OPINION: It's Wrong To Sleep With Housemaid But The Man Of The House Could Be A Victim, By Anayo Nwosu

As written by Anayo Nwosu

I pray that the virtuous women and pius people who would read this article will not curse or judge me harshly.

It all started about the fourth year into my marriage, the very year my wife was pregnant with our second child, that Utonwa, a teenager from Awka, Anambra state was brought to our Lagos home as a housemaid.

The arrangement was that while she would be helping my wife with household chores, we would after a probation period of one year, get her a place to learn a trade or enroll her into a part-time educational programme.

But Utonwa came prepared and I could read her inner motives using my number six.

Right on the of her arrival, my wife screened Utonwa's clothing and seized all body revealing or skimpy clothes while buying her those dresses that would cover all her temptation inducing endowments.

Utonwa also received specific codes of conduct from my wife as regards the no-go areas.

She was banned from entering our master's bedroom for whatever reason or to service my food unless madam was not at home.

The housemaid was a beautiful pleasant girl who treated our first born very nicely. She stuck to the instructions as decreed by my wife and never went beyond her boundaries to the elevation and rating approval of my wife.

But that was to last for about six months.

I was soon to notice the measured but dragged tone of Utonwa's voice anytime she greeted me especially when my wife was not around.

I also noticed the relish with which she served my food those days my wife traveled or went for career training.

My house was a three-bedroom rented apartment in which the only toilet and bathroom were combined into one small room. Anyone so pressed to use a convenience wait until the person bathing finished.

"Imechana!" meaning "Are you done!" was a normal question in my house

The fact that the door of the toilet/bathroom recently spoiled and the bad behavior of spreading the towel on the bathroom/toilet door while bathing prolonged my inertia to fixing the spoiled lock on the door.

The easy-to-open door provided an opportunity for Utonwa to speak to me in parables.  She chose one Saturday morning when her madam was out for training and was not expected home until after 6pm.

Utonwa opened the toilet/bathroom door feigning ignorance that I was inside even though that she had discharged hot water into my bathing bucket some minutes earlier.

I had barely washed off the soap in my eyes when I heard the door flung opened.

"Who is that?" I managed blurt out.

"Brother, I am sorry. I didn't know that you were still in the bathroom. I wanted to use the toilet. I'm am having a running stomach!" was all I could hear her say.

I recall that Utonwa artfully pulled off her wrapper as someone actually suffering from diarrhea would upon getting closer a water cistern to ventilate a bottled stomach pressure.

What startled me was that instead of beating a quick retreat, she stood inside the bathroom looking at my adamic state and while begging "Brother, please don't tell aunty. Please forgive me".

Utonwa was still to tie back her wrapper as she kept begging for forgiveness.

I was now receiving naked plea from my housemaid while I naked. Was she trying to entice me with her full, rounded and succulent mammalian glands?" I wondered.

"I will soon finish" was all I could say to her as hurried up to clean my body while assuming that she indeed had a stomach upset. I reckoned with the fact that such diarrhea could make someone behave abnormally.

After a deep introspective consideration, I decided not to mention the incident to my and to truly forgive Utonwa's indiscretion.

But temptress was not done yet.

The second temptation happened. This time Utonwa threw caution to the wind.

I was in the living watching television when  Utunwa rushed out of the bathroom stark  naked to the palour. She came straight towards my direction crying. She said that she had noticed a lump on her breasts while she was bathing and would want me to touch it and reconfirm.

"Where did this girl get her boldness to tempt a whole me?" I wondered.

With clothes off, Utonwa validated her name which means "the sweetness of a child".

All I could see were as fresh as they could ever be even as they looked untampered with.

I could see in seconds that which had been locked up in those factory workers' dresses my wife had bought to conceal the beautiful work of God in Utonwa.

I had muster courage to invoke the God of Joseph to deliver me from this daughter of the wife of Potiphar.

I ignored Mr. Nwosu who this time had stood erect waiting for my head to give him go ahead order to proceed.

I was pleased to hear myself command the 19 year girl as would an exorcist man of God, to go dress up so that I would take her to hospital.

The young girl emerged from her room well clad only to claim that she could not feeling the supposedly painful lump again.

It was getting out of hand I was very sure that I might survive the next onslaught. That very evening, I had to narrate to my terrified wife what happened in the day and all that had  transpired in the past.

Trust my wife, the girl left our house the very next morning and she has never engaged any young lady as a housemaid ever since.

It is now either an old woman housemaid or none.

Sometimes I imagine how Abraham, the father of faith and his grandson Jacob felt when they were offered their housemaids to enjoy in lovemaking.

Considering that the male organ is not like a finger that needs no inflation to enter a hole, the mere thought that these men of God had to do some mental exercises for their organs to rise to occasion was a puzzle to a man of little faith like me.

I also wondered why Nnanyi Abraham didn't object to her wife's gift of the housemaid to sleep with. Could it be possible that our father of faith enjoyed that intercourse that led to the birth of Ishmael?

Jacob also known as Israel had a good fortune of being bombarded by his two wives with their maids for him to enjoy.

Bible didn't record any refusal or any unwillingness by our great ancestors to sleep with those maids.

I can imagine that Abraham and Jacob must have slept with those maid for so many times until pregnancies were achieved.

Even in the traditional Nnewi society, housemaids who did so well were promoted by the man of the house to position of a junior wife or Mama Obele.

My father's only brother had to upgrade a wonderful housemaid to wife. She bore him nine beautiful children.

The civilization in our today's world has closed the gender gaps between husband and wife and has changed a lot of things.

One of the side effects of the new world order is the installation of glass ceiling by modern wives on the career progression of well behaved housemaids.

While we all claim the blessings of Abraham and still address God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our wives have condoned off the other blessings accruable through their housemaids as in the days of Sarah, Leah and Rachel.