Seun was breathing fast, his movements quick, wanting to please. He took off his singlet and lay on his back, pulling his legs up and locking his elbows behind his knees. He looked up at Ahmed silently and Ahmed almost smiledāhe never liked hearing them talk, it was nice that Seun remembered. He didnāt bother taking off his clothes as they continued; he didnāt want his skin against Seunās. When Seun tried to pull him in for a kiss, Ahmed slammed his head back into the sofa. All the rage he was feeling, at how Seun had dared to try him, interrupting his time with Souraya, all his frustration over the situation with Kalu and Okinosho, he channeled it into Seunās body, lubricated by saliva, and to his surprise, Seun not only took it but enjoyed it. He came while stroking himself frantically, then smiled up at Ahmed as Ahmed kept going.
āDonāt think we donāt still have business to discuss,ā he gasped, his body jerking under Ahmedās thrusts.
Ahmed frowned and put a hand over Seunās mouth. Who told him he could talk?
Seun kept smiling with his eyes as if heād already won, as if none of this had anything to do with his inevitable victory.
āShut up,ā Ahmed said, quietly at first. He moved both hands to Seunās throat and started choking him. āShut up. Shut up. Shut up.ā
His grip had doubled, tripled in force, driving the smile right out of Seunās eyes, replacing it with alarm. Seun tried to talk but all that came out was a coughing grunt. He began to struggle, and Ahmed slipped out of him, pinning his lower body down with his legs, leaning heavier into his arms, putting his weight against Seunās throat.
āShut up,ā he kept saying calmly, a chant, a mantra. Everyone talked too much, said too much, like Kalu, like Machi, saying things he wasnāt in the mood to hear, not caring, just talking, talking, all the time talking. They didnāt learn. They wouldnāt just shut the fuck up and give him some peace, some fucking quiet. Ahmed leaned forward some more and looked up in concentration, trying to find a silent place in his head. Everyone was trying to box him into a corner, put him somewhere impossible. His client trying to kill his best friend. This idiot here scratching his arms after threatening to release the video. It was too much of a headacheāimagine if the video made it to those gossip sites, those clickbait Instagram accounts. It would go unbelievably viral. The amount of damage control he would have to do. He didnāt have time for that, not with this Okinosho shit happening, not with Souraya coming back into his life. There was so much going on.
He just needed some quiet so he could focus.
Saturday, 3:59 PM
The body had stopped moving.
Ahmed gradually loosened his hands from around its throat, sweat cooling on his forehead. A faint voice in his head noted how quickly you could go from being a person, a Seun, to a nothing, a body. He stood up from the sofa and tucked himself back into his trousers, zipping up. Seunāhe had to force himself to return to that name; this was, had been, a personāwas strewn over the sofa cushions, his eyes wide and glassed open, his mouth ajar. Ahmed looked down at his hands. The tremor had taken over completely; both hands were visibly trembling now. He tried to curl his fingers, control the shaking by forming fists, but it was useless; it did nothing. He glanced from his hands to Seunās discolored neck. How was it possible that they had been strong enough to do that? They were just hands, just palms and fingers and skin and bone. It wasnāt possible.
Ahmed shuddered in disbelief and grabbed Seunās shoulders. āWake up!ā he ordered. āItās not funny.ā
When had any of this been a joke?
He didnāt even remember deciding to do this. Seunās eyes had just been so loud, heād wanted the laughter in them to go away, but nowā¦now they were even louder. He shook Seun again, slapping his cheek lightly. The split insanity had returned. On one track, Seun had just passed out and would wake up soon. On the other, no one wants a dead person staring at them. Itās unholy. His skin was still warm. Ahmed looked around, then ran to the kitchen and slammed open the refrigerator door, his shaking hands skimming the contents until he found a bottle of water. He ran back to the parlor, untwisting the cap as he stumbled against the sofa, dropping to his knees and pouring the water over Seunās face. āOya, wake up now! Itās enough.ā
Youāre going mad, a small voice in his head observed. Youāve known he was dead from since.
āShut up!ā Ahmed yelled into the lonesome air. How was he now the only person in the house? It didnāt make sense. āCome on,ā he whispered. āWake up; do it for me.ā
He sat back on his heels and pressed Seunās hand to his forehead. The skin was warm. It was warm. He had to be alive. Ahmed fumbled his fingers till they were pressing against the inside of Seunās wrist, angry with himself for not doing that sooner, not doing that firstālooking for a pulse. His searching fingertips found nothing, so he pressed them to Seunās neck with an uncommon gentleness, and when that returned empty as well, Ahmed pressed his ear to Seunās naked chest, willing the heart to kick back in like a recalcitrant generator. He felt slow, like his thinking and reactions were warped into a delay. CPR? Chest compressions? Heād never been trained for any of that, only seen it on TV.
