Bosom on Fire

X- I Was Going to Say

     "Love is not for everybody. Some of us cherish peace," Bassey asserts to Colette over the phone as she dabs her hands dry on the back of her brown shorts.

Hands-free, Bassey is busing herself in her kitchen—opening a boiling spaghetti pot, chopping onions, and green peas, dicing carrots and grilled beef. The evening sun glows through the open windows accompanied by a certain chillness in the air. Butter stands behind Bassey on the kitchen table waiting for some meat.

     "Bassey, I know now. But imagine that peace with the love of your life. It's a higher level of haven."

Bassey glances at the black clock by the wall above her gas cooker, a somewhat I don't have that kind of time, before passing a small plate of diced beef to Butter.

     "I've heard you Ma but I'm chill okay? There's new money, the weather is great, I have the energy to make good food, my plants are blooming, I have Butter, I even have..." Bassey stops at how her heart skips a beat when Lawrence's name nearly slipped into the list. She takes a sip from her alkaline bottle, trying to focus on the flavourlessness in the bond between hydrogen and oxygen rather than on a mind dance that wouldn't hold water—even in all its flavourlessness— in the real world. "I even have new peace," Bassey completes her list of novel beginnings.

     "Speaking of peace, come and take your Jayden off my hands so I can have peace. The boy is bent on spending Christmas with you oo and he presses every day. Maybe we'll just come together so we can go to the beach."

     "Aww. My baby. I miss him so much."

     "Do you miss your other baby?" Colette asks gingerly, biting her lip on the other end.

     "Colette you are my guy, desist from asking that kind of question. I would never miss that man.
     "Do you know that he left a blank cheque on my table before he took off? Like it was supposed to change anything."

     "He did? So Akamba can listen to someone other than himself?" Colette mutters under her breath. She only realizes how loud she was when she hears Bassey's gasp.

     "Colette that reminds me!
     "Why haven't you told me anything about that day? What did you guys talk about? What did you tell him?"

     "It's best if I don't say. Bassey, please don't make me tell you."

     "The faster you say it, the faster we can move on."

Colette is tight-lipped. Bassey, silent in wait turns to check on Butter. Butter meows at her now empty plate.

Colette, on the other end, lets go of the breath she is holding in cue to her decision to spill the secret. Bassey decides to take whatever Colette tells her with a lot more than a pinch of salt. Bassey watches as Butter hops down the table to take a bun position at her kitchen corner by the door, leaving her alone with whatever will fall out of Colette's black box of skeletons. Butter knew. She had been a witness—thanks to Ben's kink.

A sudden chill spreads from Bassey's spine to her left chest as Colette struggles to break the ice gently. There is nothing gentle about Colette telling her that Akamba had a 'one-time' affair. It's cruel as the woman that straddled him was Ben. It is vicious as the woman she trusted with her life looked her in the eyes for many months but never deemed it fit to let her know. The cold taps painfully at her heart, causing a defense lurch.

As Bassey drops the call, she pushes the aching away with the strength of thoughts about her new job. She had finished her first round at the church earlier in the day, submitted her brief, and even got it approved by pastor Phil who asserted that she had a fresh-eye approach to redecorating the auditorium. Bassey manages a smile as she remembers Pastor Phil's whispered confession in between sipping tea from a pink tea cup that she was glad the other guy left. He had no sense of direction. Or perhaps he did. He was directed to the money.