The Stray

By Hot sheets, warm skins, fevered hands and twirling tongues; they roll entangled in arms and joined in the most intimate manner possible. She gasps, sucking in through her teeth. Her nails dig deep into his flesh, she arches her back and he leans forward as they both reach their unfolding haven. He inclines back to regard her, remembering the times when he’d look at her and sweet emotions would come rushing, filling his mind, causing his head to swirl yet now, he was lucid of the fact that things had drastically changed. Some mornings came when he looked at the mound of her breasts and the coalesce darkness between her legs and his mouth felt like ash for he felt nothing.

His sickness was his own and she could never find out, never know she’s being replaced by others who were no competition ergo, he mastered the act of the acts, fought with his desires and kept the charade. Up until this evening Uwa visited. Gossiping fashion styles and cheating husbands swaddled in the heat of frying stews, they left the child sitting on his thigh, sternly warning to keep her distracted. Oh how she smelt! Soft, clean, fresh like the streams of the morn. The wet tendrils of her dark hair sticking to the back of her neck calls out to him, suggesting things warm and gloving. He excuses himself and heads for the bedroom hands trembling, chin quivering, and his palms sticky. He sits on the edge of the bed with his head bent towards the ac vent, beseeching, wishing for it to cool him and his thoughts, to freeze them as such he doesn’t give in to his impulses and step into a cesspool he may never disentangle himself from. She pokes her slim face through the door and asks what the problem is seeing him seated in such curios fashion. He shakes his head nondescriptly and smiles, looking at her unseeingly.

They are going to step out, an exciting designer just set up showroom on the other side of town and they itch to try her out. ‘Be a good sitter’, she chides as she disappears in a swirl of skirts, the spunky smile of a happy, sexually satisfied wife playing softly on her lips. He does not move. He continues to stare vaguely at the mauve wall, his hands clasping, clenching his riotous morbid thoughts breaking the barricades set up, swashing over him in hot, wet waves. So, he gets up, and heads for the living room and silently watches the child; clicker in hand, flicking through the stations and settling for a children’s sitcom.

“Omoh” he calls out softly. “Would you like to play a game with uncle”? She hesitates, loathe to leave her TV show but with a demure nod of the head, she consents placing her tiny hands trustingly in his large ones. He leads the way back to the bedroom resolutely locking the door behind them as he switches off the light leaving only the bed lamp which innocently casts a sweet glow over the room.

“C’mere dear child” he says in a hoarse cajoling tone that’s foreign to his hearing orbs “c’mere and do something for uncle”

Sara Oyedo

Writes when laziness briefly evacuates my body. Loves movies and good old soft dodo