By Deborah Vuha

Adjoa Baiden was thirteen when she decided she didn’t want children.

She grew up fast. The triangular protrusions on her chest rounded out and widened, as the nipples on them grew rock-hard and strained against the fabric of her blouses, calling attention to her bosom. Her hips took their time to flare, but when they did, people noticed. She grew a pair of dancer legs, long and supple, like her father’s. By the time her backside decided to join the party, Adjoa knew. Her body was too beautiful to subject to the torture of carrying another person. There wasn’t enough reward to risk losing the firmness of her breasts and packing on muffin-tops.

She scoured the internet for diet and exercise regimens and slapped rigid restrictions on herself. No food after seven. No fried proteins. She limited her slip-ups to a cupcake a week, icing-free. She worked out but avoided effusive weight training; there was no room in her plans for appearing even remotely buff. Yoga promised flexibility but it was shrouded in too much mystery; she wanted a beautiful body, not the threat of demons inhabiting it. Pilates offered the less-puzzling alternative. If a pimple appeared, she drank more water. Dark spots got an aloe vera beating. One kilo more on the scale meant one of two things: period bloating or slacking. If her monthly friend wasn’t visiting, she ran two laps around the block every day for the next week and reduced her portions further.

She smiled at her reflection. The crazy discipline paid off. Her body was a temple.

She was nineteen when she could blame the persistent flab atop the waistband of her jeans on neither moon time nor slacking. Not the food kind of slacking, anyway.

It was Francesco.

He called her a storm, said he was caught in its eye. He was the Italian exchange student visiting Sekondi; the one who linked his fingers through hers two minutes after they met and promised to let go only if she agreed to let him cook her pasta. He had an eye for art and hands that were covering her body with pasta the next day while he slurped the strands off.

He excited her. Adjoa was no sentimental nutter, didn’t believe she was in love with him or would ever be, didn’t think much of his gushing praise for her body. But he had good skin and a lustrous mane of black curls. She dug that. He peeled off the traces of inexperience she had left, driving her to peaks of randy delight. She liked that. Many nights found them rolling in pristine sheets, pressed against walls in hotel rooms, or hunched over each other in the backseat of his rented car, yanking off each other’s clothes, fogging up the glass. Their bodies fit like neighbouring puzzle pieces, moving with the carnal fervour of forbidden lovers making the most of stolen time.

He didn’t want a commitment. It made him so perfect she almost wished he did. It was a good thing that their adventurous libidos were the only things that saw eye to eye. Parting would be easier.

Of course, parting would also be easier if they hadn’t forgotten to use protection more than once.

She had to tell him. The word paternal didn’t immediately—or ever— come to mind when Adjoa looked at Francesco, but he was one half of their baby-making team. He had to know.

She stood next to the window in the large suite, his phone in her hand. Her thumb nudged the picture on the screen up, then down, her lips scrunching into a pout as she studied it. ‘I like it,’ she said, her gaze flitting over the mosaic of yellow and red triangles.

The whisper of satin behind her announced that Fran was leaving the bed. ‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s beautiful.’

He chuckled. ‘Good art isn’t liked because it’s beautiful, AJ.’ His hands slithered around her, turning her to him. ‘Good art disturbs you, makes you think.’

‘Good art can also be liked because it’s cute and makes you feel warm inside,’ she said, as his hands moved down her skin to cup her bare derriere.

A familiar fire danced in his eyes. ‘Let me make you feel warm inside.’ He kissed her, his hands kneading her love handles. ‘You’ve grown so much softer,’ he breathed against her lips. ‘I love it.’

Adjoa saw her opening. ‘That’s coz I’m pregnant.’

‘What?’ He flew off her like she scalded him. His eyes roamed the length of her body in horror, like she had just mutated into a gelatinous red blob. ‘When? How?’

‘How?’ She threw her head back, her chest shaking with laughter. ‘Bruh, you ask how like we haven’t spent the last three months doing it like rabbits on heat.’

‘You were supposed to be on the pill!’

Her chin lifted. ‘You were supposed to use a condom, every time, but here we are.’

‘I can’t . . . we can’t have it, AJ.’ He stood there, one hand on his waist, the other rubbing his forehead as if his plan was to wear out the skin. ‘I won’t . . . I can’t even be around. When I go back, my father’s taking me out of Italy at the end of the month. He wants me to forget art, AJ. He wants me to go to school and study to be an engineer.’ He grimaced, like the word left his tongue sour. ‘If I ever wanted a child I would want to be around, and now I can’t. You can’t have it. Get rid of it.’

‘Whoa.’ She laughed again. The sound was much drier this time. ‘Relax. I don’t want this thing any more than you do.’ She licked her suddenly parched lips. Staring out the French windows, she muttered, ‘I just thought you should know.’

‘You don’t? Great!’ Francesco dropped to his knees before the black puddle that was his trousers, fingers rummaging the pockets in a frantic search. He pulled out his cheque book. ‘Here.’ He ripped out a leaf and slapped it unto the bed. ‘It’s signed. And blank. Take it. Make it go away.’ He recovered his shirt from where he’d flung it half an hour earlier. If she’d thought he had a record for how quickly he could shed his clothes, he must have a bigger one for how little time it took him to get back into them. ‘It’s best we never see each other again,’ he said, snapping his watch into place.

She scooped her hair over one shoulder. ‘I’d say.’

He stared at her for a moment, taking in for the last time her glorious naked form. Then he left. The only signs he had ever been there were his piquant cologne in the tangled sheets and the cheque that flapped in the breeze of the overhead fan.

Excerpt from Yellow Means Stay: An Anthology of Love Stories from Africa. (Afritondo, 2020)

Debbie Vuha lives in Accra, Ghana. She likes to draw and write stories. When she can find the courage, and a stable internet connection, she publishes pieces on debbienho.blogspot.com.

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