08

As soon as Idriss leaves the room, Yayi tells me that he has to go to France. He explains to me that I had to go to an official ceremony in Calavi.

Ashley: Isn't that Isabelle's job? I don't want a story.

Yayi: No internationally, it's her. Here, it is you, you are my second wife and you will go with my mother. She will be there tomorrow.

Ashley: Got it, I'm going to prepare a room for her.

Yayi: No it's not worth it, she has a house here, she will come and get you to go there. It's an important ceremony so Michelle the Prime Minister's wife will go too.

Ashley: I hope she's not a deep friend of your wife. I couldn't handle Yayi.

Yayi: She and Isabelle don't get along well and if you could try to befriend her that would be good.

Ashley: As you want. What is the ceremony?

Yayi: I built an Agro-food factory here. It is the largest in the sub-region so that means jobs.

Ashley: In one year?

Yayi: No, I started it a year before I applied for the presidential election. It is now finished.

Ashley: You scared me. Who else will be there?

Yayi: The factory was built for the majority of women, so the Minister of Labor and the wife of the Minister in charge of agriculture and natural resources.

Ashley: Ok I see there is a dress code?

Yayi: The choice is yours.

The day later me Stéphane and Yayi's mother were at the ceremony having a good day. I spent an hour of time shaking hands, talking with a lot of strangers. After the party, the baby of one of the beneficiaries does not stop crying, I put down my bag and I go to see her. I offer her my help she accepts I take the little one in my arms and I start rocking him he calms down we give him a glass of water it was finished I give him back to his mother with whom I will talk a little when my mother-in-law comes to us. Women take advantage of the moment to make a complaint, which I think is good.

Not knowing that my presence at this ceremony was not going unnoticed, it is Stéphane who will inform me.

Stéphane: My darling, you are in everyone's mouth on the internet, in the neighborhood, everywhere my darling.

Ashley: Stéphane you're older than me but you like kpakpatoya too much.

Stéphane: If I don't, who will? Sorry, you just knocked out your co-wife. My darling you killed even I'm not telling you.

Ashley: What are you talking about I understand nothing at all.

Stéphane: Apparently people prefer you to her. They find her arrogant and blah blah.

Ashley: Hey Stéphane sorry, leave there eh and take care of ourselves, it's better. Where are you with the restaurant?

Stéphane: I almost forgot. We need to sign the contract tomorrow.

Ashley: We'll go there but tell me you didn't say you wanted to bring your mother back to Calavi?

Stéphane: This woman tires me. She is afraid of my father my darling.

Ashley: It's normal they've been married for 30 years, she can't leave him overnight. Your father still doesn't want to see you?

Stéphane: No, he doesn't want to talk to me, but he eats the money that I send to the old town every end of the month.

Ashley: He's just shocked that's all. He will eventually calm down.

Stéphane: I hope my darling. Listen, you're gonna have to help me with my apartment.

Ashley: Where are you going to leave me alone in this house with who?

Stéphane: You need privacy with your husband. Listen, I rented the villa in front of your house. If your husband is there, I will go there and when he leaves, I will come back to keep you company. You understand?

With my uncles, the news falls like a bomb and it is the 8 pm newspaper which will finally announce to them who was the man I had married. Joseph jumps, his wife Éliane couldn't believe it, Rodrigue grabs his head.

Joseph: Wait it was good Ashley oh my God I missed my life.

Rodrigue: It was our chance to get out of poverty.

Eliane: It's not too late, we can always catch up, we have to call him. Tell him to come see us next weekend.

Joseph calls me. Astonished, I answer and I kindly decline the invitation of my uncles. The days which will follow it is Sonia who sends me soft and kind messages but I am not stupid I say to her politely thank you.

Late at night Éliane will wake up her daughters to talk to them.

Eliane: Monique wake up lazy you too Sonia come on

.

Monique: Hey mom, it's 3 am I'm asleep, sorry.

Eliane: Keep sleeping. Look at this little idiot has become the president's wife you are there sleeping.

Monique: Mom, she's just a second wife, not a first lady.

Eliane: But the money that goes there has no status. Listen, you're going to do everything to go and live with her.

Sonia: No thank you mom, no desire.

Eliane: Shut up. At the right time, one of you will take the boy and become his mistress who may even have become the third wife. Imagine President Eh Dieu's wife.

After their mother leaves, the girls think maybe she was right. At home I'm already asleep when my phone rings and it was Yayi. He is discussing with me about his day's work I could hear by the sound of his voice that he was not happy but I already know that there were questions that I was not allowed to ask even less at phone. And there all of a sudden he told me.

I do not speak I accept. The next morning I warn my aunt of my trip I wait for Stéphane's return to tell her the news. When he came back from a nightclub, I told him that we had to go to Switzerland, sleep had left my body.

Stéphane: My friend, me in Switzerland? Pray that I don't have a fit, Lord, I'm going to go to Europe.