He layered his hands on top of each other and started pressing down on Seunās chest as hard as he could. āOne, two, three,ā he counted aloud, then paused before starting again. He had no idea if the count was correct. Was it ridiculous to look it up? Kneeling at an angle to keep his weight on one hand, he kept pressing on Seunās chest with that arm while pulling his phone out and trying to type with the other hand.
Stop lying to yourself, the small voice said. You havenāt even tried to get help. All this is to make you feel like you tried to do something.
His hand was trembling too much to hold the phone steady, let alone type. Ahmed let it tumble out of his fingers, the leather phone case bouncing off the carpet. Why was he pretending? He wasnāt actually trying to bring Seun back. He already knew Seun was gone, had been gone in one of those terrible blurred moments he was deliberately not remembering, as if the act of pushing the memory away was going to overwrite it, perhaps with a grayness or a piercing white or just the nothingness of a blackout. He had kept strangling him after he was gone, why? To make sure? To be careful?
None of this was an accident. Blurring the moment of a decision didnāt change the fact that heād made one and that the consequence of this was lying on his sofa with one leg dragging on the floor and limp genitals. Ahmed crossed his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits to try and stop them from shaking. He began to rock back and forth, staring at Seunās face, at Seunās dead face. What the fuck have I done? What am I going to do now?
He pushed himself back against the coffee table and drew his knees into his chest, and Ahmed began to cry.
eleven
Saturday, 1:16 PM
When Aima woke up, she was alone in Ijenduās room, only rumpled sheets marking where her friend had been sleeping next to her. Her head hurt and her eyes ached in their sockets. She rubbed them and rolled over, patting the nightstand clumsily as she looked for her phone. The bedsheets were tangled in her bare legs, the cloth smothering her skin. Aima kicked free and stretched her legs over the bed, sighing as the roomās air-conditioning cooled her off. She tapped her phoneās screen to check the time, and there was a text from Ijendu.
Hey sleeping beauty. I went to have lunch with Daddy O. See you when I get back.
Aimaās immediate reaction was relief. She hadnāt been sure how she was going to look at Ijendu after what they had done last night. It had been so hard to slide back into that same bed with her after sheād been crying in the bathroom, to position herself in such a way that none of her was touching any of Ijendu. Sheād prayed quietly and desperately, curled up at the edge of the bed, until she fell asleep.
Lying there now, Aima stared up at the ceiling and wondered what to do next. How to move on, how to redeem herself. Sheād hoped that the guilt wouldāve gone away by the time she woke up, that she wouldāve felt lighter, like God had forgiven her while she slept, but it was still there, a brooding weight on her chest. Aima looked down and realized she was still wearing Dikeās T-shirt. Revulsion crawled over her skin as she remembered how heād fed himself last night, spooning her into his eyes, breathing close to her. Aima sat up quickly and pulled the T-shirt off her body, balling it up in her hands and throwing it into a corner of the room. She pressed her hands to her eyes and took deep trembling breaths. She had invited it, how he looked at her, how heād propositioned her so blatantlyāsheād always thought he saw her as a sister; theyād grown up together after all. But when someone sees how you behaveāand she had acted like a slut last nightāwho can blame them for treating you as such? Aima fought back tears and climbed off the bed, padding naked across the bedroom floor to take a bubu out of Ijenduās closet, pulling it over her head, the cotton falling and draping over her body, covering her entirely.
She knelt at the side of the bed like she used to when she was a child doing her bedtime prayers, interlocking her fingers and propping her elbows on the mattress. She pressed her knuckles to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut.
āPlease, Father Lord,ā she whispered. āPlease forgive me for the wicked things I did last night. You know my heart, You know thatās not me, thatās not how I want to move in the world, against Your favor. I wasnāt in my right mind, I wasnāt sober, and I should have been. I should have kept my body pure, kept my mind clean, and I wouldnāt have fallen down that path. Iām so ashamed of myself, but please, please forgive me. I swear I wonāt ever do it again. I will stay in Your Light; I will live a life worthy of being Your child, worthy of Your Love. I want to find my way back to You, please show me, please help me, please, Father Lordā¦ā
Warm tears dripped off her hands onto the bedsheets. She kept praying and whispering, letting the words turn into a semiconscious stream pouring out of her mouth while her mind spun in multiple directions, looking for a sign, a clue that could lead her back to some form of righteousness. There had to be a point to what she had just gone through, what she had put herself through. This had to be rock bottom. It tasted like it, rich with despair and shame and hopelessness, like a cloak she was dragging over herself.
