Bichara's Heart: Chapter 9

“Quoi?”

Her eyes widen as his gaze hardened and he leaned closer and closer to her. When he kissed her again, she hadn’t expected it. It was like an assault, and yet she felt tingles from the tip of her lips all the way down her spine. Why was he so touchy today? Could his seeing her and John together have affected him so much? Why?

He kissed her deeply, rapturously, but Bichara was desperate to know what was on his mind. She tried to pull away, to move away from him long enough to protest. His lips, sensing her resistance, moved from hers down her body. His hands were around her face at first, then her neck, then his right hand moved down her shoulder and over her chest, her stomach, around her back, down, and then back up her thighs. She felt heat everywhere his fingers touched, searing heat. She sighed, trying to release some tension.

He paused for a second to gaze at her, his eyes seeming to beg her. She noticed he was breathing heavily. He took her lips again, and his hands were around her, pulling at her gown. After a few minutes, she felt cold air on her body as the beautiful dress gave way with a loud sound that wasn’t from the zipper. He must have torn the poor thing off. He pulled the fabric down her body, not letting go of her mouth for a second. She heard herself moan softly, giving in to the building pressure.

Bichara gasped as he pulled away from her and shoved his hands under her back and thighs, lifting her up. He matched to their bed area unaffected by her weight and dropped her on the large bed. Standing over her, he pulled off his own clothes, staring hungrily at her. Her own breathing had sped up as she lay riveted to the bed, meeting her husband’s gaze head-on.

She had no thoughts as he got frustrated with his shirt buttons, yanking the shirt apart and sending plastic buttons in many different directions, sounding like discordant piano keys as they hit the marble floor. He unbelted, unbuttoned, and unzipped his pants, and Bichara felt herself start to panic. He was so frantic she feared what he would do to her as she lay there in black silk and lace lingerie. She lifted her hand over her pregnant belly and his eyes followed the movement closely. He shoved down his trousers with his briefs and she watched him spring free, fully aroused. She bit her lower lip as she admired him, heat rising up her face. She whispered his name. He seemed to hear her because he swiftly clambered onto the bed, over her body, and bent to her ear, biting it, whispering slurred words in his mother tongue…

...Taska ta

Ina son ku…

kai nawa ne...nawa ...

Mala'ika...

zuciya…

ka mallaki zuciyata... ina son ka...

He sounded ready to weep like he was struggling to hold his tears in, and her heart broke for him. Why did he make loving him so hard? He smelled like the floor of a liquor store, and she felt herself get drugged by the scent, slowly, surely. He covered her lips with his again.

Her eyes flung open the next morning, and she wasn’t surprised to see the sun high in the sky, resembling the midday sun, a consequence of how late she had slept last night, morning. She was surprised though, that the blinds were not drawn. Of course, they had forgotten to do that last night. She turned to the table clock that was always on her side table, but it wasn’t there.

“You hit it off the table… It’s broken.” She flung her head in the direction of the voice so fast her neck hurt a little. She was startled to hear it

“Good morning,” she greeted, feeling excessively shy. Her face and neck heat increased remembering last night’s happenings. Her body ached too, but she wasn’t entirely complaining.

Rahman returned her greeting with a curt nod. He was sitting in an armchair facing the bed, in a large woolen dressing robe, his right fist wrapped in a white bandage. There was a small stool in front of him with a glass of water, another empty cup, and a jar of what looked like aspirin, on top of it.

“You were drunk last night,” she mused aloud, her gaze rising to his face again. He smiled, but it appeared more like a grimace, and he rested back into the winged back of the chair. “Do you want to talk about last night?” She felt like they needed to. She needed to know what he was thinking.

“I think we said enough, masoyiyata.” He chuckled.

“We said NOTHING!”

“Isn’t that all we needed to say?” She felt defeated by his question. How could he think they didn’t need to talk about...about his…reaction when they were becoming strangers living together? Her eyes burned with the coming tears and she let out a deep hot breath.

“We didn’t talk at all…we don’t talk at all,” she said in a shaky whisper, struggling to keep her emotions in check, battling with her helplessness, but her husband was completely calm, unaffected, unmoved. He watched her from beneath lush black lashes. “Why are you doing this?” She breathed, closing her eyes against the falling tears.

“Doing what?” He asked simply, and she wondered if he was the same man who called her his treasure, his heart, his love, last night. She opened her eyes to look at him again, and he looked as though he was waiting for her answer. She glanced at her fingers beneath the sheets. He stood up suddenly, and for a moment, she was scared he was coming to her, but he entered the bathroom, shutting the door gently behind him.

