Chapter Twenty

“I wonder this style this night!” SonOfMan cursed.

There was every indication that she wanted to sleep over in his room this night, without discarding her suit clothing—except the coat she had removed in her house before coming. She had slumped onto the bed, lying down beside him, just like the USA leader and the USSR counterpart would have been in those days of cold war.

“What this night?” MyAngel said. “Look at me and this late night journey, I’d have slept there but I was all along thinking of you.”

“You’re too goddamned hypocritical!”

“So you told me yesterday.”

“Gawd, I’m telling you again.”

“Then get some nutty upset and start hitting me again.” She reminded him the ineffective of his brawn approach.

Yeah, he needed brain as well; yesterday brought him the untold emotional turmoil he had never suffered before. If things were normal, yesterday would have been a connubial step up in their nuptial dream. But that same fateful yesterday, to bedevil him into spiteful sorrows, she purposely left to visit someone with Betty, her friend, even before he could wake up in the morning, much more stopping her. He had suspected that she left for another man’s pleasure.

Anyway, she had returned at night and presented herself as a thoughtful lover, and he had dragged her to a place he had a filled day slapping hell out of her face. She didn’t fight back, after all; she tolerated him for a good number of love and respect.

“You didn’t get smart this time around; did you?” he said. “That stunt you pulled, with stinking lies, that your mother would like to send you on errand to Ngookpala in Imo State? But I wonder if you ever have any relative in Ngookpala that she would even want you to visit; you went for another love trip?” he accused virulently.

“You seem to know a lot about my family.” She deride him that way.

He fought back a sprouted anger. “I do… about the kind of crooked love you have.”

“You know about them?”

“Hell, I know about them!” His voice was a flat snarl.

“Please keep off my back, WyiWorri,” she warned. “When you slapped me for a subjective canard developing from your unthinkable inklings, don’t think you can do what you damn well please. Lay off my back; I never snoop about you or whatever you choose to do. Stop tracing me; you deny me every little trust and respect. You make me disgusting, keep off my back and kill me anytime I question what you do with your life.”

He waited until she rattled stupidly, and now nearly whispered this; “You bitch, you know I can never be a dirty dog like you!” He slapped her face even as he lay, and waited for her flared reaction, but she was studiedly tolerant. “You know it’s a pointing wonder that you didn’t at least ask me what the doctor diagnosed about your strange ailment, on that fateful Sunday night in Ondo?”

Suddenly, she was so mad that she shouted; “I didn’t have to, if you weren’t curious to tell me!”

“Didn’t then, but if you’re the least bit interested, I didn’t father any baby.”

Now he noticed that her teeth were making a clanking sound from shuddering. Maybe from fear of him getting near to the truth again, or maybe from heated annoyance over the abysmal wrongheaded angle he was taking this matter again—he couldn’t fathom well, anyway.

Instead of answering his harmful assertion, she sat up and switch on the white bulb at head of the bed. She was glowering over him and wanted him to speak more to know the reason why he raised the disrespectful issue that had been buried for good long over the months now.

Then something inside her told her, and her face came apart at that, and she shook with the horrible distrust.

“So you think you’ve got away with it?” he rasped and sat up too.

She was still shaking horribly.

“Oh, that’s wrong; you didn’t? Now let’s talk about the unusual controversy surrounding the pregnancy.”

She was studying him strangely; her eyes over him from face to his small shins. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, WyiWorri; do you know what I’ll do, if you’re maliciously cooking up these vile tawdry accusations?”

“Yeah, feel ashamed, fed up and finally close the door on my intention to marry you… small threat. Shut up and listen to me carefully! I’m going to tell you right out and you can confess it or not, but you’ll be better off if you do. I never was responsible for that pregnancy, okay? So I was a sucker decidedly, and I was dumb decidedly too. I later accepted, but that was my business in the sense that I wanted to hold you with that suggestion of aborting it, but you were smarter. And then I was cooperating devotedly, thinking God would keep it and I could read the month you actually delivered, or at most I could run DNA test.”

