A waiter came up and she ordered some sparkling water. She wasn’t sure if Okinosho would want her drinking in front of his goddaughter. Briefly, she wondered who the fuck would let him be godfather to their child, but then she reminded herself that the Thomas she knew was not the Daddy O everyone else did. Of course they would let him be a spiritual parent; he was the most powerful man of God on the continent. He probably had hundreds of godchildren all over the place. Shit, he probably had hundreds of children all over the place. You could do anything as the Daddy O, couldn’t you?
Ola felt his hand squeeze her thigh under the table. Behave, his hand said, but it wasn’t a rough squeeze, so she amended the translation. Behave, please. For me. Ola smiled and leaned her body slightly over the table to convey interest. It turned out that Ijendu was an aspiring designer who wanted to, as she put it, bring modern silhouettes to local fabrics. And by local fabrics, she meant ankara. Ola fought the urge to roll her eyes and dragged a vaguely interested smile on her face instead.
“That sounds lovely,” she lied. Okinosho smiled.
Ijendu asked Ola questions about the industry through the course of the lunch, and Ola gritted her teeth as she answered them, trying not to let her irritation show. It was hard to put on a face for someone who wasn’t a client, and while she could usually socialize with other people around her clients, she felt impatient this time. Maybe because all those other times, she was talking to people who had power and capital, not little girls who had dreams. Different worlds, and the latter was one she’d left a long time ago if she’d ever been in it at all. She resented Daddy O for putting her in this position—he’d have to make it up to her later. The thought of that, of what she could lever out of him, calmed her a bit, and she felt the coiled tension in her shoulders and neck loosen. He would pay for this. They always paid, and Ola always collected.
When lunch was over, the three of them entered Daddy O’s car, looking like they were two of his daughters. The driver dropped Ijendu off at Mbano Estate then, finally, Ola was alone with the pastor. She smiled up at him, and his hand crawled over her thigh as he leaned over and kissed her roughly, his lips full and pressured against hers, his tongue a swollen snake in her mouth. When he pulled away, Ola let her hand caress his cheek.
“I’m so glad to be alone with you,” she whispered, because drivers never counted. “It feels like it’s been forever.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve been fantasizing about you for weeks; I missed you so much. Missed this body.”
Ola smiled before remembering he’d canceled on her the night before, then his anger earlier in the morning. “But you left me and went to that party last night,” she said. “What happened there? Who vexed you?”
His face darkened instantly, and she noted how his eyes flickered toward the driver. So, it’s something he’s actually embarrassed about, she thought. Interesting.
“One small boy like that decided he would try me. So now I have to show him pepper. You cannot touch the anointed of God and expect that nothing will happen to you.” Okinosho’s voice had tightened with anger. “But it’s all right. Things are moving against him. The justice of the righteous will fall on his head.”
Ola was already regretting asking him about it, his grudges always killed the mood for her. “Nobody can try you, Daddy.” She slid her hand over his chest. “I’m so happy I finally get to be next to you again.”
He looked at her and some of the rage in his face faded. “It’s good to see you, my daughter.” He squeezed her thigh hard enough for it to hurt. “Let’s go home.”
Saturday, 2:15 PM
Daddy O had several houses on the island, many of them his own family didn’t know about. He took Ola to the one in the deep highland, her favorite, the one she had helped design from the blueprints to the interior decor. He had offered to gift it to her several times, but she’d refused. “I like to think of it as ours,” she told him. “A little love nest, you know? A nest you’ve built for me.” It was a line for his ego. Ola already had a house in Section One that was being rented out by a management company, and honestly, she just didn’t want another. There were other countries she was more interested in acquiring property in; this one was no longer high on the list.
In the bedroom, Okinosho dropped the calm face he wore outside, and she watched his mouth twist with desire as his thick fingers fumbled at the buttons of her blouse. She’d deliberately covered up for modesty since they were in public but also to tease him, keep him thinking about all the skin lying underneath, warm and pulsing. The silk under his large hands was butterfly yellow, like gold against her deep skin, diving into wide-leg patterned trousers that hugged her ass but drowned her legs. Ola knew how Daddy O loved her thighs, her calves, how not being able to even see the shape of them would arouse him as much as being able to see her ass did. She laughed low in her throat as he bit at her neck, still working on the buttons, clumsy with want and impatience.
“Are you hungry, Daddy?” she asked, her voice a drawl, and he growled, ripping her blouse open. Mother-of-pearl buttons exploded across the bedroom floor, muffled in the carpet. Ola remained passive, refusing to engage, her body pliant in his hands. “Why did you have to bring your goddaughter to lunch?” she complained. “And you didn’t even warn me beforehand. It’s not nice; I was looking forward to just being with you.”
Daddy O had one hand cupping her ass, his palm full of firm flesh, pulling her hips in against his erection. The other hand was groping at her left breast outlined in strips of lilac satin, a piece from the Balogun sisters’ line. His fingers found and twisted a nipple as he sucked on her collarbone and Ola gasped aloud.
“Can’t I do something nice for my own goddaughter?” he said, then he ran his tongue up her neck into her ear. “Don’t start acting like these small girls, always giving me trouble over nonsense things. I don’t like that kind of behavior. You understand?”