Ashley: Calm down, pack your bags, we're leaving tomorrow night. Everything's already ready we'll go get the passports at 8 o'clock. Do you know he changed Idriss and I's last name to Mensah Lee?

Stephane: Honey, I know it's hard to see another name in front of your little brother's, but he's your husband and therefore his father.

Ashley: I know, but it's all going too fast for me. Since they knew that I married Yayi, everyone has changed towards me.

Stéphane: We must let these hypocrites run away my darling. Where are we going to get off? In what hotel eh God looks at your Stéphane.

In the evening we are in the presidential jet Idriss did not sleep during the entire flight. Between him and Stéphane we no longer knew who was a child or an adult.

Here we are in our suite and Idriss collapsed in less than 5 minutes after his shower. I also take my shower and at my exit 4 calls absent and a voice message from Yayi asking me to join him in his suite. I wear a simple dress I call him and he tells me to come. In his suite, he discusses with the Ambassador of Benin in Switzerland. This gentleman's gaze on me almost cost him his job. Yayi undresses comes towards me. He was all naked and I close my eyes. Embarrass, he laughs at me and asks me to open my eyes I refuse he bursts out laughing. Are you going to close your eyes every time I get naked? You wonder he opening the closure of my dress.

Yayi: Look out the window.

I take a look around. From his room, you could see the bright lights that decorated the city with all colors far from the dust of Calavi who wanted to kill everyone at the slightest movement. I feel the heat of her body that comes to snuggle up against me. His hands stroked my stomach, he whispered quietly in my ear.

Yayi: As soon as I saw you, I wanted to have you. You haunted my nights for months Jennifer.

It wasn't the first time he called me my third name. Whenever we were alone, he called me that. While turning me towards him he kisses me very tenderly on the mouth my heart only jumps once again my heart was beating fast. I felt like it pleased him to see me shake every time he kissed a part of my body. At one point he looks me straight in the eye and tells me.

Yayi: Don't worry about beauty. Today also I am going to make love to you, you are not yet done for other things.

I jump and cry.

Ashley: What the hell is this? I am not ground meat to be cooked. What do you have behind your head Yayi Lee?

He looks at me for a minute and bursts out laughing. He is going to light a cigarette, lie down on the bed smiling, he puts his head on my thigh and tells me.

Yayi: You have no idea what goes through my mind when I see you. You are perfect. Your breasts, your body, you're the one I've been looking for for years since you were a virgin, was a little extra bonus.

Ashley: What were you looking for? You can have all the women you want. But why me ?

Yayi: Because you're different. In fact you have something in you that attracts me. Besides, I knew your character well.

Ashley: What? What do you want to talk about ?

Yayi: I've been watching you for a long time. It was the day I saw you in front of your attiekê stand that you captivated me. I swore to have you and you are mine.

Ashley: So instead of buying food you watch women?

Yayi: Yes, you have a really good butt. This is the first thing I noticed. When you stooped down to warm the fish that was where I even got out of the car to get a better look.

Ashley: You're complicated huh. You were with Isabelle that day, weren't you?

Yayi: So what? She knows me well. I'm not going to stop staring at some pretty pair of buttocks because of her, let alone because of you. You have been warned.

Ashley: Well received. There is one thing that surprises me. Why did you stay away from me for two years? Because of the presidential election?

Yayi: Also the other reason is Isabelle. I wanted her to be ready to accept our marriage and eventually she did. And I said you are my bonus.

Ashley: Bonus?

Yayi: Yes of course. Politically you are the trump card of my table. I flashed when I married you.

Ashley: You scare me Yayi.

Yayi: No you shouldn't be afraid of me unless you're cheating on me.

He said to me, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray placed next to it. He turns his head towards me and tells me, looking me straight in the eye.

Yayi: If there's one thing you should never do, it's cheat on me. Isabelle did it, that's what put this ring on your finger. I can't kill her that would be too much of a scandal. But you, it is neither seen nor known.

There are two minutes there to look at the fear in my eyes and He ends with this sentence.

Yayi: You see the fear that you feel at this precise moment, it is nothing compared to what you will feel the day when another man lays his hand on you.

He kisses me and pulls me a little lower from the bed. He was lying on me, his eyes fixed on mine, he started to make love to me and in my head it was just a sentence that reigned.

By making love to me this time, he let himself go because I had noticed it in his breathing. Our sweaty bodies unlike my first time, I felt each of his thrusts in my lower abdomen and the small pleasure that it gave me robbed me of moans. He puts his right hand on my lower abdomen as if to control the vibrations of my pelvis. Yayi will take me to another world for minutes. It is only his acquired pleasure that he will remove his hand from my lower abdomen and He sleeps on me.

The next morning I wake up alone in his bed with a note telling me that he had an important lunch to go shopping with Idriss and Stéphane. Word signed with his credit card. His right arm comes to pick up Idriss Stéphane and me around 9 o'clock. We got home at 9 p.m. and I realized that no matter what I had bought, no matter the price, my husband's card in parenthesis had no limit. I learn from his right arm that he was in a meeting with important investors.