Commit To Doughnuts
I am thirty-seven weeks pregnant with a sex drive that suddenly has no limits, and everything turns me on. How have I become the most sensual of beings? I’ve almost never written poetry; there was that one time, but I was sixteen and thought I was in love. Now, this bright orange mango, dripping sweet smelling juices as I bury my face in it while taking in the scenery, is a sensory overload. I sit on Copacabana Beach looking at the toned butts of Brazilian men playing foot-volley. Tight butts, oiled hairless chests, lots of grunting and heaving. What I would do if I wasn’t already one big swollen torso.
It has taken two years of living in Rio for this Nigerian girl to accept kissing cheeks just to say hello, and kissing them again when it’s time to leave. I don’t like hugs either. Why do people think it is okay to say hello by pressing up against someone else for an undetermined amount of time, breathing them in? It never made any sense to me, but I don’t mind so much now. All I want is to latch onto someone, anyone, and glide down their body like a melting slab of butter as I rub my engorged belly all over them. I want to say hello to strangers, to hug them and smell them, which feels bizarre. I can feel pregnancy rewiring me. I actually eat Feijoada, the Brazilian bean stew, and like it now, when months ago I could not stand the black brew.
Two weeks later, I’m in Houston, in church with the in-laws. A man some rows ahead keeps turning back to look at me. I’m trying hard to ignore him. I am a sphere with feet that can’t get into shoes anymore. My feet are now two stumps that help keep me upright. I only have one pair of sandals that fit, so they have to go with everything, whether they like it or not. I’m not sure if he’s cute or it’s the pregnancy, and while I’m really flattered at being checked out, where exactly could this go? The man turns around once more, catches my gaze, smiles and swallows, and then it’s on—in my granny pants.
Oh lord! He has a large Adam’s apple!
Was this a new thing, or had I always had a thing for Adam’s apples? There was something—a memory, long abolished, in the far reaches of my mind. What other corners of my id would my fetal guest illuminate? Why am I pregnant and horny in church?
I am distracted for only a few seconds. I will my admirer to turn around again and he does. He mouths, “Hello,” and because there has to be a benevolent goddess of fertility somewhere, he swallows again. I slow down the bobbing of his Adam’s apple, savoring the aesthetics of this commonplace motion. I am thirty-nine weeks pregnant, sitting in church with my husband’s family, and I have never been more turned on in my life.
I realize then that I am married to the wrong person. Obi is all wrong for me; I’m supposed to be with someone with an extended thyroid cartilage. I could be sucking on these protrusions every night, stroking the ridges, enjoying the rhythmic dance that would be my man swallowing. By Ala and all the Igbo gods, I would make him swallow.
Alas, it’s too late for me. I'm condemned to a life without this basic gratification. There is no point to this new dalliance, there could be no culmination, so why indulge it?
I turn away from my new beau, and try to ignore him, but I can feel his insistent gaze throughout the Christian rituals. The service is over and Mr. Adam is coming for me—big, wide expectant eyes. For the first time, I understand the necessity of the swelling on the nose of many pregnant women. It’s like an engagement ring alerting the rest of the world that you are really off the market, but for when they can’t see your ringed hand or your bulging belly. I wait in the midst of the exiting crowd, indulgent, smile on my face wondering what he will say when my torso confronts him. He pushes forward against the crowd, a confident smile on his face.
And I stand.
Adam pushes through, sees my belly, and keeps on walking. No beat is lost in all the nanoseconds it takes for him to understand the situation. The transformation to an unknown man passing by is so seamless that I am unable to identify the point where he breaks off his adulating gaze.
My would-be-lover just walks on by.
Men are scum. Every single one. The idiot would have got me pregnant anyway and made me unavailable for the next guy. This pregnancy tells me I can handle all the men. I want them all.
I have become a whole new being under chemical compulsion. Yes, I’ll miss the orgasms from guilt-free romps with random men in my dreams when this ends. But when it does, I have to get ready to become another.
There’s a box of doughnuts out on the table; I make a beeline for it. Would he have made me feel as good as sugared fried dough? I’m not so sure. I also don’t know anyone at this church, so I don’t even have to pretend to eat only one. Doughnuts don’t care.
Nneoma Kenure (@nfkenure) really hated being pregnant, will never do it again, and so wrote a memoir warning everyone else not to fall in love because it’s the biggest trap.
Her two children have taught her many other kinds of love, in many ways even better than the first, so...