Ola pouted and turned her head away from him, the length of her neck taut and gleaming. She left her arms dangling by her sides, like a doll he was manhandling, like she was unmoved by the swollen evidence of his arousal, the ardor of his mouth. It infuriated him, and he reached for the waist of her trousers, ignoring the zipper and tearing them open. The expensive material gave way with a hiss, fraying at the newly raw edges. Daddy O shoved the ruined trousers down her hips and pulled the rest of the broken yellow silk off her arms. He grabbed her waist and tossed her onto the bed, face down, then levered her legs open with his knee as he shoved three fingers into her past the pale satin of her thong. His other hand held her down by the back of her neck and Ola cried out, her voice swallowed by the duvet her face was pressed into.
“I said, do you understand?” he spat out. She was a long dark spill against the white of the bed, her mouth smearing a plum trail.
He couldn’t see her face, but she smiled. “Yes, Daddy,” she said, breathless. The pastor twisted his fingers inside her for good measure, then pulled them out roughly. Ola heard his belt unbuckle and the rasp of his zipper, then he was pulling her up by the back of her neck as she scrambled to keep her balance.
“Turn around,” he ordered, not releasing her neck. She twisted her body as he pulled her close until she was sitting at the edge of the bed, her breasts spilling out of their satin cage, her chest heaving. Daddy O tugged at her neck and stepped back, dragging her off the bed. “Kneel down,” he said, his face hungry. “Open your mouth.”
Ola parted her lips and the pastor shoved himself past her teeth, down her throat, pulling the back of her head close as she gagged and swallowed him, her mouth flush with his body. His head fell back and he closed his eyes, sighing as if he had finally reached home.
Saturday, 3:38 PM
“I’m going to shower,” Ola said, rolling off the bed naked, the pastor’s semen trailing down her cheek and neck.
He replied with a grunt, sprawled on his back and already dozing off, cleaned off by her mouth. She pushed her damp hair off her neck and grabbed her phone as she stepped into the bathroom, the tile cool under her feet. Large mirrors lined the walls and Ola stared at herself in them, the smudged mascara, her lips rubbed bare, a welt on her hip from where he’d hit her too hard with his belt. The pastor’s semen was mixed with her saliva and smeared over her hands. She rinsed them off, then turned on the shower before pulling out one of the drawers by the sink and rummaging around until she found a hair clip. She twisted her hair and clipped it up, then stepped into the shower and let the hot water pulse off her skin, rinsing away both the fluids and his touch.
She was in a strange mood, in a hurry to leave instead of cuddling with him and playing house some more like she usually did. Maybe it had been the lunch that threw her off; maybe she just wasn’t in the mood to play that character today, the tender one. She felt off her game. It had been easier to provoke him into roughness, which was a familiar buffer, something she could get off on. But today, she just didn’t want him pawing over her afterward, smiling at her. She wanted to be alone in her hotel room. Oh God, Ola thought, I’m hanging out too much with Souraya, she’s rubbing off on me. She washed her face and got out of the shower, drying herself off quickly so she could hunt through the walk-in closet for a change of clothes and head back out. Maybe she’d tell him she wasn’t feeling well. Maybe she’d just sneak out and he would wake up annoyed that she wasn’t there and fuck her this roughly again that night…that would be nice. His buttons were so easy sometimes, stretching into almost puppet strings.
Ola smiled at her reflection, stretching her lips wider and wider until they became a caricature, like when he’d hooked his fingers into the corners of her mouth as he thrust into it. She turned it into a snarl, a grimace, then exhaled and reached for the moisturizer that was always on the bathroom counter. Everything in that house was always left the way it was from whenever she’d last been there, like a customized hotel. It was one of the reasons she liked the pastor; he understood and supported her need for regular comfort. She was dabbing little dots of moisturizer on her face when her phone started vibrating. Ola looked down and saw it was Souraya calling. She frowned; it was unlike Sou to call when she knew Ola was with a client. She accepted the call and whispered into the phone, “Hold on one second, let me get my earbuds.”
Leaving the phone in the bathroom, she quickly stepped into the bedroom and grabbed her earbuds from the bedside table. Daddy O was snoring gently in the bed, but still, Ola closed the bathroom door firmly behind her before slipping the buds into her ears. She adjusted them as they beeped awake and stepped away from the door, sitting on the toilet.
“What’s up, Sou? Is everything okay?”
“Babes, sorry to call you while you’re at work, but I have a strange favor to ask.”
Ola listened with growing incredulity as her friend spoke; even more so when Souraya passed the phone to her lunch companion and he continued explaining what they needed. When they were done, she was silent for a minute. “Are you people serious?” she finally said. “Why the fuck should I get involved in all of this?”
“Ola, come on. The girl was a teenager.” Souraya’s voice lowered, as if she’d turned aside. “You remember how it was for us. Is trying to protect her something someone should go and die for?”
Ola flinched. She hated it when Souraya tried to flatten their lives into one thing. She had no idea what Ola had gone through; it wasn’t the same. They’d had this conversation before. “Really, Sou?”
A pause on the other end. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant the girl’s doing what she has to do to survive. We were like her once—who ever bothered to try and protect us?”
“First of all, fuck you.” Ola was still angry.
“I said sorry, na.”
“Second of all, that guy was an idiot to get involved, I don’t care how old she was. It’s common sense to mind your own fucking business.”
“I’m not saying he wasn’t an idiot. We’re just saying maybe he shouldn’t die because of it.”
Ola rolled her eyes. “People die for less all the time, Sou.”