Was she losing her mind? The tears came full force now. So much for marrying the love of her life.

Rahman came out of the bathroom a long time later, fully dressed in a pair of snug dark jeans and a loose t-shirt, holding his wounded hand up fragilely. She had laid back on the bed, thinking seriously about what her life was becoming. He didn’t look in her direction as he left the room, and she jumped out of bed after the fact. She was tired of feeling sorry for herself, she mused as she headed to the bathroom still steamed out from his use. The light haze smelled like him–his strong woody scent and that vanilla soap and shampoo he always used. She had a quick warm shower, ran her brush over her teeth a few times, and was done. She needed to get out of the house. She moved to her room closet and wasted no time in picking out a casual jalabiya and pashmina.

After a lone breakfast, which she ordered up to her room, she managed to evade Isha – no easy task – on her way out of the house. The sharp-eyed secretary believed she was still sleeping, exhausted from yesterday’s trip, as Bichara had told the maid who cleared her breakfast table. She could evade her secretary with much stealth, but she could never evade their doorman, especially if she wanted to leave the house. She could never evade the security guards either. She needed a plan.

“Madam.” She smiled up at the doorman now, as she walked toward the door.

She feigned a flippant expression she hoped was effective. “Where Oga?”

“Ehn. He went outside, to the ranch. Are you going out?” He replied to her offhand question, and she thought quickly about how to get out of the house without Rahman’s knowledge…at least until she got to where she wanted to go.

“Yes. Call Danta. I want to go to town… Wait till he ask before you tell my husband…” She looked straight at the man, as sternly as she could manage, knowing he had been instructed to inform his boss on all comings and goings in the house as soon as they happen. “Yana da mahimmanci cewa bai san inda zan tafi ba. Ina da mamaki da aka shirya masa…” She smiled what she hoped was a mischievous smile. She needed him to believe she wasn’t purposely trying to evade her husband. “I will take security. Tell him,” she muttered as she waited for him to call the drivers’ lodge from his mobile intercom. He hesitated a little before lifting the phone to his ear, still assessing her face closely. She tried not to falter. Honestly, she was like a prisoner here. Was it really necessary for her to go through all this to leave the house without her husband’s knowledge?

Danta came through the domineering front door soon after, and she walked straight toward him with her small purse in the crook of her arm. Danta was the driver she trusted the most, singularly because he was smart enough to be discreet for her and still not get himself in trouble with his boss, making him the best person to take her to John’s house. She squeezed the small paper that held his address tighter in her right hand, waiting till she left the doorman’s earshot before telling Danta her plan.

Please, what is Rahman's problem?!

Also, what is Bichara doing? How do you think Rahman will react to his wife's disappearance, brief or not? Is Bichara being reckless, or is she just trying to hold on to her independence as much as she can? And doesn't she have every right to? Tell us your thoughts down below!

See what happens next, next Saturday.

Bichara's Heart: Chapter 8

She was frightened. He was obviously upset. Was he going to fly them in this condition? He had personally flown the both of them from Rima, in his helicopter. She knew she wasn’t going anywhere with him like this, least of all a helicopter. She was prepared to scream.

He stopped abruptly when they reached the side portico of the classic Northern house and turned to face her. He grabbed her face from the back of her head, pulling her close to him, and she shivered when she smelled his heavily liquored breath. Then, he kissed her without restraint. She struggled beneath him, but she had nowhere to go, he was all around her, all over her. He backed her up against a wall, and his right hand moved slowly from her head down to her neck, placing his fingers around it, grasping, squeezing softly, her necklace straining beneath his palm, making her feel more trapped, she could barely breathe.

He didn’t relent on the kiss that seemed more punishing than loving, as he forced his way into her mouth, ravishing her lips, her tongue. His second hand trailed down her back, over her spine, past her waist to her bottom. He kneaded her through the white silk of her gown as his lips left hers and trailed down her face, biting her chin softly, slurping her neck…she was becoming increasingly worried that someone would see them as she found her arms around him grasping onto his torso through his tailored kaftan. His mouth trailed down to just over her chest…

“Rahman…” She tried to get his attention, he was clearly not himself. “Rahm…”

He jerked up suddenly and took her mouth again, effectively shutting her up, pulling her lower body to his and holding it there, tilting over her swollen belly. Her lips were beginning to feel sore from this new ardent kiss, and she was beginning to feel a different kind of emotion, a different kind of reaction. She chided her body for being so weak. Then he moved his head back from hers a centimeter.

