IN THE CLOUDS 2

…..Coming out of the bathroom, shivering all over, she wasn’t sure what just happened all she was sure of was that she wasn’t going back to sleep for fear that her uncle might come back into the room.
The two hours to daybreak were the longest hours of her life, first she sat on the floor, then went back to sit on the bed. Got up again, went back and sat on the toilet, and all she could hear in her head was her uncle’s voice asking her to touch his manhood……she was petrified .

Morning came and she stayed in her room, usually, she would have a bath, go down for breakfast after stopping by at her Uncle and Aunts room to say good morning. But today was different, she felt some kind of a shame, she couldn’t go out to face them. She wasn’t sure what to do. Around 10am, her Aunt sent her cousin Fola to go get her to come down for breakfast, she heard Fola, shouting her name from the stairs. Got up hurriedly from where she was sitting, ran into the bathroom and shouted back, “Am having a bath.” “okay” said Fola, “mum wants you downstairs”.

Her next challenge was how to stay in her room all day, what was she to say, should she feign illness, well that won’t work because her aunt would want to take her to see a doctor, what would she tell the doctor, if she examines and finds nothing wrong, her Aunt will insist she tells her what the matter is, she couldn’t risk that. So she decided to go downstairs anyway, what is the worst that could happen.

At the table were her Uncle, Aunt, Fola and a guest who had come to visit that morning, she slide onto a dining chair and pretended to eat the bread and egg sauce she had been served by the house help, she played around with it for a while. All of a sudden she was jolted out of her daydreaming by her Uncles voice, “Kemi eat your food, a hungry girl is an angry girl” he said smiling. She froze, the sound of his voice brought back memories of last night, all of a sudden she started shivering all over, her Aunt was so scared she ran over to her “, Kemi are you okay, ” Kemi replied, “no Aunty am not feeling well may I be excused ?”.
To make matters worse, her Uncle offered to go with her to the room, he came round to where she was sitting, lifted her up and took her up the stairs and gently dropped her on the bed. She moved away from him quickly, he sat down on the bed and said: “Kemi, I love you a lot, love is very complicated, you must not tell your Aunt or anyone that I love you or what happened here, because your Aunt will be jealous and start to treat you badly”. She tried to say something, but no words came, all she could do was cuddle up to her pillow and stare at him blankly. He rose to leave, lifted his hand to his lips and blew her a kiss. “I love you Kemi, soon you will love me too”, with that he walked out of the room and shut the door behind him.

At this point, Kemi was not sure what to do, she picked up the phone to call her mum, but dropped it, what will she tell her, her uncle had warned her not to tell anyone, she better keep this to herself, she thought, maybe this will go away.

A couple of weeks went by and nothing of the sort happened again, she and her uncle went about their business, Kemi was beginning to put everything behind her. One night about 3 weeks after the first incident, she woke up to find her uncle lying beside her, rubbing her thighs, she tried to scream, but he covered her mouth with his hands, when her eyes adjusted to the light she could see her uncle was naked, his bare chest had hair sprouting out of it, his tummy protruded like a pregnant woman, his manhood was pointed straight and had a slight curve at the top, she struggled to get out of his grip but was no match for his strength, he slowly climbed on top of her, and let him self into her , the pain was excruciating ,she felt his large manhood go into her and he began to raise slowly up and down, then he got faster and faster, with every thrust she felt pain, pain she had never felt before , she laid limp under him. Then put his lips on hers, kissed her.  His tongue finding its way into her mouth , finally he seemed to jerk so hard and then he let out a sound of excitement and it was all over, he slumped limply beside her , she felt wet between her legs and terrible pain, she didn’t understand what just happened , all she was sure of, was that things could never be the same again. Her uncle slowly rose up, asked if she was okay, he planted a kiss on her forehead and said ” Kemi you were so sweet, thank you, get up and wash, here are 2 tablets of paracetamol, it will help with the pain. Congratulations, you are now a full woman and you already have someone who loves you very much. Me. The next time will be sweeter and less painful, I promise you.” With that, he walked out of the room, tying his wrapper around his waist…

……….Kemi struggled out of bed, sobbing, the nagging pain in between her legs was excruciating , she rolled onto the floor, crawled to the bathroom, put on the tap in the bathtub and managed to crawl into it, she wasn’t sure how long she sat there but by the time she got out it was daylight, the pain had gotten a bit better, she put some water in a glass took the paracetamol and sat down, just at that minute her Aunty came into the room, she saw the blood stains on the bed and said, “Kemi congratulations you’re a woman now, watch out for all those small boys, if they come near you, you will get pregnant. So keep off them, I will ask Fola to bring you some sanitary towels, stick it on your pant and wear it as normal, it will help soak up the blood,” with that she walked out of the room, stopped at the door and said “when you have finished changing the sheets come to my room, I want to send you and Fola to the supermarket”. And she was gone. Kemi was shocked, “what is Aunty talking about, the questions flooded into her head, does Aunty know what Uncle did to her, how can she condone it, or is this really how to become a woman, am I meant to keep doing this with men?” she wanted to scream but nothing came out, she was unaware that her Aunty thought she had started her menstruation. She was so confused, her mother had not taken the time to educate her about growing up issues, like menstruation, sex education, boys etc, she thought of going to her Aunty to ask questions, but she also remembered her Uncle’s warning not to discuss anything with her Aunty,  she decided to keep it to herself for now.

