. She looked forward to History like she’d never looked forward to class before. Visions of her naked nun filled her nights and waking hours. The nun started to call her when Britney was at work in the mornings, and insist that they meet at their usual meeting place at lunchtime. Many days were becoming Tuesdays.

  Soon, however, too many days were Tuesdays. Britney noticed her productivity going down, not to mention her school work. She even noticed her sexual performance going down. It is not because a meal is delicious that one should overfeed, she found herself telling herself. Even her curiosity and excitement about convent life was going down. Her belief in things superior and divine was beginning to shake like a tree in a storm. The nun was coming on too strong for Britney, who felt overwhelmed by her obsessive desires. What Britney had found attractive and tempting before started to repulse her. She found herself fleeing the nun’s looks in class, and fleeing her calls on her cell phone. Britney told the nun her friend couldn’t give her the key to his place any longer. She told the nun she couldn’t have their favourite guava juice after class any longer, because her uncle insisted she come straight home to help his children in primary school to review their lessons. Britney started praying for the end of the academic year. She even started skipping History classes.

  Then one day, she noticed the nun no more. The nun was no longer coming to school, no longer calling, and no longer answering her phone when Britney called. Where had she disappeared to? Britney decided to find out. She went to the Principal’s office where she was told: “That was no nun. She was a hardened criminal, an impostor who dressed up like a nun to get admitted and accepted around town. She was discovered, and the police is chasing after her.”

  Britney remembered thinking of the experience when the shock had died down. Weird though it was from hindsight, the non-nun certainly knew how a woman’s engine worked, and exactly how to engineer the right feelings. But for Britney, there were times when she felt the absence of something harder, something hot inside.

  Britney has never told the story to anyone, and never would, let alone to Lilly Loveless, a perfect stranger hunting for salacious stories. Who could say for sure what Lilly Loveless really was up to with the stories she collected, at the end of the day?

  19

  “Congo-beef steaks, kanda, towel, bible, exhaust pipe eru and watafufu; fried sweet potatoes, vegetables, read meat, stock fish, egusi soup and yam; okro soup and gari with dry meat and dry fish; or fufucorn and katikati…” bellowed Mammy Nyangaa – alias ‘Chop di chops, shack di shacks,’ reciting the menu of the day.

  Mammy Nyangaa took their orders: gari, okro soup with dry fish but no meat for Britney, and fufucorn and katikati for Lilly Loveless, who, despite her frequent stomach upsets, was never tired of trying something new. What’s the thrill of being a researcher and living in a closet, she would challenge whenever she wanted to taste or do something crazy by the conservative standards of her loving mom.

  They had chosen to sit outside at Mammy Nyangaa’s All Purpose Eating Place at University Junction. Not underneath the make-shift hut where it might be a bit stuffy. Outside in the open they could feel the breeze and at the same time were shaded by tall, huge mango trees. With her fork and spoon Lilly Loveless struggled with the delicious fufucorn and katikati, roasted chicken cut into small pieces and steeped in palm oil. Britney managed effortlessly with her thumb and two fingers.

  Before long, Mammy Nyangaa sent someone to clear their plates and bring them orange sections that they sucked on to complete their meal. They went to a sink in the corner one after the other to rinse their hands, so Britney could begin sharing what she had collected.

  Just then, a girl came in whom Britney shook hands with.

  “What are you doing sitting here Britney?” inquired the girl. “You should be out there with the others, keeping the strike going. It’s everybody’s future, you know.”

  “You know me better than that, Adapepe,” Britney defended herself. “I’m here with Lilly Loveless, who is visiting from Muzunguland. I can’t just leave her on her own.”

  “Lilly what?”

  “Loveless,” repeated Britney.

  “You mean Lovelace… like in Deep Throat?”

  “Lilly L-o-ve-l-e-s-s,” Lilly Loveless spelt out. “Strange name, I know.”

  Adapepe smiled. “Then why don’t you abandon it? We’ve got lots of names in Mimboland seeking to be adopted. Just tell Britney what size of name you want, and she’ll arrange it for you.”

  They all laughed. “Adapepe, crazy girl, always,” said Britney, shaking hands with Adapepe again.

  “Britney, I understand you, but I’m not sure our comrades on the front will. So you must cleanse your face with them by buying them food. There are ten of them out there with me,” Adapepe told Britney, her gaze focused on Lilly Loveless.

  “I don’t have any money on me,” Britney started, but was interrupted by Lilly Loveless who offered to pay for Adapepe and her comrades.

  “Strange girl,” said Britney when Adapepe was gone with the food.

  “She’s watched Deep Throat,” said Lilly Loveless.

  “What’s Deep Throat?”

  “A movie, porn movie…aphrodisiac…”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. Adapepe is capable of anything,” said Britney.

  “Did you see her hair?” inquired Lilly Loveless. “How common is it for girls to shave that low?”

  “Adapepe has always been a bit of a tomboy,” said Britney. “Adapepe grew up with her mom whom her father abandoned for another woman when she was still only three years of age. Her mother is said to have told her parish priest at confession: ‘My husband makes love so often that a new box of condoms can last several years and even reach the expiration date before they’re used up.’ And the priest had made the mistake of inviting both her mom and dad to discuss the matter, only for the dad to tell the interfering priest: ‘If you think you can handle my wife better, you take her.’ He stormed out of the parish house and has never looked back since Adapepe was three.”

  Is there anyone whose story Britney doesn’t know? What would my research have turned out like if I hadn’t met Britney? Lilly Loveless marvelled, as she increasingly did, the more stories came her way through Britney. She was a veritable human archive of lived experiences!

  “We are very proud of her,” continued Britney, about Adapepe, “and the way she shows men pepper, while pretending to share widely and lovingly with them her beauty. She is a serial mistre
ss addicted to married men, since her secondary school days. She is always targeting the older truly married men, with lots of money. It gives her more satisfaction sleeping with them than with single men. But she harbours no illusions nor is interested in any of these men leaving his wife for her. Like my good friend Lilly Loveless, she doesn’t believe much in marriage and is not in a hurry to discover its virtues, if there are any,” Britney giggled and touched Lilly Loveless, to show that she meant no harm comparing Adapepe and her.

  Lilly Loveless smiled reassuringly.

  Britney went on: “What she wants – cash, car, cell phone, shoes, dresses, jewellery and other material possessions in exchange for sex – is what she gets, and always on her own terms. She allows no married man to dictate to her and loathes the Japanese handbrakes amongst them. And when she has got a man’s balls in her palm, she mixes pleasure and pain to good effect.”

  “How does she do that?”

  “By biting and blowing,” Britney giggled.

  “How?”

  “Her principle is simple: ‘Once you’ve got a man by the balls, he is virtually at your mercy’, says she. But real success comes only to women who know what to deliver when. Knowing just what doses of pleasure and pain to mix for what ends is crucial in matters of love and life with men. Sometimes more pleasure is needed, sometimes more pain, but the balance is key.”

  Lilly Loveless still looked lost, although frantically writing down every word that came out of Britney.

  “Perhaps an example would help,” Britney explained further. “She has this man she has been playing ping pong with. He is married, a university lecturer, not that rich, but very caring. He is always asking her to marry him, but she never says yes and never says no, and yet doesn’t want to let go of the guy. She tells him things none of which she really means, but the man is too infatuated to notice. So everyone is laughing at him behind his back. Just before the strike, I was waiting to see this lecturer friend of hers with my assignment, when I overheard them at his office.”