“Kai nawa ne!” He asserted, looking straight into Bichara’s eyes. She was convinced the man she was looking at wasn’t her husband. He was someone else. Some dark stranger. She bit her lower lip, shaken by her feelings. “Fahimta?!” He pressed, tightening his hand around her neck just a little more. She nodded her head quickly and he moved away from her, stepping back so suddenly, she almost fell. She quickly put her scarf back in order.

He shoved his two hands into his thick dark hair, then punched a pillar behind him with such force, he left a gaping hole, and Bichara was sure she saw it shake. He was ranting in swift, possibly meaningless Hausa. She was even surprised he could string words together, considering how drunk he probably was. How was his hand not hurt after that assault on hard concrete? Her heart beat hard.

“Bichara.” Two men approached them, and she found she couldn’t see clearly. She was faint, her vision blurry, but she recognized the voice that called her. She blinked until she could see clearly. Rahman’s brother reached their side, with Garba, Rahman’s assistant. She wasn’t aware he followed them to Minanata, but she wasn’t surprised to see him either. Somehow, Garba was always just close by.

“Oga,” Garba bowed slightly to his boss who laughed, walking straight toward him.

“Garba.” He patted the older man’s face with both hands, and Garba looked slightly embarrassed, not knowing exactly how to react. Rahman fell forward suddenly. Garba struggled to hold him up, Hassan jumping to assist.

Bichara remembered John and hoped he wasn’t too stunned by her husband’s behavior.

“Bichara, how did you come?” She stared at them, Hassan and Garba holding her husband up by his arms. He was struggling out of their grip, making it extra hard for them to support him, all the while cursing them in his mother tongue. She wondered why neither of them was surprised he was that way. They were already thinking of how to ship him away, most likely to keep any of the high-profile guests from seeing him like that. She sighed.

“Um. Helicopter…in Nana bakyad,” she said. She barely had enough energy to stand on her two feet, how would she walk the distance to where the vehicle was parked.

“Garba, where’s your car?” Hassan said, both men breathing heavier from Rahman’s weight and tussles. “Let’s get him in there. Bichara, wait here. I’ll come back to drive you to the field. I am sure you’re exhausted.”

She nodded, letting out a heavy breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. She was so grateful for Hassan’s presence. She had no idea how she would have handled him alone. She watched them drag Rahman, who thankfully for them, was calming down a bit, then she walked back into the house, and sat by the foyer. She thought briefly about going in search of John, but the thought of seeing him after everything that had just happened embarrassed her. And frankly, she did not want to go back in there. She wanted to find a corner somewhere and weep for a long time. Rahman’s behavior just now baffled her. Everything about him baffled her.

He slept, but Saoirse couldn’t sleep a wink, through the short trip back to Rima. As the craft landed over their landing strip, he stirred. She watched him closely. He looked panicked at first, then he calmed noticeably as soon as his eyes met hers, those dark eyes made darker by the darkness surrounding them…physically, emotionally. She wasn’t sure how to react to his intense stare. Had he sobered up already? She did not know anything about drinking or being drunk.

Garba jumped down from the cockpit and swiftly moved to open their door for them. She climbed down, walking straight toward the band of staff awaiting them on the tarmac. Isha held out a large coat for her and she pulled it on. “Trop merci.”

The night was a very breezy one, worsened by the helicopter’s rapidly spinning propellers. She couldn’t wait to get inside and soak in a hot bath. She walked ahead of Isha, toward the house, not looking back. At that moment, she wanted to get as far away from him as possible. She felt Isha follow close behind her. The remaining staff could probably sense something was amiss.

“Do you want foot rub, Madam?” Isha offered as they walked past the entrance into their bedroom suite. Bichara made a beeline for the biggest sofa; she was exhausted.

“Oui, Merci,” she murmured as she crashed on the poor furniture, immediately lifting her legs up. This part of being wealthy, she didn’t feel bad about, having personal staff available just for her comfort.

The door flew open just as Isha took her coat. Rahman stalked in without a word and came to a standstill a distance away from them by the large wall cabinet next to the door. She thought she could ignore him and he would go about his way, but he didn’t move for a long time and she was forced to lift her eyes to him, to find out why he was just standing there. She found him staring straight at her and she was transfixed.

“Leave it. Go.” His terse instructions were directed at Isha. She dropped the coat on the coffee table and scurried out of the room without comment. Bichara felt betrayed. What if she was in danger from Rahman, her loyal aide would leave her high and dry, of course. He who pays the piper. And it was clear who was paying the piper in this particular story.

She returned her gaze to him to find that he hadn’t shifted his from her. The door shut, her heart flew to her mouth. He walked toward her with a determined expression, and Bichara found that she was frozen to the spot, laying over the sofa. He stopped right in front of her, leaning forward just a little bit.

