The act of giving oneself for money is just like fine wine. It gets better with time. And like fine wine, more expensive with time. Omotinne soon reached the peak of her career. To be reserved for rich and exclusive clients with strange but manageable fetishes. There was the spoilt rich kid who insisted she shouldn’t take a bath before seeing him and liked to lick her armpit before sex. Omotinne didn’t mind as long as she wasn’t the one doing the licking. There was the college dropout who always wanted her to sing him native songs before they got to it. There was the man who could not get it up without his dog present. Omotinne didn’t have to do with the dog, she no longer did that since she had been promoted. In her early days, Omotinne had seen it all. She had done it all. Diaper bondages, the cuckolding, Omorashi and Coprophilia.
Omotinne had only known one type of sex. One without pleasure. The kind that left a bitter taste in her vagina and shrank her further in a world where she wasn’t that visible. She hated it but she would come to know more, come to endure it and learn to enjoy it because it was the only way to get better. The only way to satisfy clients, the only way to get promoted to the illusion of a better entrapment.
Omotinne now had a room to herself in Mama Venice’s house. Freedom came knocking on the door of this room just when Omotinne was about to resign to fate. If Carlo had visited Mama Venice’s house one month later than he did, Omotinne would never have been free again. Because she would have been completely broken. But as fate would have it he came in when the last thread of her soul was still hanging. Barely holding her up.
Carlo was not a knight in shining armour. He was a broken man, a drunk who liked to talk about how much life has betrayed him. Perhaps that was their connection, that special bond lovers like to talk about – their shared brokenness. Carlo and Omotinne didn’t just have sex. They made love. Strange that her first true act of lovemaking would come from this drunk man who visited brothels too frequently.
He started bringing her little presents because she made him feel excited in a way no one ever does. She made him feel like there was life to be lived until the end came. He also made her feel the same way. He gave her something she lost at the door of Mama Venice’s house – Hope.
That Omotinne would fall pregnant was not surprising, that Omotinne would decide to pick up the phone to call Aunty Ijeoma and damn all the consequences was.
“Morning Dew” ……an exciting and educative piece! With some Harlequin-like wordsmith, enwrought with “Nigerianized” English flavor, Temitope is undoubtedly one of the best budding authors in Nigeria. Keep it burning.
Great Ife!