speeding trailer 2
This is the second part of a gripping story about a desperate young lady entangled in a baby-making network. Story by Charles Opara

Continued from Part 1

“That will teach you,” he said. “When I tell you to do something, you do it. You think say because Doctor is banging you, you are special. Lie. I can do what I want with you and nothing will happen. I am not disposable like you.”

Obiageli’s secret was out. Thanks to a nurse’s frayed nerves and a moment of indiscretion, everyone now knew she was Doctor’s mistress.

“I sorry for your mama,” Obiageli said calmly. “She think say she born pikin, she no know say she born bastard.”

“Wetin you call me?”

“Go and get me my lipstick, useless man.”

The nurses held Unaka back.

“Close your mouth,” Nonso barked at Obiageli. “You wan’ die for here?”

Anguishing in the clutches of his fellow nurses, Unaka sought to break free. “Do you think you are the only one Doctor is banging?” he yelled. “He bangs Uche too. But do you see her doing shakara like you? You are worthless.”

Unaka’s words stung. Obiageli did not know Doctor was sleeping with any of his patients besides her. She couldn’t say she suspected he was because he had never given her a reason to; she had only considered the possibility and dismissed it.

“She is sorry, Unaka,” Oluchi said, coming to her side. “Obiageli, tell him you are sorry.”

Oluchi was the only patient who had a contract. She was from the local community they had now left behind. And she sold her babies. Her family knew where she was, or at least they did. Some said she had sworn an oath of secrecy. She was Doctor’s spy on the other patients, a self-appointed head girl who reported anyone who tried to escape. She was not on Obiageli’s side. She never was and never will be. She was part of the system. There weren’t enough girls like her, so The Maternity kidnapped.

Obiageli had learned about the pro-life/pro-choice debate while watching CNN in Doctor’s study. When Doctor explained it to her, she knew right then she was pro-choice because she had been no-choice all her life. Oluchi was on the other side of the divide. She was like her pro-life nemesis.

“Na God go punish am,” Obiageli yelled.

“What’s wrong with you?” Arinze said. “We are trying to remedy the situation, and you are worsening it.”

Someone slapped Obiageli, and she fell forward.

When she regained consciousness, Unaka was poking a gun in her mouth, his face twisted as if stifling the urge to pull the trigger with a loud ‘fuck’.

He stuck the gun’s nozzle further in her mouth and shouted, “Speak now? Open ya mouth make I blow your brain.”

“Obiageli, please. Apologize,” Oluchi begged tearfully.

The road to Obiageli’s kidnap had many ifs. If her ‘aunties’ had taken her in, she wouldn’t have been Sister Confidence’s protégé. And if she hadn’t been Sister Confidence’s protégé, she wouldn’t have met Brother Sylvanus, the agent who brought her to the Maternity. She never knew why those ‘aunties’ never came back for her. Her parents did, but kept it to themselves. The night she learned the truth, she had checked her reflection in a mirror and thought, Oh? So, I’m too beautiful for a maid? The truth of the matter was, her ‘aunties’ thought she was eye-catching, a potential husband hazard in their homes. It wasn’t their actual words, but what she surmised from eavesdropping on her parents’ conversation in the kitchen yard.

“What do you think they mean by ‘she is not maid material’?” her father asks.

“It means she is not hungry-looking,” her mother says. “They want her to look thin and scruffy like her age-mates in the village.”

“I don’t know about that. All I know is, I have told her to stop painting her nails. She is only thirteen, for God’s sake. Mama Obiageli, look at your daughter. She paints her face and nails. Why won’t they say ‘she is not maid material’?”

“It is Confidence who is teaching her that.”

“Do something about it. Are you not her mother?”

“Papa Obiageli, you want to ship blame, abi? If you could provide three square meals for your daughter, would she spend the whole day with that harlot? Confidence feeds your daughter for you. You are not ashamed. It is thanks to her she has strong bones and teeth.”

“Ok. So she can remain in the village then. That’s what you want, abi? Am I wrong for wanting her to be raised in a decent home since I am too old to provide for her? Regardless, Mama Obiageli, you are her mother. And you are much younger than me. Don’t allow them to take your daughter from you. Or else she will turn out like Confidence.”

“Tufia. God forbid.”

Unaka stuck the nozzle further in her mouth. “Make I just waste her.”

“The smell will be bad,” Nonso said. “And we can’t just throw her out of the trailer. We will have to park, dig a grave, and bury her.”

“That will not be good,” Nurse Praise said. “It will leave us exposed.”

“Don’t do it,” Arinze said.

Unaka relaxed his grip.

So, Doctor was screwing Uche too? Obiageli had thought she wouldn’t care if he was—that it wouldn’t hurt so much—but it did.

Over the years, Doctor became affectionate towards her. She had tried to resist, but he enticed her with her freedom. Their affair started after an ultrasound scan. Sometimes, the nurses took the patients for scans in the city. They usually took the youngest girls, or girls they knew they could cow with a gun hidden in a jacket. Doctor had been her escort. They had gone to a place called Spartan Diagnostics:

He registers Obiageli with the lab and shows her the name on the card: Cynthia Ekeh.

