A short story by Angel Nduka-Nwosu
I
The Bible says that out of the belly of those that believe in God shall flow springs of living water. But when I, Pastor Mrs Karinate Cole (née Fubara), saw you, Akuabata Kalu, water flowed out of me and it was not from my belly.
I do not even regret all that happened from that chance meeting and if I were to do it all over, I would do it and ask myself why I had to wait that long before having my pound of flesh.
II
I never wanted to be a pastor’s wife, but I thank God I was one, because otherwise I wouldn’t have met you. I was always destined to marry Pastor Tonye Cole because our fathers used us to strengthen their business partnerships and friendship.
I grew up knowing I was to marry him, but when my mother learned I was caught kissing girls during my final year at an American university in Ghana, she pressured my father to bring me home and marry Tonye immediately.
“Karinate, you will not bring shame to this family, do you hear me?” my mother kept repeating on the flight back to Nigeria.
Her voice was loud and a few passengers kept turning around to see what the issue was. Her voice was loud enough to bring the shame she was avoiding, but even she failed to see that.
“How can you kiss your fellow woman, Karinate? Do you not know that it is a sin? Do you want to go to hell?”.
My father welcomed me at the airport with three slaps and wanted to take me to a prophet in a white-garment church for a cleansing. My mother stopped him and asked what people would say if they heard that Chief Fubara’s daughter was seen at the mountaintop.
“In that case, the wedding to Tonye has to happen immediately. More people will talk if she keeps loitering about the house,” my father responded and then hit me again.
In all this, all I wanted was to run forever and never look back. But back then, I was lacking the ability to speak back or take any action against my parents.
What sealed it for them was that Tonye, who was ten years older, was starting a church and had recently inherited most of his late father’s wealth. His father had passed on the previous year, with his dying wish being that his son fulfil the promise he made to my father by marrying me. The agreement was always that I’d finish university first before the marriage happened. Tonye was never told why the marriage happened earlier than expected, but he was too delighted at the prospect of having a wife.
I was never allowed to finish university. I had a business baking wedding cakes for A-list celebrities, yes. Tonye sent me monthly allowances totalling millions, and I had access to one of his cards. My father also sent me money, yes.
But my lack of a degree tore at me.
III
I hated Tonye with a burning passion. I hated how he hit me on Saturday evenings yet came on Sunday mornings to preach about men loving their wives like Christ loved the church. I hated how he was known as a progressive pastor in Port Harcourt and I wanted to do all I could to bring him down. You made that happen.
It was a Sunday like any other when I met you. Tonye had slapped me the day before because I had yet another miscarriage a week earlier. We were in our fourth year of marriage and we still had no child.
“What do you think people are saying about me?” he said later, caressing my face like he hadn’t hit me minutes ago.
That Sunday, I was listening to him talk yet again about the importance of men being like Christ if they wanted a hard-working woman, like the Proverbs 31 woman.
“You see, my wife here is my rock. She’s very dependable and that is why I shall always respect…”.
His voice blurred out because for some reason I had locked eyes with you even from where I sat. You were wearing a red wrap dress with cleavage that peeped through and you had an afro. All I wanted to do there and then was bury my face in between your cleavage. It was then that I felt rivers of living water flow out of me.
I sent an usher with a note for you telling you to see me.
IV
“I hear he hits you and I want to make him pay for it.” That was the first thing you said when you came to my office after that service was over. I was shocked.
“Who told you that? My husband – ” I was talking when you cut me off. I had always thought it was not obvious how I wore very heavy makeup on Sundays and yet very little on other days of the week.
“I think we’ve been off to a bad start. My name is Akuabata Kalu and I’m a journalist and baker. I should not tell you this but I’m working on a story about pastors in corrupt dealings with politicians and your husband is one of them.”
I said nothing even though all that was on my mind was how to kiss you and not even process the news I had received.
“I’m telling you because I saw you are a baker; I saw the makeup on other Sundays, and, truth be told, I want him to go down in a way that still protects you.”
“I like your cakes”, I said out of the blue. Maybe not out of the blue because it had been on my mind watching you talk.
“You’ve eaten my cakes before? Really? I’m a freelance journalist and a small-scale baker from Umuahia who just moved to Port Harcourt. I haven’t even got a degree and the kind of clients you have. Where did you eat my cakes?”
“I do not have a degree either and when I say I like your cakes… I mean, I like the ones that are staring at me right now… on your body.”
I waited for you to hit me. Call me all manner of names and then proceed to threaten to do a story on the queer pastor’s wife. But you smiled and then burst out laughing.
“What’s funny?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.
“I didn’t know you were fruity and into women. I am as well. The right slang in this context is not ‘cakes’, since you are talking about breasts. It would be…watermelons. You like my watermelons.”
Then you got up from your chair and slowly walked to where I was seated and lifted my hands until I touched your breast. I gave it a light squeeze at first and then I found myself standing up and kissing your neck while I slid my fingers in and out of you.
When I stopped, you looked surprised.
“Someone can walk in on us. But meet me at Hotel Royale by 2 p.m. tomorrow, and I’ll tell you all you need to know about my husband.”
V
You know how it has been said that to love women as a woman is to live in sin? My love, I shall always choose to sin with you because you pulled me out of the abyss of that marriage.
Three months after that meeting at the church, your story exposing Tonye’s corrupt interactions with fraudsters came out on Instagram. With that, news also spread about how he was chasing 16- and 17-year-old girls at brothels.
Everyone expected that I would cover up his image, but I simply refused and made a statement that I was leaving him.
But before I booked us both a flight to South Africa, where I knew same-sex marriage was allowed, I cleared his account, which I had access to, sold his cars, and took all the money I could lay my hands on.
The least Tonye’s money could do was pay for you and me to get those degrees and start a new life without men like him.