“Qui est-il?” She blinked at his words, feeling like she just woke up.

Ooo. What's going to happen?

See you next Saturday!

Stone & the Three Kings: Part 3

This is the point in the story that features my mentor, Omofarangbara – Faran for short (and I use the word 'mentor' loosely, as his 'lessons' mostly consist of condescending rants about how I know nothing of my heritage and the spirit world; a problem he could easily fix by actually teaching me something!). I dreaded our weekly training sessions, and now, I was in the unenviable position of needing his help desperately.

Sandra was out cold – as in, she was out like a light, and her skin was cold. I didn’t think she was dead – she seemed to be breathing - though that could have been me looking for reasons not to panic. But after shaking her for the umpteenth time, I realized there was no way she would wake up by normal means. That thing said its mission was to disgrace me. Then why go after Sandra?

I turned the spirit’s words over in my head again and again, but they still made no sense. There’s no time for this! I need to call Faran!

I reached into my bag and pulled out a small case. Inside were two cowrie shells not much bigger than an eraser. I replaced the case, held the cowries to my mouth, and muttered an incantation. The cowries tingled and let out a soft white glow, barely visible in the darkness.

I passed one of the cowries to my left hand and held it to my mouth. I held the other to my ear.

“Faran!” I said, speaking into the cowrie like a mouthpiece. “Faran! It’s Stone, o! I have a problem!”

A few seconds passed without a response. I was about to call out again when I heard something like static from the other cowrie. It took a moment to clear up, and for the familiar, husky voice to burst through the shell.

“Gbare!”

“Faran!” I cried. “Yes! It’s me! I need your help…”

“So you can’t greet again?!”

I hissed. “I don’t have time for this, Faran…”

“You don’t have time to show basic respect? You’re truly like your father, aren’t you?”

“This is serious!”

“I don’t think it is. And neither are you, to be honest.” I hissed again. I was running out of time. It was five minutes past seven by my watch. “E ka san, Baba Faran,” I droned.

“Baba who?” the voice crackled.

I sighed. “Baba Faran, the one who challenged the gods and won.”

“Now that wasn’t hard, was it?” He said. Then his tone became jarringly business-like. “Gbare, the oracle is doing somehow right now. Is there a reason you’re disturbing me this time of night?”

My elbow brushed against Sandra’s cheek. Her skin had gotten much colder. “Something attacked me and my friend…,” I said.

“A spirit, most likely. I suppose you’ve managed to destroy it…”

“I have,” I said, cutting off the sarcastic comment he would certainly have made. “But it did something to my friend, and I need you to help me fix it.”

The inhuman snort that emanated from the shell made me grind my teeth. “If your friend was stupid enough to get caught in your line of fire, that’s really not my problem. And it shouldn’t be yours either.”

I glanced at Sandra. Her breathing was getting shallower. “It shouldn’t, but it is.”

“I don’t have time to play doctor to your friends, Gbare.”

“Abeg na!” I begged. “Her parents will be home soon. If anything happens to her, it’s me everyone will be looking at. I can’t start explaining all this spirit world stuff to these people.”

“You can barely explain it to yourself,” he muttered under his breath. He probably didn’t think I heard him. I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, you can bring your friend to the shrine, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Relief washed over me, only to be replaced with confusion. “The shrine? In Ibadan? Can’t you come here with…like…a magical first-aid box or something…?”

“DON’T…YOU EVER…,” he screamed. I nearly dropped the cowrie. “INSULT MY CRAFT BY CALLING IT MAGIC! OR COMPARING IT TO…” insert snort here “FIRST…AID!”

I had to clutch my chest so my heart wouldn’t leap out. I’d forgotten how touchy he was about the word 'magic'.

“As to getting you here…,” he continued, like the outburst from two seconds before hadn’t happened. “…just put an elbow or something on your friend and hold still.”

“Okay?” I said, gingerly resting my elbow on Sandra’s stomach. I could feel the chill through the cotton.

Before I could blink or shiver, the street and houses around me disappeared into complete darkness. I was thrown into the void at a speed that I wasn’t sure I would survive. I closed my eyes and let out a scream.

“Keep quiet, jare!” I heard.

When I opened my eyes, it was to see a young man, not much older than eighteen, looming over me. He wore nothing but a pair of dirty Ankara trousers and an enormous scowl on his face, which he directed at me.

“What happened?” I asked, shaken.

