Thandeka

‘’Ndithini ke?’’ I ask Ingwe in a low voice as we walk in the shade of the fruit trees planted about a kilometre from where my strange new home is still under construction.

‘’Thetha naye, uSatshi 'yamamele, suswelanto uzokuva ndiyakuthembisa," Ingwe says with surety in her knowledge of her man. The woman strong, her neck never bent, her body beautiful her breasts heavy and the stares she receives numerous but she never shrink from any of them.

I admire her, I admire how easily she can smile, I admire that she has learnt to fight for herself in this Conclave they all keep visiting on a nearly daily basis. I admire that she has a voice amongst the other wives and I envy her the growing bump of her stomach. She is so pleasant, so warm and easily approachable maybe this is my chance to ask her what I’ve been wondering about these past two months since my husband claimed me as his own.

‘’Why do you think he chose me?’’ I ask in a whisper, finding my eyes already looking at the lush green grass growing between the shade of the wonderful trees before I catch myself and lift my head back upe forward.

Ingwe is smiling at me with that little smile of her’s that would probably be patronising coming from anyone else. I smile back but quickly look away, my smile has gotten me into trouble with women before and women trying to keep their man away from pursuing me can be very vicious and vindictive but at least my teeth grew back stronger after that incident. I look at her again, she is taller, her skin is flawless and luminous, her hair strong and fluffy in one of the intricate braiding patterns she likes doing to the children.

I have never had a family before, I have never had sisters, I’ve never had children and thought I never would. But the generous way they all accepted me, both the women and the children, I’m still embarrassed for having broken into tears but if they are only pretending to care about me and want me around then this is the cruellest anyone has ever been to me.

‘’I don’t know why he picked you to be honest, we thought he was done at just seven after he introduced us to Shravanthi then Isis. You are beautiful but he knows plenty of other beautiful women and he ignores most of them.’’

‘’Most?’’ I ask, curious and possessive. I’ve never had a man of my own before and to know that a man with so much land and such a large house and influence only has eight wives makes me feel like I’m part of an elite. I know men with less wealth and less power with more wives than he has and they aren’t treated as well as Sachi treats us. The bones of my ancestors have finally stirred in my favour after my years of suffering.

‘’There is this woman that got her claws into him back in Paradisum, Hannah’s birth mother. I could have respected her had she wanted to be involved in raising her child but she just abandoned little Hannah to Sachi, only giving him the seeds these trees have been raised from.’’ She says spreading her arms to indicate the growing expanse of trees the orchard is becoming.

‘’To be honest I thought Hannah was Shea’s, the way they get along. Not that you don’t get along with the children or anything!’’ I quickly add as I imagine how divisive that may have sounded.

Ingwe’s beautiful and crystal clear laugh ripples through the air and I suddenly hear the chirping of birds I previously didn’t notice, the rustling of leaves on the ground, the warmth of the sun is pleasant on my skin as it breaks through the canopy of the trees at places. Then she stops laughing and the world is the same again, quiet. I stare at Ingwe wide eyed, she has magic?

‘’What was that?" I whisper, not sure if I want to witness it again as the beauty of it was startling.

"What?"

"That magic you just did with your laugh.’’

She giggles again and grins at me but this time nothing changes. ''It’s the baby, Sachi’s babies are all strange since he Awakened.’’

I don’t question it, we remain comfortably silent for a while, I still have so many questions and though the others are nice I don’t want to bother them. I don’t have a purpose here and that’s what scares me more than anything else. Isis runs a herbs store in Den, where-ever that may be and she is good with these magic marking and mixing medicines. Shravanthi is just an all round weird one, today gardening, tomorrow playing with Dishna’s snakes, the next day out learning to fight from Aurora and her friends, then she will be cooking exotic spiced food.

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I don’t know what my role is in this family, I don’t know why Sachi wanted me because the women he is surrounded by are all astoundingly beautiful and the slave woman Katya is to him what I usually become to the men that have had their way with me in the past. ‘’You shouldn’t worry so much.’’ Ingwe says with a hand on my arm.

