Ahmed had tried to kiss Souraya while he was dropping her off at her hotel, but she’d ducked away from him, her eyes cool and unreadable.
“Focus on your friend,” she’d said, right before closing the car door with a damning click.
Shame had heated up under Ahmed’s skin. Ever since the text message from Seun had interrupted them, Ahmed had felt insane, like incompatible worlds were happening around him at the same time again. In one of them, he was on a halfway date with Souraya, a beautiful ghost sitting in his passenger seat, saying ghost things, and telling ghost stories except for when she spoke to Ola and stitched hope into his chest. Kalu filled the second world, his tears and his rage and the threat on his life that felt too surreal to process. In the last world, there was the blue of Ruqaiyyah’s party and Seun’s body, then the text message Ahmed had received from him, a screenshot of a video of the two of them fucking at that party, Seun’s face out of frame, the play button an incriminating triangle stuck in the middle.
If you don’t want to see this all over the internet, better send me your address now now, let’s discuss.
It had taken every fragment of self-control that Ahmed could summon to not lose his temper immediately after he’d read that. He’d suddenly understood why Okinosho wanted to remove Kalu, eliminate him for having the audacity, the insolence, to overstep the lines that marked his place. In the grainy image, his hips were slotted neatly against Seun’s, his torso gleaming in the blue light, his face contorted into a snarl. There had been no fear in Ahmed when he saw the screenshot. There had only been a cold and instant rage. Who did this small boy think he was? Because Ahmed had allowed him to suck his dick, this boy thought he could come and play with fire?
Ahmed had pushed the rage aside, locking it into a neat compartment while he dropped off Souraya. It was only when he pulled out of the hotel compound that he allowed the rage to return; it curled through his veins with a heady heat, singing up his nerves and humming in the back of his skull. He texted Seun his address and nothing else—he knew he couldn’t feign the fear Seun was hoping for, the fear the actor wanted to harvest, reap it into some blackmail profit. The boy was moving too predictably. He probably thought Ahmed kept a stash of money at home, that he could get a pile of quick cash or something. Or maybe he just didn’t want to show the video in a public place, and he was going to ask for an account transfer. Perhaps a monthly transfer. Ahmed’s temper enjoyed going through all the possible scenarios Seun might attempt. Each of them felt like a fresh insult, even just their possibility, reasons to stoke the anger Ahmed was barely keeping a lid on.
Some of it was directed at himself. It had been so many years of ignoring those wants, of diverting them into other places—a roughness with women, for example, but only those who liked it. Sometimes he’d imagined that these women were someone else, that the cheek under his palm was textured with stubble, that he could reach around their hip and wrap his hand around a penis like he had that night when Kalu had panted next to him with such inviting desperation. How foolish was it, to have a desire from so long ago follow you in a haunting?
Ahmed wiped a hand over his face, dispelling the shame that threatened to enter. No, those wants hadn’t been that loud, that articulated. They had been fleeting—quick images that scattered into fog almost as soon as they formed. It was Kalu who had condensed them into something that wouldn’t leave Ahmed alone, something that had started in the office when they were touching. Desire had shown up and wriggled its way under Ahmed’s skin, an itch that he couldn’t flay off with Timi, a hunger that had sighed in relief when he’d fucked Seun in the whispering veils—to have another man’s body finally so close to his own, to be inside him, to hear him cry out. Ahmed had, inevitably, Kalu in his mind, pictured Kalu looking up at him with those I-just-want-to-please-you eyes, Kalu reaching back to hold on to his thighs, to pull him closer.
In short, it was Kalu’s fault that after how many years of dismissing those insignificant flares of want, Ahmed had finally given in and fucked a man. And not just that, but done it in the city, at a party, with some narcissistic child who now thought that he could come and look for Ahmed’s trouble. A muscle flexed in Ahmed’s jaw as he merged into a roundabout. He was still driving slowly, in no rush to reach his house, taking his time. If that meant that Seun would have to wait, then fine. If he arrived before Seun, also fine. No wahala. He didn’t have a plan of how to handle the situation; he was waiting to hear what Seun had to say first.
Clear visuals of breaking his smug face entered Ahmed’s mind. It would be so easy. The boy was a bloody idiot to want to come to Ahmed’s house, but when an insect invites itself into the spider’s web, who is going to argue with it? Certainly not the spider. Idly, Ahmed wondered how Seun’s blood would look arcing against the white of his walls if he smashed the idiot’s face with enough impact. It was like a film scene, thick red saliva spooling out in slow motion from Seun’s mouth as his head spun to the side, Ahmed’s fist continuing past his flesh with leftover momentum. It made Ahmed smile as he turned into his street.
Seun was outside his gate, leaning against a parked candy-red convertible with his arms folded. He was wearing ankara trousers and a linen singlet, his biceps gleaming—he was the type who probably moisturized with baby oil, Ahmed thought with a sneer. He ignored Seun as he opened his gate, driving past as if the boy was nothing (he was), parking his car inside the yard. Thursday wasn’t around, which was just as well. Ahmed didn’t have a plan, but none of this was something he wanted Thursday involved in. Just in case, he shot him a text.
Where are you?
The gate began to slide shut and Seun, realizing that he was about to get locked out, jumped up and hurried into the compound, his casual facade slipping. Ahmed’s phone buzzed with Thursday’s response.
