dial episode 61

DIAL
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Sequence 61
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When I entered the dining-room, Attah Panyin was eating with relish, whilst the Holy Man – I know preferred that term to any of his horrible names – was leaning back with a knife in one hand, and a green apple in the other.
Mansa’s back was to me. She was standing as she put oven-fresh brown bread on a tray in the middle. The Holy Man smiled as he sliced a piece of apple into his mouth, whilst Attah Panyin, formerly Okomfo Basabasa, stared still with his mouth wide open, staring at me with such stunned incredulity that he looked like a statue.
Mansa looked up and saw how rigid the former fetish priest was, and she turned slowly and looked at me. She gasped and almost jumped, and the basket in her had would have fallen and spilled its contents if the Holy Man had not reached out suddenly and steadied it.
“Yao,” she murmured, and when she smiled her face was a mixture of happiness and shadowed pain. “You made it. Welcome back.”
I smiled as my eyes held hers.
“Indeed, God is great,” Attah Panyin said, still unable to reconcile my new fresh lines with the aged face he had seen a day previously.
“Come and have breakfast, my son,” the Holy Man said, indicating a seat beside him. I took a seat gratefully and accepted a cup of hot cocoa from Mansa, who sat opposite me.
“I have a gift for you,” the Holy Man continued, and then he handed me a huge leather-bound Bible. “Meditate on it night and day, my son. Let it be the food your soul seeks.”
“Thank you very much,” I said gratefully.
The Bible was new, and had indented edges where clipped tips made it easy to open to the chapters easily.
“I take it you would like to go back to your village as soon as possible,” he said as he pushed the rest of his apple into his mouth.
I was biting into a fresh bread when he spoke, and I noticed the way Mansa winced suddenly, but she kept her gaze down. Looking at her, I felt a strong sense of pity, and a pull of empathy that I couldn’t really push away.
“Yes, sir,” I said softly, but I didn’t elaborate on the fact that I hoped to find Abena Adobea there, because Mansa was evidently hurting, and I had no urge to hurt her further.
“Good then,” the Holy Man said. “You will take Attah Panyin with you. God wants you to open a church in Yao Biko Krom. Attah Panyin is going to be the new pastor there.”
I laughed at that, and almost choked on the brown bread.
“Apuuutwea!” I said as I giggled insanely. “This man that plays with mambas buries people alive? A pastor?”
Mansa smiled, and the Holy Man burst into laughter, but Attah Panyin looked at me with abject misery.
“I apologize to you, Mr. Biko,” he said with genuine remorse. “Like Paul, my former life of being like Saul was tainted and evil. I’ve seen the light of God, and indeed I’m a new creation!”
I felt ashamed, and stopped laughing.
“I’m sorry, Attah, I didn’t mean to laugh at you,” I said gently. “I just couldn’t resist the jab. Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” he said with a smile. “I didn’t take any offence.”
We ate breakfast in companionable silence, and then the Holy Man took me to his huge study, locked the door, and entered into a prayer session for me that lasted almost two hours.
“You can go and get ready now, my son,” he said gently. “Tomorrow, you can leave with Attah Panyin.”
I walked toward him, and then slowly dropped to my knees in front of him and touched his feet.
“I cannot thank you enough for all that you’ve done for me, sir,” I said with real passion. “From the bottom of my heart, I thank you, with every fibre in my body. Forgive me, sir, and bless me.”
He put a hand on my head, and he blessed me, and then he helped me to my feet. That was when I saw that he had tears brimming in his eyes.
“I’m very happy you made it, son,” he said, and then he stepped forward and hugged me tightly.
I hugged him back, and then I left his study, shutting the door gently behind me.
Mansa was walking down the corridor with a basket filled with dirty clothing for washing. The moment she saw me she turned away suddenly and almost run along the corridor.
She opened a door on her right and went inside, slamming it shut behind her.
I hesitated for just a moment, and then I walked down the corridor to the door, opened it, and walked inside.
It was a huge, airy and neat room, designed with the taste and touch of a woman.
She was sitting on the bed, facing the door, and when I entered she looked at me with tears in her eyes, and her lips trembled. The look on her face was one of longing, loneliness and pain.
“Yao, please, you can’t be here, not now, please, I beg of you,” she whispered, almost wringing her hands.
