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I should start a little closer to the end—

From the pulpit I could see everyone. Men with grown beards, some with frowny faces, haggard by earthly troubles; women- fully covered, others half-clothed, big tits, well plaited, some with prejudiced faces, loudly praying for husbands. It was during my third sermon in St. Patrick church, Ngei, that I noticed her. My eyes registered her as a portal to a beauty I had never seen, except imagined. From this first time, henceforth, I made sure my priestly rob sparkled white, I would monitor it before any service to make sure no specks were on it. I, the ordained priest, was dressing for her.

~

Mayo was the beautiful one. The one who pushed me to a grid where nothing else mattered. Waves could run back and forth- to and from the sea, but her face would still enchant every part of my being. She had this signature stance that made my lust rove, round and round before gathering at a centre where my thing hardened. Her beauty was the kind that stretched down to the blood. I know because I later experienced it. Right there, behind the pulpit.

Whenever I would be at the altar breaking the bread and making calls for redemption, she would do the stance. Mayo would stick out her tongue, use it to wipe her upper lip, then wipe her lower lip before crowning it by closing her eyes like she felt sweetness in her brain. This imbued me to an out of world stupor. If something could testify, it would be my Adam’s apple running up and down in desire. Most times, I would walk behind the pulpit, put my left hand in my white robe’s pocket, hump on my palm then jerk until my seeds were out. Trust me, no sermon ever ended without my robe carrying semen stains. This, I reasoned, was the holy spirit’s doing.

Praise the Lord!

Amen.

~

I know: Mayo should have been a wild dream that needed cleansing right at the start. I should have discerned that she would lead to my downfall. I should have held my rosary tight around my neck, recited prayers to hail Mary. Maybe then, this temptation would have passed me by. I did not do any of this. I wanted to dare the devil; more to revel in the glares of temptation, besides, wasn’t I an ordained one?

Christ! I enjoyed the feelings she elicited.

~

She won, the devil won, and my congregation relegated me to a sinner. From a saint. I became a pariah from a priest and nobody said my name anymore- Father Orao. Many remember me as the Priest who slept with a mad woman. Lust. Lust. Lust. Nkt!

~

Me, I’ll tell you that  I do not remember Mayo being mad. Maybe she was such a spectacle that I could not see who she actually was. I remember the first  day when she came over for confessions. She muttered things about having a kingdom but with no pawns. She revealed that her King was away and that he would return in glory. She must have mumbled more; things like splendour and bounty and eternity. When I asked when her King would come back, she sipped her tears. Tears large and hot just like her behind. She did her stance again, this time I could see her lips, curly and moist.

I remember her sweet voice, velvety and silky, a voice I hoped was eternal. Listening to her was healing. I did not realise it, but this was the moment I started forgetting the Lord’s voice. The voice that rescued me from perishing. “Father, I know not when my king shall return. But I know for sure that he will come back to get me. My king will give a long-deserved embrace, congratulate me with a kiss for waiting on him this long. I see it, Father.” Her response remains with me a decade later, it is clear over every other memory. Words go a long way.

~

Again, I say, Mayo was not mad. I remember how steamed she was, in heat and just as horny as myself when we did it. She covered herself under my robe, pulled my  panties down and sucked my thing, not fearing my unapologetic bush. I undid the straps of her bra. I felt the erection spelt on her nipples. She giggled and as I penetrated her, her sweet voice went round and her breathing rose and fell in a perfect cadence, rhyming with my pounding. Whenever I went up, she breathed low, realising gasping moans. When I pressed down, she went high. God! How was I to know that she was mad? Even when I came, she pressed harder and folded her toes before whispering “hallelujah, he will come. My king.”

~

My spirit might have started bleeding the day Mayo stood up in church and started yelling in a shrill that I had never heard before. She contorted her whole body, pulling up her blouse and signalling her belly to expose that my seed had grown in her. She, we, were  pregnant, a reality no man married to the church should ever possess.

 This reality dispersed me to a zone of sinking sands and murky waters. She blurted it all out while I stood lost on the pulpit. The congregation whipped me with their stares. They threw their hands at me and gestured that I should leave. Some raised their seats as if to stone me with them. From the same pulpit, I saw hell, their rage blazing at me like fire. I walked out of this fire. I walked and walked and walked in search of a higher ground; a place of revival.  I found it in Kambi and here I sing a new song every day, together with the birds. Isn’t my God one of second chances?