The study she was making of him now took intense petulant concentration. Every emotion she was capable of having flitted across her face until her eyes narrowed with immeasurable anger. “What are you exactly bringing up again, WyiWorri?”

“That you were pregnant already for some time; is that plain enough?”

“Plain enough?” she repeated incredulously.“Jesuuuuus!” She didn’t get it, at all. “Let me put it this way; why would I call and tell of a pregnancy that wasn’t yours, when I could get rid of it easily without your knowledge?”

That question; SonOfMan didn’t know whether it armed or disarmed him rather; or should he grit his teeth and carry on, or retreat. He pulled at air soundly, and ran his hand across his face, and decided to retreat but advance in another direction. If not now, maybe next time. Then he stared unperturbedly at her. “You know, Dumebi, if you hadn’t escaped that trap and later lost the pregnancy, I wouldn’t even have this matter. But there was your strange ailment and the doctor’s idea that you were significantly pregnant in just a day stay with me, so your let-out question didn’t change the matter somewhat.”

“It did,” she scowled out. “Nobody would ever see a reason why I should impose any pregnancy on any man who wasn’t responsible, much more, one who hasn’t future yet. That’s a complete screw idea.’’

SonOfMan had thought the same thing. A baffling indication that there was an unquestionable genuine intention. “That was disingenuous of you,” he said nevertheless.

“WyiWorri, why do you think I could be having extra dubious plan?” She was suddenly cool.

Though he was real afraid to learn to that height, but he wished he could have answer to that. If he could say why, there wouldn’t be a place left for her to push him over more and more. He shrugged indifferently. “I sensed it, that’s all. I got instinct about it, and it’s too strong. Believe it or leave.”

Somewhat relaxed, she leaned back over the wall, folding her arms across her chest. “That’s incredible, simply incredible and abusive. I… don’t know whether to believe in your love anymore.’’

That’s up to her, he cursed. “If… mind you, if you’re denying in real truth, I certainly love to see you cleared of this in my sceptism; until now, I had vindictive doubt about it.” He grinned sagely. “But I’d made love mistakes, and I wasn’t always fortunate to be corrected in time. Dumebi, I’ll reserve my judgment until this matter comes to a head one way or another. However, I’m not relenting in settling my sight on my disposal to dredge and get the truth. Every indication I have points to your guilt. And the ones I wish I had have continued to point to the conviction of your extra-hidden agenda.”

“That’s your time,” she chided. “But I’ll tell you what, WyiWorri! I’m disappointed. Incredibly, I was broken-hearted with such level of accusation. I believed in you and your love; why all this?” It was a guilt trip question, at last. “Why, WyiWorri?” she added dolefully, and then tried to lie back still wearing her clothes. “And to tell you that I’m telling the truth, I’m going to use every means at my disposal to work with you and convince you… even as you thought vindictively that your indications point to your blankety blank.”

“You, serious!” he snide at her. “Can you give me something to start on; maybe one good confession?”

“Maybe you try giving me a lie detector,” she made a snide sarcasm. “I won’t mind a bit.”

“Bimbo,” he hissed unsuccessfully; “that’s if I got around it!”

“Yes, omnipresent!” she cursed. “Why can’t you be omnipotent and get around it. Won’t you make sure that I was guilty and knelled on the cross for unpardonable sin? Damn!”

Now SonOfMan thought that means he was going about this wasn’t the best. There could be other subtle melting yielding means. If he would raise sexual feelings in her, get her soft and sensuous, and get her gullible and contrite. If he would just do that.

Later in the night, when it was very obvious the weather was chilly, calling up little warmth; when it was certain the air was full of unheeded salacious desire, calling up romance, he tried to touch her, but met a vengeful scourge—

“Don’t dare, you son of a bitch! You forget so soon I was infected.” The pain of his self-appointed stigma; the agony of his scurrilous distrust was traceable in her voice.

But she was fake and hypocritical! The silly impostor never was true to his sacrificial love… never in the least…

She was only wiser the more—yeah, smarter.