“Question,” the man said. The voice that came from his mouth – raspy and ancient – was strange coming from such a young body, but I’d gotten used to it. “If you’d bothered to learn anything, you’d be able to make this journey yourself.”

He was referring to my ability to travel through space and time, something I’d only done once and didn’t mind never having to do again.

When I said nothing, Faran hissed and looked past me. “That’s your friend, abi?” I glanced at Sandra and nodded. “Hmmn…she does look terrible,” he muttered. He turned and walked out of the room. “Bring her into the altar room. I’ll see what I can do.”

I got up and dropped my bag and sword on the ground. At first, I tried to lift and carry Sandra in my arms, newlywed style, but at this point, she was freezing cold besides being plain heavy, so that fell through faster than she did from my arms. I grabbed her by her armpits instead and dragged her out of the room with me. The cold dug into my hands, but I had to ignore it.

Faran’s shrine hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d been here. It didn’t look much different than the stereotypical shrines in those Africa Magic movies, except everything was much more authentic and dangerous. The oracle room was a large, open space shrouded in the darkness that the numerous candles allowed. The walls and floor were bare, cracked mud that allowed all kinds of creepy crawlies to wander about. I couldn’t understand how Faran could stand to walk barefoot all the time.

At the center of the room was a large mound of earth, which more or less served as an altar. Faran stood at the other side, gathering ingredients while muttering something to himself. He got more irritated the further his ramblings went along.

“But what is it exactly?” He was saying, in sacred Yoruba. “If you’re not going to tell me…”

He stopped when I approached the altar. I stood there for a few minutes, hoping he would assist me in getting her up there. But wishful thinking had always been my tragic flaw, and I found myself struggling to maneuver my girlfriend to the top of the altar as my mentor rambled on to no one in particular. It was rough going, between the cold and the distracting soliloquy, but I somehow managed.

“You can destroy all my ingredients if you like,” Faran snapped when one of his vials of questionable liquid started to shake. “I’m sure you’ll be able to take me to where I can get them back.”

I ignored him, and he turned his attention to the matter at hand. “Now, I’ll have to warn you. The oracle’s been doing somehow since you called me, so this is going to be a lot of trial and error. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything quite like this.”

I gulped. That didn’t sound good. Possible explanations for what had happened to Sandra started to run through my mind, each one more stupid than the last. And it was definitely not a good time to mention I needed her awake by eight.

“What’s wrong with the oracle?” I asked, trying to take my mind off my fears.

Faran was sprinkling blue powder all over Sandra while chanting an incantation, so I didn’t get an answer until he was done. “It’s neither respectful nor wise to interrupt an Ifa priest when he’s conducting a ritual, Gbare,” he said, putting away the jar of blue stuff. “But if you must know, the oracle seems to find something funny, and it refuses to tell me.”

That seemed dumb, and I said so.

“Well, the ways of gods would seem inane, especially to one who’s spent so much of his life separate from the spiritual,” he said the last part with a toxic sneer. “Gods also find our ways amusing from time to time.”

When they’re not finding it offensive, I thought.

“The point is, something has happened that the oracle finds hilarious,” he continued then paused to rattle something over Sandra’s body as he chanted another incantation. “I don’t mind that he refuses to say what it is. But it seems to be keeping him from giving me any of the insight I ask for.”

“I’d hate to be the idiot a god would laugh at,” I muttered.

It was quarter to eight when Faran gave up. “It’s only you, Gbare,” he said, pointing an accusing finger at me. “It’s only you that can enter this kind of problem, and then bring it to me at the worst possible time. I think you just exist to disgrace me.”

I looked up from the games on my phone. “Well, maybe if I had a better teacher, I could have saved her,” I said.

“A stunted maize stalk will always blame the soil,” he said in regular Yoruba. I can speak neither regular Yoruba nor the sacred one, but I had heard him say this before.

“Will she live, at least?” I asked, hopeful.

“I don’t even know,” he said. Those were words he rarely ever said, and he reeled from spitting them out. “Whatever this affliction is, it’s immune to all my spells. I can’t even tell what it is.”

There was silence. “But…,” I said. “If you were to hazard a guess?”

He shook his head. It was foolish to hope. It always was whenever I was concerned.

I'll try to make this as brief as possible.

My name is Stone, my father wants to kill me, and an evil spirit has frozen my girlfriend.

I am dead serious.

I am not a regular teenager, and it was pretending to be one that got me into this mess.

Now, I have to enter the realm of dangerous and unpredictable spirits to fix my mess.

Will I succeed? I won't bet on it.

Excited for Part Four? We are too! We wonder if Stone will make it back with Sandra by 8 pm. What do you think?