When sheād been doing all the things she did last night, it hadnāt felt wrong. It had felt wild and delicious and right, albeit with that small thread of Kalu-sadness running underneath. For a brief and blasphemous moment, Aima wondered why she was beating herself up so hardālike, what if it had been nothing more than what it was, a night of simple distracting pleasure? Did she actually feel guilty or was she performing it because that was the only world she knew, where these things werenāt allowed, where pleasure in those forms wasnāt allowed? She blinked with wet eyelashes and frowned, confused and suddenly reluctant to keep praying. She had a few lesbian friends, some of whom were Christian, and sheād reassured them several times that it was okay, that God still loved them, that God was, in fact, Love so their love couldnāt be wrong. So, what did she actually believe? Was it the words she said to them or the ones she was lashing herself with?
Aima sat back on her heels and chewed at the cuticle of her thumb. Was it that sheād slept with Ijendu or that sheād had casual sex at all in the first place? Or that sheād been drunk or high? Or that sheād done sexual things in front of other people? Where exactly was the guilt coming from; where exactly was the sin?
She was beginning to feel that a vague and generalized repentance wasnāt good enough, that there had to be specificity for any of this to count. Would sleeping with Ijendu have been different if she loved her? But it wasnāt as if she didnāt love Ijendu; of course she did. Everything felt muddled and mixed up, odd and guilty. Aima wanted to figure out how to leave it behind, how to just start over without having all these questions haunting her, wearing last nightās clothes and smelling like a hangover. She dropped her hands into her lap and stared at them. Her nails were shaped into peach ovals, decorated with small crystals. There used to be a time when sheād try different manicures, imagining each of them with the diamond ring she was sureāhad been sureāKalu would propose to her with. Aima had been following several engagement and wedding accounts on Instagram, trying to pick out which stone shapes she wanted, which style of ring. Sheād send her favorites to Kalu, but his responses were always careful, approving but never enthusiastic.
At the side of Ijenduās bed, Aima stretched out her left hand and imagined a ring on it one more time. Two rings. A platinum wedding band that nestled into the engagement ring. The image was clear, and with it, a sudden revelation swept across Aimaās mind. This thing, this hitting rock bottom, maybe it was meant to give her perspective, to show her that perhaps she was running away from the very thing she thought she was running to. Kalu loved her. Heād always loved her. They were always meant to get married; theyād both talked about it, agreed on it. The only reason he hadnāt proposed yet was because theyād gotten into those terrible fights, the ones where heād shouted that they should get married when they both wanted to, not because everyone else was deciding for them.
Heād been so hurt that she didnāt trust him, that sheād started treating him like an enemy who only wanted to take advantage of her. That loveāthe one she shared with himāthat was the true and clear thing. This confusion she was feeling, this other life sheād tried so hard to spiral into in just one night, it was all optional; it was all just a choice. There was a fork in the road, and sheād tried to leave the path that ended in Kalu. Sheād tried to go down the other one, and this result, this harsh guilt, had sprung up to block, to show her the correct way to go, to save her. Kalu still loved her. All she had to do was find him, and she could return to the road sheād been on, one that ended clearly, with her and Kalu taking their vows in Godās presence. What better way to ensure that she stayed in Godās Light? Matrimony was holy; everyone knew that. Aima could see now that sheād been wrong to listen to other peopleāher relationship with Kalu should have been just between the two of them and God. That was it; she could tell Kalu that when she talked to him.
Aima exhaled with a small smile, but it faded at the thought of talking to Kalu. Would he even want to see her? Her relief at the decision sheād made was eaten up by anxiety moving in a greedy path through her, whispering that there was no way she could hope to just waltz back into Kaluās life as if she hadnāt broken his heart and expect him to take her back. And if he didnāt take her back, then where would that leave her? She couldnāt stay with Ijendu forever, especially after last night. Aima stood up and dusted the front of her bubu, dragging resolve from deep inside her. She wasnāt going to continue in this direction, not when she knew that there was peace and love and clarity down the road with Kalu. She had to know whether heād want her back, find out what he was thinking, if heād be open to that or if he was angry and needed some time to cool off.
The bedroom door opened and Aima turned, startled. Ijendu entered the room, tossing her glasses and purse on the bed, a cloud of perfume wafting in with her.
āBebi gehl!ā she said. āYouāre awake!ā She talked as if nothing had happened, as if everything was exactly the same. Aima seized on it gratefully. She wanted nothing more than to start over, reset her life, and erase the last several hours.
āYou woke up early,ā Aima replied.