The painkiller had started to kick in about an hour later, she got up to make the bed, she noticed that she had slight pains between her legs every time she took a step, she tried walking with her legs slightly apart, this helped. She walked towards the wardrobe put on her clothes and went to her Aunty’s room, her Aunty had earlier sent Fola to give Kemi some sanitary towels to use. When she saw Kemi and the way she was walking, she automatically assumed it was the sanitary towel in between her legs, she smiled and said to Kemi, “don’t worry dear, you will soon get used to it”, with that she gave Kemi a big hug.
Kemi didn’t understand, get used to what uncle just did to me? She thought. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, she wasn’t sure what to do or who to talk to about all this, then she remembered Vicky her friend in school, Vicky had 3 older brothers and was always bragging about how knowledgeable she was about boy matters. I will talk to her about this, surely I will get my answers. School resumes in 10 days, she thought, the answers I need will have to wait till then.

The week dragged on slowly, she was a happy her uncle was out of town for 2 weeks, he had gone on some sort of training course in Dubai. The house was quiet, she had time to think, as she lay on the sofa in the sitting room. The television was on but she wasn’t really watching it, all she could think about was what her Aunty had said. “Don’t worry dear, you will soon get used to it”. Suddenly her mobile phone rang, it was her Mum, she was calling to say she will be back in a couple of days, they exchanged pleasantries and the call ended. Kemi was happy with this news, by the time her uncle got back, she would be back home with her mum.

The summer holidays came to an end, finally it was time to go back to school and start a new class, on the morning of the first day of resumption Kemi had gotten up early, she was ready for school by 6 am, she usually had to be at school for 8.30am, but today was important, I get answers to all my questions today, was all she could think about. The school was about 20 minutes’ walk on a normal day, but today was not a normal day for her, she decided not to walk but to take the bus. She went to her mums’ room gave her a hug and sprinted out of the house to the bus stop, in 5 minutes she was at school.

The school was a girl only day private school, private meant higher fees and children who attended were from middle-class families and above, those who could afford to pay the school fees. These girls mostly grew up being raised by nannies or family members, parents were too busy chasing careers and money. Their parents had very little time for them, so the children made each other their confidant and advisor.
Kemi was now in year 8, the 2nd year in secondary school. As she walked around the compound exchanging pleasantries with friends she was on the lookout for Vicky, after walking around for a while with no luck, she decided to sit by the gate and wait for her, the time was 7.35am. At 8.10am she saw Vicky arriving in her Dads’ car, she got up ran towards the car, Vicky got out and ran into her arms, “Good to see you Kemi”, “Good to see you, Vicky, I have lots of questions for you”, Kemi said,” let’s go sit down”, “Me first “Vicky said. And with that, they skipped hand in hand into the school compound.

By lunchtime came Kemi had still not asked her questions, before school started that morning Vicky had told Kemi all the places she visited over the summer, she had spent time talking about each place and the shopping she did until the morning bell went. When the lunchtime bell went, she hurriedly got up from her desk, this is my time she thought, I will ask my questions now. Vicky and she met up outside the library as usual, walked to the garden, sat on the grass and began to eat their lunches. Vicky was about to continue with her holiday gist when Kemi stopped her and said “I need to talk to you”…..by the time lunch was over, Vicky had the full details of Kemi’s ordeal but Kemi still had no answers. “I will give you answers by the end of school, don’t worry”, and with that Vicky went into her classroom, Kemis’ was next door.

Vicky pondered over what Kemi had just told her, she wasn’t surprised, she was going through that right now with her older brother, who was 22, the first time he did it to her he had told her, the same words “I love you, you are my sister and nobody will love you as much as I do”. She believed him, he pampered her all the time, she was his pet, her parents and other siblings just saw this as a big brother taking care of his little sister thing, he had also told her not to tell anyone, if only they knew what was really going on between them, she thought. Vicky’s ordeal had started at 11. She was 2 years into it and was now comfortable with the way things were going. At one of the summer camps, she went, she had discussed the ordeal with a friend. The friend had advised her to milk her brother for everything she wanted, “ask him for anything you want, tell him that if he doesn’t do what you want, you will tell everyone what you two were doing.” The first time she tried it on her brother it worked like magic before she could say, Jack Robinson, she got the brand new blackberry phone, she had asked for. From then on there was no stopping her. Her brother had his way with her and she had hers. I will tell Kemi, what to do, she must use this on her uncle, she thought.

The bell went to signal the end of school for that day, Vicky rushed out of her class, got Kemi, they went to sit in the usual spot. Vicky started to explain…” Kemi, I have been going through the same with my brother, it’s a very profitable arrangement, he gets what he wants, I get what I want, here is what you need to do” with that she began to explain the blackmail process…… As she listened to Vicky, Kemi was already thinking of all the nice things she will ask her uncle to get for her………

Image from freepik.