So (I have to stop beginning posts like this), I wrote this story in continuation of an older one on this blog The Newly Weds. One of my very lovely commenters and an excellent food blogger (check it:www.omnomlagos.com), the eponymous omnomlagos, left a comment saying she liked the story and would like to read a little more about the Dimuzus. So I wrote a little more about them and I’m enjoying Chinny and Fela a little…so I think I might keep telling their story. Thank you so much @omnomlagos!

“Babe?” Fela breezed into her husband’s home office to find him sunk in a paper mire. Chinny pushed his thick frames higher up his nose smiling at her as she walked towards him. He pulled her into his lap as soon as she reached him, grinning at her like a satisfied five year old.

Leaning her forehead against his, she wondered aloud “What are you cheesing for?!” She wished she could love her husband less; it would make life much easier. His girlfriend’s words from three weeks ago flashed through her mind bringing her companions; Anger and Disappointment, along for the brief but potent visit to her heart. She tried to brush them away by fixing her thoughts on Chinny.

“What? What’s the problem?” Chinny, so minutely attuned to her to be almost telepathic, caught the subtle change in her eyes. “Too bad I haven’t learnt to read you as well!” she stuffed that thought back into her mind’s Resentment box. She wondered If she ever really knew this man she’d vowed to dedicate her life to pleasing. His fingers dug into her hip “What is it? Tell me.” She kept smiling at him but the eyes she raised to his face held more in their depths than the smile her lips suggested. She changed the subject instead of answering.

“Don’t forget to pick up your mum’s cake from Oven. I’ve told you now oh if you forget, don’t bother going for her party tonight because she will shame you in front of all her ‘Society Dames’!” Her giggling widened his smile.

“Kai! Help me get it abeg!”

“Never! So that sales girl will swear for me?! She’s in love with you, didn’t you see her face when we went to order?! How many times did she ask if you’d be coming to pick it up yourself? She’s probably already at work in a non-existent two piece bikini as we speak!”

He barked his loud laugh. “You’re a clown, you know this right?!” From his mouth, ‘clown’ surfed air and landed on her ears like an endearment. How she loved this man. She stood, curtsied and smiled down at him.

“I don’t want to be late for my play date with the girls. We’re still up for lunch, oui?” There was a little hesitation in her voice now as she grabbed her bag from his desk.

He sighed internally, the delicate place of post-cheating recovery; no one is sure of the rules anymore.

“Baby of course we are! I’ll come drag you from Zola’s myself if you don’t message me once you’re done with your gossip-” He was quick to reassure her.

He stared at her now. She was so perfect for him, all the things he wanted. Joy in a size 8 frame; intelligent, beautiful, supportive, warm. Real wealth. She had a spark that drew him until he was making excuses to be around her even before they’d begun dating. He exhaled loudly. He was clearly the poster child for The Ungrateful Generation. What was he thinking?
‘What are you thinking?” Her smile always seemed to stop around her raised cheeks these days. Her question struggled through the haze of his self-reflection.

I’m not sure what I was thinking to be honest. All I know is that when Jemila rang me to tell me she’d come to my house, all I could think about was losing the best part of myself. But, how did he make Fela believe that?

“Yo!!! Venus to Chinny…” Her engagement ring was a blur before his eyes as her palm waved back and forth like a chocolate pendulum.

“Oh just imagining the Oven girl…” He stopped. He was about to crack a joke about the shop assistant waiting for him in a bikini. Now his jokes were carefully crafted. In this new sensitive world they inhabited every thought was analysed, sterilised to mitigate pain. Sentences were cluttered by a heaving guilt lurking menacingly behind each letter of every word. Guilt coloured their conversasions bold and ugly reds and greens. He was sad. She was sensitive. They were afraid. Her hollow eyes when she quietly said, “Jemila came here” broke the levees. Along with his guilt and fear came a numbing relief, she knew. His relief was short lived, her stoic silence compelled him to beg for a response. Anything.

“I feel like I’ve fallen from a skyscraper and I’m feeling my soul for bruises.”

He knew that line was from one of her many Danielle Steels. What he didn’t know was how to tell her that he felt the same way. It’s not my place. Fela words as always, had managed to loosen the tangles in his soul and ventilate the hidden fear and brokenness with simple elegance. His heart was battered. He had made a terrible mistake and had no idea how to make things right or indeed how long her smile would stay in its broken elevator; always leaving her mouth but somehow never reaching her eyes. She was hurting, he was hurting too. He had wounded her heart yet he was hurting.

She held his heart in her chest.

He stared at her.

“Nothing. The joke wasn’t that funny anyways.” He said aloud.