The Mantis Bride of Modekun

Chapter 8

The cave network reaches a dead end, so I track back the way I came, exiting the cave and entering another. I don’t know what I’m looking for—under the weight of the expectations of my escorts, I am simply scouring the area, hopeful. With Badimun and Adeniki’s spirits protected from my empathy, I can’t tell if they are getting frustrated by our back-and-forth meandering, just the sense that they will hack off my head if I don’t find the Seed. I have to give them someone—anyone.

In the aftermath of the curse, many feel no affinity towards their partners, but some do. On a hill, where smoke rises with the smell of roast, a young man lounges around a cooking fire with a few others. He is beloved by all. Nothing in his appearance suggests why this is so—he has sunken cheeks, a weak jawline, heavy-lidded eyes that blink constantly, and a mouth that seems perpetually pursed.

“Well?” Badimun says to me.

“Patience,” I say. “I said we would wait for the crowds to disperse.”

“But have you seen it?”

“I have.”

He follows the line of my sight to those gathered around a cooking fire but doesn’t ask.

“She’s the one,” I say, pointing to a naked woman adding more wood to the fire.

“The one carrying sticks?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Adeniki asks.

“I am positive.”

Badimun and Adeniki crawl up the hill. At the top, on the flat stretch of land, Adeniki grabs the startled woman and slings her over his shoulder. She screams and pounds her forearms against his back. The others laugh and wave as if sending her off on a romp. Their giddy, foolish mood finds some twisted amusement in her predicament, which they don't see as a cause for alarm: her attackers simply want a threesome; yes, she might be r***d but it will be at the hands of two prized specimens she hardly deserves. There's also the extra that with her gone, there will be one less competing for the attention of their object of desire: the thin young man with a tortoise face.

The woman’s scream fades into the night.

I’m finally rid of the Afefe. Free at last. Thanks be to Eshu, enforcer of choices, it’s just me and my plans.

I spot the least inclined path out of the valley and scramble upward, clawing at the earth and dragging myself up to get to the group around the fire. I focus on the young man. I can feel his indwelling. It’s a*****e for aphrodisiacal temperaments that, I know, would have overwhelmed me were it not for the talisman I’m wearing. I wonder if I can duplicate those experiences and store them in the kegs of my mind like a palm wine tapper. I’m exhausted. Too tired to create a link telepathically. But I can do it with a touch.

No one spares me a glance as I slip into the circle of six huddled around the cooking fire.

“I felt the wind too,” a plump, round-faced woman says.

“We all did,” another woman says. “It was strongest during our lovemaking.”

“Yes,” an elderly man wearing a headband with an ostrich feather says. “The gods were showing their approval for something so beautiful.” I wonder what kind of amoye he is.

“What do you think, Abayomi?” the plump woman asks the object of their affection: the Seed.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I just didn’t like the way it blew in the caves. It was violent.”

“Yes, I didn’t like it too,” the amoye says and the others agree.

Those seated closest to Abayomi jostle to caress and fondle him. I touch him on the shoulder and our skins crackle.

“Who touched me?” he says.

“I don’t understand…” someone says.

“I felt a spark when someone touched me,” Abayomi says.

The wind rises abruptly.

“It was me,” the plump woman says.

“No, it was me,” another says.

As the wind howls around us, a sharp realization cuts through me—Badimun and Adeniki are on their way back. No time to waste.

I throw myself on top of Abayomi and wrestle him to the ground, our contact sparking into a shared current—his emotion becoming mine, mine becoming his. There’s something else inside him, a second presence. It stirs. It grows and implodes, a rapture engulfing and lifting me away from the realm of the physical, pulling me beyond the voices of his admirers—"Who is this? Get him off?" —and beyond myself. Oh, sweet temptation, carry me away.

…

Badimun and Adeniki are hunched over me when I regain my awareness.

“You’ve come back for your talismans, or to kill me? Which one?”

If I die now, it will be worth it. For all the sorrow in my life, such bliss is the least I deserve.

“That woman is not the Seed,” Adeniki says.

“Give us the Seed,” Badimun growls.

“How could you tell?”

“The people here would have fought us to prevent us from taking her away,” Adeniki says. “We knew she wasn’t when we were allowed to pass freely.”

The game is up. I can give them the Seed now that I’ve duplicated parts of his indwelling: I may have stored enough titillation to keep me in perpetual bliss.

I glance around and spot Abayomi and the others scrambling to get dressed, fear etched on their faces.

“That man,” I say, pointing to Abayomi, “is the Seed.”

The night erupts into chaos as Badimun and Adeniki surge forward, their bare feet pounding against the hard earth. The group scatters like startled birds, their panicked shouts slicing through the humid air. Badimun moves with the lethal grace of a lioness driving a zebra into an ambush, nearly grabbing Abayomi, causing him to swerve in desperate circles, only to crash his temple into Adeniki’s waiting fist. Abayomi crumples to the dust.

Like a swarm of enraged hornets, the onlookers charge at Abayomi's captors, their long sticks whipping through the air with sharp whooshes. Badimun doesn’t flinch. He spins and catches a shadow with his foot. A man sprawls on the ground. Careful, Badimun. You promised not to kill anyone. The mob staggers back, their courage fracturing. Badimun feigns a charge, and they flee. They run a short distance and regroup with other ‘deviants.’ Feverishly, they return. But the two warrior priests have melted into the shadows.

Let the Afefe believe they have neutralized the Seed. Someday, they will learn that seeds germinate, and I don’t simply feel the emotional states of others: I store and reproduce them, which is why the Seed’s gift of s****l enablement—an ability that allows people to enjoy s*x and experience orgasms—is alive in me; I now embody his indwelling.

What they call deviants, I call liberated.

What they recoil from, I consider beautiful.

I suppose one man’s curse is another man’s revolution.