She sucked on my lips

The evenings were usually yellowish-gold or a shade of yellow-like hue. The sun would seem to be sinking behind some palm trees. Bathing the palm trees in shinning lights, which of course would dim as the sun sank somewhere in the palm trees. 

‘Mama, good evening o!’ the village news carrier- so it seemed, was greeting my mama. She was actually living besides our house, she was my neighbour. And she was my friend’s mama too. She was called mama Kayode, but behind her, she was nicknamed “busybody”. 

Mama exchanged pleasantries with her. I was playing on a broken motorcycle in front of our house, my little legs were dangling by the sides. My mama was picking vegetables for dinner. She thought she was done with mama Kayode, and was about to continue picking on her vegetables when mama Kayode made her announcement: 

“Aunty Bola has given birth!” 

“A ku ewu omo o!”, meaning that we are thankful for the safe delivery, my mama said. 

Mama Kayode went on like that to the next house and to the next house. 

I attended Aunty Bola’s wedding the previous year. It was done at the small Methodist Church along the road, where the government planted Teak trees. We usually hunt for snails in the Teak plantation. 

“Aunty Bola has given birth”. Mama was telling me as if I was not there when Mama Kayode was announcing it. I came down from my metal horse.

“When are we going there?” I asked. 

Mama answered without looking up from her vegetables, “When am through with your papa’s meal”, she said. 

I continued riding on my metal horse, humming like a motorcycle, knowing that it would take a while to finish with the food. 

The evening soon ran into dusk and then, into the night. Papa came home on his motorcycle. 

“Ade – Ade!” he greeted me. He usually did that by throwing me into the air and catching me. We ate that night and I ended up sleeping on my papa's laps. 

The sun rose very early the next day. People were going to their farms earlier that day. The sun had woken them earlier. 

Mama made pap, she bought akara, bean cake from mama Iyabo. Mama Iyabo used to fry the most delicious akara in the whole world, so it seemed then. She had a special pepper that she used to sprinkle on the akara. 

Papa had gone out before I woke up. After the breakfast of pap and akara, I followed mama to aunty Bola's house. Even though she was married, she was aunty Bola to every one of us. We used to call our female teachers: “aunty”. She was teaching in the village community school, and she was once my class teacher. 

Aunty Bola's mama was bathing the baby when we got there. The baby was whining, a chord was tied on a long tube coming out of its stomach. 

Aunty Bola brought out a cabin biscuit, she asked me and mama to take out of it. Instead, mama took some and gave me two out of her own. 

Everyone was talking at the same time. Aunty Bola went to the kitchen at the back of the house. Her mama was asking for hot water. She soon came back with a kettle and went back again with the baby bathing water. 

The mama poured some of the hot water in the kettle into a bowl. I was wondering what she was going to do with the hot water. 

She added some cold water into the hot water and was testing the water with her finger when my mama greeted them and took me away. I was very curious, I asked my mama. 

“What is she going to do with the hot water?” 

Mama did not answer me. 

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Twenty-one years after 

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I was holding an electric kettle, it had announced that the water had boiled and had switched off itself. 

“Darling, is the water did?” that was my wife.  

We came back from the hospital late the previous night. She gave birth to a lovely cute girl at past 8 pm. Unlike at the village where almost the whole villagers would be there to visit, it was just me, and wife at home. 

The next morning, it was as if we did not sleep. Could I say, it was the excitement of the baby or her crying at night? Most of the night, we were on phone with my mother-in-law, am sure she did not sleep either. 

“Yes, it is done!” 

I quicken my steps before she started to get worried. The baby was whining, she had taken her bath for the day. The issue of hot water and the baby came up again. 

The curiosity of decades ago came afresh. The baby was lying across the naked legs of my wife. Her legs were stretched across the baby bath. 

She signaled to me to take away the baby bath. I put down the kettle on the floor. I did not want to miss the action this time. Without thinking, I poured the content inside the toilet and flushed it. 

I gave the kettle to her extended hand. She was pouring the hot water into a bowl when a knock came from the front door. I ran, but have to be careful on the tiles, to get the visitor. 

At the front door was my mother-in-law. We were expecting her today, I had totally forgotten. She was supposed to come and help with the baby. 

I took her luggage inside, she went straight to her daughter, my wife, I meant. I quickly put the luggage in the room meant for the visitors. 

At the bathroom, I saw my wife putting a napkin in a bowl. That was the bowl where she poured the hot water. She gave the baby to her mother. 

“Mama, what took you so long?”, I heard her asking. 

While they were doing the talking, I came closer, my eyes were on the napkin. What had she done with it? I held the napkin, it was warm. 

“What Is this thing about a baby and hot water?” I was wondering. 

As if it was the customary thing to do, after the baby was dressed, my mother-in-law put her on my hands. She closed her eyes as if she was sleeping. My wife was sleeping inside, I was in the living room. She really needs that sleep, we all did. 

I was dozing too, but need to stay awake for the baby. Suddenly, she started whining. “What do I do?” did not want to wake my wife nor my mother-in-law. I was stuck with the baby. She was so wonderful and adorable as she lay on my arms. 

I kissed her little lips, that was it! She clasped my lips in her little lips and was sucking it. She continued sucking till she fell asleep. My lips were throbbing as if I was stung by a wasp. 

After a while, I put her down in her cot. She was sleeping like an angel. I fell asleep on the floor beside the cot. 

“What happened to your lips?”, it was my wife’s voice. The voice woke me up, I heard it from afar, in the dreamland. 

“Our baby sucked on my lips,” it was still throbbing, I felt it, it was swollen!  

My wife was laughing at me, it was funny after all. 

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THE END 

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