Mama Olayi doesn't stay for long. She says she has responsibilities at Côte d'Ivoire that will go awry if she is not present. Naturally, seeing her off is difficult because Nanti did miss her mom aside from the scolding and embarrassment and defending her son-in-law over her own blood. Minor discrepancies.
It's not the easiest bidding her adieu and Nanti senses Élan will miss his mother-in-law very much.
She leaves a liveliness to the condominium that makes it more- homely; the couch sinks and relaxes, the house exhales with breathability. Mama Olayi reminds them both of their hometown with her presence alone. Life demands a bit less on the Ivory Coast, the laughs louder, weather warmer, fruits sweeter.
Come to think of it, her batty was a little fatter too. Also, her skin browner, more- glowy. She has not realized how much she truly misses the coast, its energy is palpable. Plus, home will always hold the place in her heart where love ripened for her and Élan. They occupied an obsession for each other, a juicy lust that was like tearing into passionfruit on a day where the sun beams the hardest: the fruit squirts a cool pool of liquid that rivulets down the chin, slightly swirls down the neck and rests in the bosom just left of the heart. And of course the heart will beat loudly if it knows the love Élan and Nanti once shared.
Now, well, it is simply dispossessed. That love is something she looks back on like yesterday's sunset. Here today, gone tonight, probably coming back again. That is, if they are lucky.
For better or for worse, they are bound together until a little white slip with signatures undoes it all but even Nanti knows she will never divorce a man she is still in love with, even if she pretends that love is waning like the gibbous moon.
In reality, behind the façade, her love will always be full for him. Fuller than her belly after eating too many plantains under the afzelia tree. Fuller than the feeling of falling face-first in fertilizer. Despite her stubbornness, her refusal to admit that she's still in love, she thinks Élan can smell it on her. Nanti's resolve is weakening and she can feel herself wanting more from him, especially sex.
Because, god, it's been ages hasn't it?
It's nighttime, two hours before midnight, and she's in bed alone again. He has been sleeping on the couch for a while now and she has yet to feel remorse for that, however she does feel a stirring in the pit of her stomach, something akin to missing him. Or them. Together. Climaxing.
Oh hell, she's horny.
And Élan is only a couple steps away and yes, he must know that she's cracking because she did give him a hand job under the dinner table the other day in the company of her mother. And only moments before that, prompted sex while her mama cooked in the kitchen. Naughty Nanti.
She tiptoes her way out of the bedroom, wearing a special negligee with Swarovski crystals lodged in the seams (a gift that Élan had never seen before because she had buried it in the depth of her closet.)
Nanti saunters into the living room, the lip of her gown's strap caresses down her shoulder and suddenly, Élan can't hear the television anymore. He watches this new form of entertainment with unveiled amusement. His gorgeous wife assuming the role of seductress to him- the innocent bystander.
If she thinks she can snap her fingers and get what she wants, she's in for a surprise tonight.
The crystals in her slip are glinting in the low light as she approaches him, sits close with one leg lazily draped over the other while her arm encircles his.
"Whatcha doing?" she asks innocently as if she is only concerned with what he is watching on television.
Élan grabs the remote and cuts it off.
YOU ARE READING
MAD BLACK WOMAN
Romancein which she must deal with her husband's infidelity and the love she still has left for him. in which he must find the broken pieces of the love that fell apart.