“That is your name,” Doctor says. “I am your father, Dr. Ekeh. But you will call me ‘Papa’. Do you understand?”

Obiageli nods.

Doctor submits the card to a nurse at the medical examination desk, and she asks him to sit with the other patients until they are called.

After a while, Doctor nudges Obiageli and she flinches.

“Didn’t you hear your name?” he says.

A nurse straps a sphygmomanometer around Obiageli’s arm while Doctor hovers around the examination desk.

“Her blood pressure is high,” the nurse says to Doctor. “But this is expected in her condition.” She peers at Obiageli’s card on the table. “And you are only fourteen. Eh, Cynthia? You are having a baby at fourteen?”

“It’s my fault,” Doctor says. “Her mother travelled abroad for study, and she saw it as an opportunity to misbehave. It’s my fault for not playing her mother’s role.”

“Don’t beat yourself too much. Many fathers would have opted for an abortion, but you have chosen the right thing, sir.”

“I am against abortion. I have taken this as the will of God.”

“Bless you, sir. The Lord is your muscle. After her scan, please take her to see a doctor so he can prescribe something for her.”

“Thank you, nurse, but I’m a doctor. I will give her hydralazine when we get home.”

“Very well, doctor. You may proceed to our ultrasound unit.”

In the unit, a young woman with big alert eyes and full lips introduces herself as the sonographer.

“Are you the father?” she asks Doctor.

“No. Well, yes,” Doctor says. “If you mean the father of the mother.”

“I was thinking, the father of the mother. Can you give us a minute so your daughter can change into a patient gown?”

“Is that necessary? I’m her father. And she’s still a child.”

“She’s a big girl. Ok. Let me ask her. Cynthia, would you like your daddy to be in the room while you change?”

Obiageli shakes her head.

Doctor shrugs. “I’ll wait outside.”

“Thank you,” the technician says. “I’ll call for you when we are ready.”

Doctor shuts the door.

Obiageli hurriedly takes off her clothes and puts on the sky-blue gown.

“Can I use your phone, ma?” she asks the technician. “I want to call my mother.”

“Sure.” The technician hands Obiageli her mobile phone.

Doctor pops his head through the door. Startled, Obiageli pushes the phone back into the technician’s hand but she’s not looking and it clatters to the floor.

“Do you need this?” Doctor says, holding up Obiageli’s hospital card.

“No, I don’t. You may come in now. We’re done, sir.”

Doctor sees the phone on the floor. “Did she just drop your phone?”

“I said come in, sir. You will see what we were doing in a minute.”

Doctor wades in.

The technician picks up her phone, turns on the flashlight, and hands it to Obiageli. She raises a tube of ‘Aquasonic Gel’ and squints at it. “Now, shine it here,” she says to Obiageli, “so I can read what is written there.”

After the scan, Doctor and Obiageli had gone to a motel and shacked up for a few hours. Their assignations continued in the hospital with the knowledge of a few nurses. When his wife travelled to the U.S. for their son’s college graduation, they had the place to themselves. (No one had the temerity to barge into Doctor’s office without knocking first, or banging on his door when it was locked.) Amara knew about them. Obiageli told her. She told her she did not love him; she only did it to win small favours. And perhaps a big one.

Those ‘small favours’ came: he secretly bought her gifts like makeup and hair products—and he even surprised her with a Maybelline Superstay lipstick. He would see her wearing them and banter, ‘Omalichanwa,’ not caring who heard.

She hated him for selling her babies. But sometimes, she dreamed he did not have a wife, and they had released all the patients and started a real maternity open to the public. She could never admit this to Amara, who hated him passionately. Deep within her, she knew she would feel betrayed if she discovered he was with any of the others. But that was before she heard what truly happened to Amara.

Obiageli remained still. She did not want to provoke Unaka, not with his gun in her mouth.

Unaka removed the gun and throttled her. He throttled her so hard he was choking the life out of her. And when he didn’t release her, she realized this was it. The world between consciousness and the great unknown blurred. And then it formed patterns. She was ready to join Amara. There was only one problem with that: Amara’s killer would have the satisfaction of killing her too.

There was a time when an epidemic broke out in the maternity. Amara was among those who fell sick and had to be taken to the hospital. The nurses told them they had been discharged and Doctor had released them. But two nights ago, Obiageli learned the truth.

Part 3

charles
Charles Opara

Charles is an IT programmer, short story writer and speculative fiction novelist who enjoys the flow involved in creating both programs and stories. In 2015, his horror short “It Happened” was shortlisted for the Awele Creative Trust Prize and in 2017, another story ‘Baby-girl’ was long-listed for the Quramo National Prize in his country. His short stories have been published in magazines such as Flash Fiction Press, Zoetic Press, and Ambit Magazine. His collection of short stories, How Hamisu Survived Bad Kidneys and a Bad Son-in-law, is published by Fomite Press.

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