Chapter 35

"Papa, his parents are not available to consult, so it is between us and Winston, and he will be making us not poor any more. Do you agree to such a marriage?"

"He is a very nice boy. He would be good to have as a son in law, but where does he find all the yams or the Naira for the bride price?"

"Papa, be sensible. Bride price in yams and Naira is all very well back home, but here, it makes no sense. Winston has already given us part of his farm, and that is much more valuable than a hundred large yams, or a pile of almost worthless Naira currency. Is that not so?"

"Woman, you are so sensible at times that it hurts! You are right: we have already received a bride price, so honour is served and the marriage would be legal in Nigeria, except that the Nigerian government has made monogamy the legal standard. I don't know about here, but I suspect that bride price does not enter into the equation at all, and monogamy is not mandatory in this colony. Are our girls willing to go along with this arranged marriage? I do not wish to cause them any trouble, Mama. Our twin daughters are a blessing."

Adeola put a silencing hand on her sister's arm, and announced, "Papa, we are willing to put up with marrying Winston, for the good of our family. This is a tradition that we are happy to abide by; is that not so, Adeola?"

"It is, sister. We will gracefully accept being the brides of Winston. It is our parents' will." She could hardly hide her glee at their apparent subservient acceptance of this "imposition" on them.

"Very well," said their father. "If you are happy about it, Mama, and the girls have accepted it, we will agree to this transaction. Do you accept the transaction, Winston? Taking a woman in marriage is a responsibility; taking two is dangerous; taking twins is a risk to any man, for they have to be looked after very carefully. I hope you will agree. We have done our best to be protective of our girls, and we will do our best to assist you in caring for them; they can be a handful at times."

"Papa Odumosu, I accept your twin daughters in a marriage transaction. I promise you that I will be kind to them, treat them equally, and honour them as my wives. I will do my best to love them, and bring you grandchildren in time. Thank you both for producing such a beautiful pair of girls. It will have the added bonus of making my best friend into my brother in law."

He turned from the beaming parents, to face Adeola and Eniola, "Girls, to seal this contract, we are going to kiss for the first time. Please allow me to start, and you may respond as you see fit."

He came up to the first sister, put his arms round her, pulled her to him so that her breasts were crushed against his chest, and kissed her on the lips; gently at first. She froze, then returned the kiss similarly. At that point Winston made the kiss harder, more insistent, and his partner got the message and returned it in the same fashion. As they broke away, she gasped, "Wow!" and looked at her sister. "You'll enjoy this, sis."

She did. Being Eniola, she added to her "Wow!", saying, "We could have fun with this kissing, but it needs practice, to get it right, I think," she ended.

This caused Winston, Olu and her parents to burst into laughter. The deal was made; it was only a matter of timing for a wedding.

As far as the girls and Winston were concerned, every opportunity was taken to learn the art of kissing. The girls were delighted with kissing on the lips and mouth. It took them time to get into the idea of tongues being involved in a kiss. When he demonstrated that he could kiss them elsewhere, starting on the neck and working downwards, that was a revelation to these sheltered teenagers. Being kissed on the exposed breasts was heavenly, and nipples being kissed and then sucked was divine bliss to these young ladies who had been sheltered from the ministrations of teenage boys.

When the girls compared notes, they found that between the legs they each had exciting feelings, and wanted to rub their fingers up and down and around at particular spots. They ventured to suggest to Winston that he might do the rubbing for them, in private, he was more than willing. He followed their demands to rub on special spots, and caused each to orgasm at the stimulation of the clitoris. She sighed with pleasure as the sensation slowly ebbed away again. She wanted a repeat, but he said softly, "Later, my dear. Not too much at the beginning."

He waited for her orgasm to fully subside before gradually extended the rubbing to slipping a finger into the girl's vagina. She was already ecstatic from her clit stimulation, so this was now merely the icing on the cake. "This is lovely, darling."

Winston whispered, "Later, this will be my penis entering you, my girl. We will leave it at this for now. I have to do the same to your sister."

"All right. I understand. We must share: I can't have you all the time."

"Not only that, my pet. The farm needs to be worked on. We can't leave Olu and your Papa to do all the work, can we?"

"No, of course not. But you are the landowner, Winston."

"No, my love. Allow me to correct you. We, that is, me and your family, jointly own the land. We are ALL the landowners here."

"I apologise, my husband. You are correct."

"And I am not your husband, yet. You haven't even got an engagement ring."

"Oh. I, we, were wondering about that. Instead of an engagement ring, could we have a necklace which showed that we are your women? It would make it more obvious than a little finger ring."

Winston thought about this idea, and liked it. "Clever thinking, my girl. I shall think further on that, and then visit a jeweller in the city – if they have such a person here – to get them made. We need to get that done soon, for we can't afford to hire our transport indefinitely."

He had another thought. "Oh, as soon as we get the necklaces, I shall have to prostrate myself before your parents and ask their blessing on our engagement. With my family not being on this planet, you girls won't have to kneel before my parents."

The Governor was enjoying himself this morning. There were no pressing duties, and nothing urgent in the routines of the office, so he had granted himself a day off at home. Having phoned the office to make this arrangement, he was dismayed to discover that his wives would not be joining him, in the main. Diane was getting Peter to drive her to the maternity hospital for a check-up on her advanced pregnancy, Mary had a business meeting to attend with her colleague Pam, and Ruth told him she had a problem to sort out with the Education department. "I have been informed that we do not cater well for the children in very rural locations. As you might expect, there are few decent roads, and many of the rural farming families have only tractors for transport. It is extremely inconvenient for a farmer to devote his tractor to transport duties to a school many kilometres away, and do it twice a day. Tractors are not intended for that purpose, and most of them are mini-tractors, quite unsuited to such extended trips. They are designed for farm use, which involves much stopping and starting.

This all acts to prevent many young children from getting to school on a regular basis, and their education suffers. We have to look at possibly hiring peripatetic teachers to visit them on a rota, possibly once a week, and leaving the family with a load of work for the children to do on the other days.

This is an important question to be answered, Bob, so I have to attend the meeting and give my input. Sorry, my love."

Believing that he at least had Helen to relax with, he was shocked when she said, "Sorry, love, but I have to take my turn at the Nursery School, on Mum duty, to help with any problems with the children that require a Mum to deal with it. The Nursery teachers are too busy to deal with it all by themselves."

"But what about Hector? Are you taking him with you?" Bob wanted to know.

"He is old enough now that he doesn't need me all the time, and he doesn't need to be breast fed so much. Cleo is on duty to look after the younger children, and I said she could call on Judith if she needed help, but you are going to be here, so if there are several nappies needing changed at the one time, you will do your bit as their Daddy, won't you, darling?"