‘’I’m scared,’’ I finally admit, maybe to the first friend I've ever had outside childhood.

‘’He won’t abandon you, he is many things but he won’t abandon you so don’t worry. And at least you still get to have sex with the man, I don’t even know how long this pregnancy will last but I think I’m already going out of my mind with lust. I went to watch Katya milk him this morning.’’ She adds quickly with a blush and a sigh merging together.

I grin a little as I drop my head again. I have had sex with many men on many occasions, occasionally I enjoyed it but mostly it was a chore I had no way of refusing. But sex with my new husband, I am always wet when I see him. He is attentive, obsessively so, he somehow knows where to touch and where not to even without me saying anything. He actually licks my fruit on an almost daily basis, something I had never before experienced but now crave for more than I do food.

And the perverted things he has been doing to my anus are unnatural but feel very right. Men have always been attracted to my behind and like touching it and fucking me from behind like a lion. He has gone a step further and has been doing the most perverted things to my behind. Every morning he inserts a small rubber rod inside me that stretches my sphincter open wide very pleasantly, he does it to all three of us his most recent wives. The knowledge that all the wives know that I have this flexible rod stretching me open at all times is scandalous on so many levels but every morning I report eagerly to my lord husband for insertion, every evening for removal.

I don’t even use the toilet throughout the day, none of us do. But thank the elders that he does that to each of us separately, I don’t think I could face them if they saw him do that to me and my reactions to it. We reach the end of the tree line and the vast grass hills of my homeland are before us as far as the eye can see. I never thought my homeland was beautiful until I took my first walk with my new husband, I found it strange to just walk aimlessly but he is the first white man I have ever met so any strangeness I initially attributed to that. But seeing things through his eyes as he described it intrigued me, and now I have a hard time not noticing anymore.

‘’So the other first wives also have magical laughs now?’’ I ask as the memory of the moment the world woke up around me lingers in my mind hauntingly.

‘’Not really, Kuyoki’s nails are turning black but that’s the only thing we’ve noticed about her. Shea is getting pigmentation into her skin and is surprising all of us by turning out not to be white.’’ Ingwe giggles at that as though it’s the funniest of jokes.

‘’Are these effects permanent?’’ I ask intrigued, I wonder if she will always laugh this way that could get distracting.

‘’I don’t know, the only children Sachi had after Awakening are Hannah and Nikita. We don’t know how the sidhe woman has been affected if at all, and its been many years and I’ve not stopped producing milk for the household since Niki was born. But that could just be because I haven’t stopped being milked since she was born. It’s funny actually, a few years back I was offered a fortune by the Civitas department to supply 5 litres a day but Shea wouldn’t have none of it.’’ She says wit a little fond smile.

I don’t really understand that woman, Shea, she looks at me hungrily like men usually do but she is also a woman, a sister wife even. ‘’You didn’t say what’s changed about Mira and Cicilia.’’ I say brining my thoughts back on the point of babies. Though to be honest the milk we drink here is the best thing I have ever put in my mouth, I doubt she’d be comfortable hearing that though.

‘’Cicilia hasn’t noticed anything yet but she is only 7 days along, and Mira isn’t having Sachi’s child.’’

There is a stab of worry in my chest as I imagine the big man Rigdris having a child with Mira who is married to another man. How has Sachi been so calm knowing his wife is carrying another man’s child. Strange enough to allow the affair under your own roof, now this? ‘’What did Sachi say when he found out?’’ I ask carefully.

Ingwe shrugs, ‘’he doesn’t seem to mind, he even seems happy about it. I don’t know what those two have said or done but they seem to be getting along well even with Sachi being the younger and probably weaker of two.’’

‘’Wait, Sachi is younger and weaker than Rigdris?’’ I ask in a whisper.

‘’What?’’ Ingwe turns to me in surprise. ‘’Mira isn’t pregnant by Rigs, Mira is pregnant by Shea.’’

‘’Oh.’’ I am so confused right now.

''But isn't Shea a woman?'' I whisper.