I sighed deeply and sat down on the bed by her side.
“It is so hard thinking of you as Mansa,” I said gently and took her right hand. “To me, you’ll always be Dede, my first love. I see your pain, and I’m so sorry, Dede. I’m so terribly sorry. Believe me, if I hadn’t met Adobea, and fallen so completely for her, I would have eagerly made you my soul mate.”
“Stop it, Yao!” she cried in agony. “You’re hurting me! Since my husband died, and I’ve been content here, living with my brother and helping in the work of the Lord…and I was quite happy with it! But I met you, and I fell for you heavily! And nothing has been the same again! Oh, Yao!”
Her tears fell fast now, and I was cut to the core to see her in such agony.
“I’m sorry, Dede,” I whispered, rubbing her back as my heart was torn apart. “I wish, I really wish, there had been a way out of this. I hate being the cause of such agony to you.”
“An agony that will last a lifetime, Yao,” she whispered tremulously. “Why did this happen? Why did the good Lord make me fall in love with you when you wouldn’t be available? Haven’t I done enough for the Lord to deserve some happiness?”
“Oh, Dede, no!” I whispered, aghast. “We cannot judge God, can we? We don’t understand the things that happen, but what I’ve learnt this few weeks is to trust Him. The only way out is to take our supplications to Him, with faith, and trust Him to make it right.”
“I don’t have much supplications now, Yao!” she whispered, her tears falling faster. “You’re all that I want! Why can’t that be possible, especially if love comes from Him, and He created true love? Why can’t you love me back?”
“Oh, Dede, please, you’re hurting me!” I said.
And then with a groan she moved. Her arms came around my neck like vices, and her lips clamped on mine. Lips tasted salty and warm from her tears, and as I put my hands up around her…oh dear, oh dear…she was so full, so voluptuous, so irresistible!
She kissed me with a passion that took my breath away. And then she pushed me back, and I fell on the bed with my feet dangling by the side. My hands roamed her back as her body played a lullaby on my senses.
My new and empowered battering ram was turgid with a fresh blessing of blood, and it poked at her belly with relentless insistence, seeking a way out of the creamy joyful corridor of love and lust.
She reared up above me for a moment, and in a flash tossed her dress away. She was on top of me, still, and now she was only in the white slip of panty covering her lower citadel. Sheer panties with a transparent front that glorified the place of rhythm.
Her double track systems with their dark areolas shining around her erect and stubborn nipples.
Oh, dear!
Her body tapered down, firm and as beautiful as a rainbow on a rainless day. She came down, her lips claiming mine again. I wondered briefly what the hell a Christian woman, living alone with her brother on a mountain, was doing wearing panties that had only a rope in the back, exposing those curvy Akuapim fold mountains.
Somewhere in the recesses of my body my mind was in conflict with my heart. My mind was like the snake in the garden the Holy Man had told me about, hissing and goading me on lecherously, telling me to give it to her like a toughie, to poke into her until my new powerful zingabar poked out of the top of her head like the horn of a unicorn.
But my heart, filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit, was urging me to remember that Joseph nigga in Egypt who had the advantage of ooooh-aaaahing the wife of Portiphar, but chose to flee from fornication.
“Ahhhhh, that Joseph was a silly little coward!” my mind demons hissed into my ears. “Portiphar’s wife was plumpy shamadian with curvy tantalizing scroomages, but he fled like a fool…you’re no fool! You’re Yao Biko Kyekyeku, the man, the powerful shatterer of holes…do her, my nigga, rip her apart…ahhhhhsh, can you imagine the joy?”
As the Holy Spirit was thinking of a fitting rebuttal, Mansa’s lips scorched my earlobes, and somehow she had managed to tug my banshee right out of the confines of my trabo, and she was massaging it like her life depended on it.
I moaned with pleasure as her soft lips claimed mine again. We kissed fervently, hungrily, passionately, and she suddenly reared above me again with a groan of passion.
“Yieeeeee, waso twaaaiiiiinn tsede asobrokye!” my mind screamed with a victorious war voice.
“Obo!” said the weakened voice of the Holy Spirit, so low that I could barely hear it.
Mansa reached down and brushed the sheer little fabric covering her tantalizing sacrosanct passage into her core, and I could see the dark hairs and the glistening head of her lust, poking out and winking at me.