In the lowland. Running an errand. Do you need anything?
Seun was standing awkwardly, unsure of whether to walk to Ahmed’s car or wait where he was. Ahmed smiled at his discomfort.
No, it’s fine. Ping me after. He slid his phone into his pocket and stepped out of the car.
Seun rearranged his body, dragging on some confidence and an irritating smirk. “Did you miss me, baby?” he said, grinning at Ahmed.
Ahmed glanced at him, then let his eyes drift off with indifference. He said nothing as he walked to his front door, unlocking it and leaving it open, not bothering to look behind to see if Seun was following. After a pause, he heard him walk into the house and close the door behind him.
“You’re being very rude,” Seun complained. “I think you should start behaving better toward me. After all, we both know why we’re here.”
Ahmed walked into his parlor. The anger was motionless, white-hot in his chest. He could almost feel Seun’s frustration and annoyance boiling in the air, but it was too easy to continue baiting him with silence. He tossed his keys on the table just as Seun grabbed his arm, pulling him around and shoving his phone in Ahmed’s face. It took a moment for Ahmed’s senses to catch up, for the grainy moving image on the screen to make sense, for the sounds he and Seun were making in the video to filter into his ears, grunts and flesh slapping eagerly against flesh.
“Are you paying attention now?” Seun asked, his voice slippery and triumphant. “Or are you going to continue pretending as if I’m not here?”
Ahmed stared at the video. It was strange, fascinating even, to see himself like this. He wondered where Seun had hidden the camera in that room. It had to be something he did often; no wonder he’d picked that room specifically. Ahmed watched himself pull out from Seun, watched him spin around and wrap his lips around Ahmed.
Seun leaned over to look at the screen as well. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll edit out that part before I put it online, of course.” He smiled at Ahmed. “We can’t have my face out there with this; it would ruin my brand.”
Ahmed looked at Seun and wondered how this game had worked out in the past. It was amazing that no one had made him disappear yet over nonsense like this.
“What do you want?” he asked, and Seun’s face lit up.
“Oho, now you know how to talk! I was wondering.” He took the phone away and put it in his pocket. “Let’s sit down and discuss our options.”
Ahmed took a step forward, deliberately invading Seun’s space. He stood a few inches taller than him and when Ahmed bent his head, his words fell into Seun’s face. “I don’t feel like sitting down,” he said, his voice slick. “What. Do. You. Want.”
Seun’s pupils dilated, a buried fear flickering up for a moment. Combined with the rage inside him, seeing that flicker started to make Ahmed hard—it was too perfect, the urge he had to punish this small boy, the way Seun was forming as if he was strong, as if he didn’t want to be broken into whimpering grateful pieces. Ahmed slid his hand up Seun’s chest, wrapping his fingers lightly around his throat, a frisson of delight coating his anger as he felt Seun swallow nervously, his gullet rippling. “Or is this why you wanted to come to my house? You wanted to look for my trouble, ehn?”
Seun’s eyes flitted from side to side. He looked confused, torn between whatever his original intention had been and this unexpected arousal.
“Is it that you wanted to make me angry?” Ahmed asked, tightening his grip by a fraction. “Because of how I left this morning? Did it hurt your feelings? Or you just wanted some more; I didn’t give you enough before I left?” He watched Seun’s lips part, as if by reflex, and lowered his voice so it thrummed in the tight air between them. “Is that why you came? To get some more?”
Seun reached up to grasp Ahmed’s wrist, his eyes widening as they met Ahmed’s. He didn’t try to pull his hand off and they stood like that, locked at two points, staring. Ahmed could see Seun’s bravado melting away, eroded by the force of Ahmed’s aura pushing out into the air, everywhere. Nothing could stand before it. Seun made a last effort, one defiant glare, a curled lip.
Ahmed smiled like a shark and tilted his head as if he was thinking, then stroked a thumb against Seun’s throat. He did it gently, with an easy tenderness, and it was too simple—the way Seun’s eyelashes fluttered involuntarily, the goose bumps that skittered across his skin. Seun broke their gaze and looked away, his body slacking imperceptibly, his hand releasing Ahmed’s wrist and falling instead on his chest, his fingertips grazing the cotton of Ahmed’s shirt. The surrender was a pleasure to watch. Ahmed growled approval deep in his throat and put his hand on Seun’s head, pushing him down. Seun sunk to his knees easily, his hunger obvious now as he reached for Ahmed’s zipper.
It was child’s play to break weak men, small boys like these who didn’t know what actual power was, who tried projections of it on for size but it never fit, as if they were drowning in their fathers’ clothes.
Ahmed hit him across the face and Seun moaned, his eyes watering as he looked up at Ahmed. “See your face,” Ahmed said, contempt curling out from under his lip. “This is where you belong, ba?” He hit him again on the other cheek. “Answer me!”
Seun moaned and nodded, his fingers digging desperately into Ahmed’s thighs.
“Stand up.”
Seun obeyed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Ahmed gestured to his sofa. “Arrange yourself”
Seun pulled off his trousers, his genitals swinging free. He made to lie on his stomach, but Ahmed grunted his disapproval and Seun looked back at him.
“Not like that. I want to see your face.”
