I was quiet for a few seconds. Then, I shook my head slowly. “No, he didn’t, I had sex once before he raped me,” I told him.
The man obviously didn’t know what to make of the situation. He just shook his head, looked at me disapprovingly and said, “Anyway, the results of your test shows that you’re already five weeks pregnant!”
Everything stood still. I couldn’t hear a pin drop. There was pin-drop silence. The only thing I could hear in the room was my heart beating hard, slamming hard against my chest. At some point, I feared my heart was going to jump right out of my chest as palpable fear gripped me. I took another long look at the doctor to be sure he was playing games with me. It didn’t seem so. There was a deadpan expression on his face that told he was as serious as a soldier getting set to prepare for the battlefront. I had gotten to my own battlefront, only problem is that there was no enemy for me to contend with, I was my own enemy…
“Sir, I don’t….I don’t understand you.. I’m not sure I heard you well,” I began to stutter. My entire body was quivering, it was like my whole system was on fire.
“You don’t understand?” the man repeated. “What is it you don’t understand again? I just told you you’re pregnant, six weeks, and you say you don’t understand.”
“Doctor…doctor,” I rose to my feet as the reality of the trouble I’d gotten myself into gradually dawned me. “Please, sir, you have to help me, my father will kill me! Please, help me,” I began to sob uncontrollably.
The man seemed unmoved. He looked like a man who had seen hundreds of girls like me in that situation and really couldn’t be bothered because he believes they knew exactly what they were getting themselves into when they spread their legs wide open for whoever got them pregnant.
“Help you? But how?” the doctor threw back at me. “How do you think I can help you in this kind of situation? Did you not realize what you were getting yourself into when you were having sex?”
“I was raped, doctor, I swear to you, I was raped. Please, believe me….” I begged him. Still the man was unmoved.
“Listen, young lady, I have a lot of work to do, a lot of patients to attend to, so, if you don’t mind, please, go home, confess to your parents what happened and I believe they will decide the way forward for you.”
Like a zombie, I rose to my feet, and started shambling to the door. I was just about to open the door when I heard the doctor call me: “Young lady, come back here, let me see maybe I can find a solution for you!”
I stopped in my tracks. Gently, I closed the door and turned to him, the tears still coursing down my face. I had no idea what he had in mind, but I hoped and prayed it was something that would hide this shame that was hanging over my head.
“Yes, doctor, I am listening to you, sir, how can you help me?” I asked him, my voice barely steady.
“Sit down first,” he offered, sounding a little friendlier now than he did earlier.
“I am okay this way, sir, please, go on, I’m listening to you,” I said to him. Sitting down was the last thing on my mind.
“But I insist you sit down and listen to what I have to say to you, young lady, “he’d said gently. And I obeyed reluctantly. I sat down facing him.
“How badly do you want to get rid of the pregnancy you’re carrying right now?” he asked me, his eyes roving all over my face.
“As soon as possible, doctor, please help me, I will look for money and pay you for your help, I promise” I assured him.
The man’s face broke into a smile. “Money? Are you sure you can pay me for whatever service I decide to offer you at this time? You are only a young girl, can you really afford me?”
I kept quiet. He was right. I couldn’t afford his services really. So, how would I be able to pay him, I’d wondered?
“Of course, you can’t, “he’d continued when he found I wasn’t ready to give an answer to his question. “Now, here’s the deal, young lady. I will flush that pregnancy out of your womb, and you won’t pay me a dime!”
On hearing that, I sprang to my feet in excitement. “Oh, thank you, doctor, I am so grateful. God bless you, doctor, thank you….”
“Hold on a minute,” the doctor stopped me. “Don’t thank me yet, there’s still one more thing..”
“One more thing? And what’s that?” I asked promptly, eager to get the entire incident out of the way.
“I also want a share of the national cake,” the man said to me, with a stupid smile on his stupid face. Truth is, I didn’t understand a word of what he’d said. What national cake is he talking about?
“Sir, what exactly are you talking about? What do you mean by national cake? I’m lost here, please..” I explained to him.
Then, he dropped the bombshell: “Okay, let me make it simpler for you. If you want me to evacuate your pregnancy for free, then you will let me sleep with you!”