She was gripping the new and improved Biko-Hewale as if her life depended on it, positioning it so that she could mount it to victory like Samson clobbering the Philistines with a donkey jawbone!
And in that instant I bucked and pulled back my buttocks like I had seen the head of the snake in the Garden of Eden. I swerved her descending shamagat and, grabbing her shoulders, pulled her down on the bed beside me.
Filled with pain, filled with unfulfilled lust, I looked into her eyes with a miserable expression and shook my head.
“I’m sorry, Mansa, please forgive me!” I whispered tremulously. “But this is a sin I can’t commit now, please. The Holy Man, your brother, he told me this is a sin that God really hates, that affects my body, which is the temple of God. I just don’t want the anger of God against me now, again, ever. I’m so sorry, please, please, forgive me!”
She burst into tears, her right hand coming up to cover her face.
Ahhhh…look at her, look at that body, those curves!
Awurade, look at those thighs, that dark core….eiiiiii!
I bounced off the bed, tucking in my langalanga bamboo, which was still as hard as the back of a turtle, and rushed toward the door.
“I’m so sorry, Mansa, please forgive me!” I said as I yanked the door open and pulled it shut behind me. I put my forehead against it, and I could still hear her crying inside, which was tearing me up so badly.
“Go back, abowa bi ba like you, kwasea gyimifo!” my mind screamed with maddened fury. “You know you want it! Go and hit it, belebele!”
“O, you did well!” the Holy Spirit cried weakly in my heart, and I reached down, zipped up, and turned away from the door.
“Obo!” the weakened voice in my mind said, so lowly that I could barely hear it.
“Osseeeeey Kyekyeku Biko!” the Holy Spirit screamed in my heart.
And when I reached the living-room I saw the Holy Man sitting in a chair, his chin resting in the palm of his right hand.
I stopped suddenly and looked at him with sheer guilt, trepidation, and shame.
He shook his head briefly, and then he smiled gently at me.
“You did well, Yao,” he said gently. “Next time, don’t let it get that far.”
I walked toward him with narrowed eyes.
“You knew?” I asked fiercely, and when he nodded I became angry. “Then why didn’t you help us?”
“You’re both Christians, Yao, and that is where my power and influence ends over you,” he said gently. “To sin or not to sin is the choice every Christian needs to make, and we rely on the presence of the Holy Spirit to guide us. That is why it is important to constantly feed your mind and heart with the word of God, which eventually drives away the conflict, and sin simply runs away from you because the Spirit of God becomes stronger, and gives sin not enough room to manouver.”
I sat down shakily beside him.
“I’m confused and hurt,” I whispered painfully. “Mansa is in deep pain, and I caused it.”
“You didn’t cause it,” he replied softly. “She allowed it to manifest and take over her. But don’t worry about her, my son. I will attend to her presently, but not with you here.”
“Don’t you dare hurt her!” I said miserably.
“Oh, no, Yao, my son,” he said compassionately. “She needs love, and care, and true repentance which will bring the peace of God back to her. I’m just going to give her a shoulder to lean on and help her find her way back to God. But come, go and get ready. You’re not waiting for tomorrow anymore. You passed a test I never expected you to pass, not with that stupid pole of yours anyway, but I see you maturing into a powerful Christian. You must leave now, with Pastor Attah Panyin. But I’m very proud of you. For the very first time in your life, you fled from atopabu. Well done, my son.”
I guffawed loudly, and the laughter brought tears to my eyes as I leaned forward suddenly and gave him a great hug.
He laughed deep inside his chest, and hugged me back.
I realized, quite suddenly, that he had easily filled that father space in my heart, and I would never be that lonely again.
“You’re wrong, you know,” I said, still chuckling. “I stopped myself from doing it with Maame Ntiriwaa too.”
“Apuu,” he said, chuckling. “You were just thinking that if you hammered her you would lose your chance with Adobea. If Adobea hadn’t been in the picture you would have destroyed that poor old woman like Hurricane Atobam.”
Both of us burst into raucous laughter at that, and I admitted that indeed, that had just been the case.
“Thank you, father,” I said softly. “I owe you my life.”
“You’re welcome, my son,” he said lovingly. “Now, bounce along. Time to help my sister.”
I bounced up and rushed to my room.
It was time to pack.
Oh, Abena Adobea…I miss you so!