The cupboard against which her head rested slapped rhythmically against the wall punctuated by the clashing of pots and other metal kitchen ware.

Her hair was tangled and soaked with sweat. She clutched me ever closer as the ripples of pleasure built and built. Into the vortex she spiraled. She felt it in her fingertips, her hair follicles, the soles of her feet.

“God,” she gasped.

I came too. Panting and drenched, I lay on her. My weight wasn’t really enough to pin her to the ground, but she let me lie on her anyway. We lay still, gasping and spent until she felt our sweat begin to cool, then she bucked beneath me and roughly pushed me off.

“You’re not going to wear your clot?,” she asked, handing me my grey khaki pants. Locating one leg of my white shoes took a while.

“Se kia kia, my husband e dey come soon.”

This was our third time together, and she was always abrupt —cold, almost —when the s*x was over.

“Do you mind if I take a shower?”

“Sha se kia,” she answered curtly.

When I emerged from the baluwe, she was dressed and refusing to meet my eye. Then she froze and exclaimed in disbelief, “Is that my baale’s towel on your waist?”

“I suppose,” I mumbled, furious at the mistake.

“O maan do emi iyawo e! Se that one no do you? You no get respect?”

“Sorry.”

In silence I put on the clothes that she had torn away from my body only an hour ago.

“When we go see again?” I hated myself for asking, but I had no choice. The thrill of doing something this illicit left me with a type of high.

‘I’ll send a palace guard.’

‘I can leave the school whenever you want. Corper Kunle will teach Maths for me.”

“There are people around,” she was tight-lipped. “They’ll tell my husband.”

“Well you can come to my quarters.”

“I can’t.”

A silence followed.

“You act like you hate me,” I accused.

“I’m married.” She raised her voice, “my husband is the baale, and we can get killed for this sort of thing.”

At the door to the back corridor, I playfully tapped her buttocks, and she said angrily, “one of the guards might see.”

“Sorry,” I muttered.

But as I turned to go away, she pulled me into a fierce embrace. She kissed me hungrily, desperately. When we broke apart, my hand was inside her buba, kneading a breast. Her nipples were as swollen as cherries, and I was once more erect.

“Oya,” she urged, fumbling with my fly, pulling me out and holding me silky and erect in her fist. She sank to the floor, clawing apart her wrapper, pulling me on top of her.

“Quick, we don’t have time.”

She flexed her buttocks, desperate for me. I entered her and thrust her with short intense stabs. There were no pulsations this time.

After I came, I cried into her black hair.



***********