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Author: Durehland Prompt: Romance Title: ONE WEEK, TOO LONG
The quack doctors on Google said it was diabetes. Onome believed them. The fact that she had to wake up to pee, a million times a night, was a cross she was learning to bear. Not because she didn't mind the disruption from her sleep, but because she was too scared to imagine sitting across from an actual doctor and confirming that she did, indeed, have diabetes.
And so, while she took desperate sips of water before she went to bed, she did so with the knowledge that when she turned around to get up, Ayo would hear her in the middle of the night and grumble.
"Go to the doctor," Ayo always said. "Don't be silly," before turning back to sleep.
Onome's rock. Onome's lover. Ayo was the best thing that happened to Onome in the last eleven months. They'd only just moved in together, two months prior and Onome was loving her life as a pampered, kept woman.
When she woke up that night, her bladder bursting a the seams to relieve itself. She turned to the side, expecting Ayo to awaken. Instead, all she got was the solitary whoosh whoosh whoosh of the ceiling fan, making its rounds to ventilate the room. In the darkness, she reached around the bed for Ayo but found no one. Not worried, she shuffled around and headed to the bathroom, without turning on the lights. She knew the house like the back of her hand. She eased herself, wiped, washed her hands, and was on her way back to bed when she heard it.
A long, drawn out, guttural moan so deep, so low, so full of lust, that Onome was certain she'd imagined it for a second. Blinking in the dark, she turned in the direction of the sound. It was coming from outside the room. Joining the sound of the fan, was the repetitive sound of a creaking bed, slowly rocking in the silent night, interspersed with varied moans of soft, quiet ecstasy.
The sleep in Onome's eyes cleared as she crept to the room door. It wasn't completely closed, but there was just enough space for someone to slip through. She was about to pass when the moaning and the creaking bed stopped. With the fan still turning, everywhere in the house felt so eerily quiet that Onome felt like a child who ought not to be out of bed.
Curiosity weighed on her as she wondered where Ayo had gone. She wanted to go out there and check, but Onome's feet were stuck to the ground at what she might find. As her heart pounded in her chest, she clenched the hem of her nightgown, bidding herself the strength to move. But she couldn't. If what she thought was happening, was actually happening, then...
She couldn't bring herself to admit it. Or verify it.
When she heard the door to the visitor's room open down the hall, Onome regained movement in her legs as she sprinted to her bed and got in, pulling her wrapper over her head to hide. As if the room wasn't already a dark, hiding place.
***
The next morning, Onome prepared Ayo's breakfast in silence. She'd managed to avoid the love of her life, so she wouldn't have to confront what she feared the most.
