A Cross and A Crescent

Hi people. Got this from one of the blog readers just before I ended Burnt and since we’ve been promoting Write Right and then debuted A Little Bird Said, I had lost it in the mix. Thankfully, she remembered that I asked her to remind me which she did today. It’s always my pleasure to introduce new writers to you guys. Here’s Fatima’s short story. Follow her on twitter @midnightsun84.

TL

It was Ileya day, and that meant I was going to eat lots and lots of ram meat, not because I was a Muslim, but because my (best) friend of many years was. The families of Qamar Adedeji and mine had been friends from the moment we had moved next door to them seven years ago. Since Qamar and I were about the same age, we hung out together all the time and an amazing friendship was forged, our friendship was one of my most prized possessions. Qamar was a true friend in every sense of the word; he always had an encouraging word whenever I hit a rough patch. His shoulder had been there for me to cry on through two heartbreaks, he always lent a listening ear, and I couldn’t even imagine what I’d do without him. Once or twice when friends joked that I had kept him firmly in the friend zone instead of dating him, we’d both laughed off their silliness. We didn’t simply see each other that way, and even if we did, a Chychy and a Qamar know better than to date each other.

 

Ileya that it was that fateful day, my boyfriend understood that I was going to spend the day with Qamar and his family. In fact, he knew it was possible for me to spend the night there if Qam’s sister, Royyan was around, she schooled abroad and whenever she came home, she liked to ‘kidnap’ her friends whenever she could and catch up on all the gist she’d missed while she regaled us with New York gist as well. But standing in front of my mirror, I thought I look extra hot, so I decided to quickly pop in at Uche’s place before going over for my Ileya groove. What boyfriend wouldn’t love a surprise visit and a very likely unplanned roll in the sheets on a public holiday? I didn’t think there was any.

 

As I stepped into the compound, I used my fingers to lightly comb my hair and smacked my lips to make sure my lip gloss still had its full luster and swung my hips towards the building. I liked to go in through the kitchen entrance, I didn’t like to risk going through the sitting room entrance just in case they had guests or whatever. Besides it was easier to slip up to his room that way, instead of playing chit chat for long minutes with his sisters or whoever was around before I escaped to the privacy of Uche’s room.

I opened the kitchen door to find it empty, but as I moved towards the stairs, I heard several raised voices including Uche’s; it seemed I had stumbled in on a family meeting of some sorts. I didn’t know if I should go up and wait in his room, because they might not finish soon, and I would be late for Ileya groove if I decided to wait. I didn’t know if I should just turn back and go, but then the gatekeeper was sure to mention my visit, and I didn’t want to appear ‘one kain’.

So I was standing at the foot of the stairs, trying to decide what to do, and my name just jumped out at me from the conversation going on in the sitting room. Huh? I inched closer and for the second time, and more distinctly, I heard it, Chychy.  Chychy kwa? Why was my name coming up in a family meeting at my boyfriend’s house?  I inched closer and listen in on the conversation for several minutes……and I wish I hadn’t.

I turned around, distraught, and went back the same way I came in. I didn’t even care if the gatekeeper reported that I came around, I didn’t care about anything. All I needed to do was get to Qam’s house and speak with him immediately. Still dazed, I managed to find a taxi and I scrambled out immediately the driver dropped me off at his place. I was certainly in no mood to socialize, but luckily for me there were a lot of guests milling about in the compound, so I managed to slip into the house and up to Qam’s room almost unnoticed. I only had to say a quick hello to his cousin, Aunty Risi. He was around attending to guests downstairs, I knew. So I picked up my phone and texted him “Qam I’m in your room. Please I need you here NOW. It’s urgent, I have to talk to you!”

I had barely dropped the phone before Qam breathlessly pushed the door of the room open; it was obvious he ran up the stairs. He slammed the door shut and the latch fell in place with a loud click. “What is it Chy? What happened? Talk to me, dear.” He got no response from me, so he just sat beside me on the bed and put his arm across my shoulders “come on, talk to me Strawberry”

That’s when the dams burst open, and I wept buckets into the neatly ironed buba of his beautifully tailored ‘ileya cloth’. I punctuated my tears with words, explaining what had happened at Uche’s house earlier today. Moving close to the doorway of the sitting room, I had overheard Uche’s mother scolding him for bringing Chychy home and introducing her as his girlfriend when he knew he was going to end up impregnating Nneka. If he knew he was interested in Nneka, what had stopped him from dating her in the first place, after all she was from their local government area which was even  good thing. So why had he spent a year leading Chychy on? How was he going to explain himself to the poor girl now? Because he was going to have to marry Nneka, and that wasn’t a bad thing but the person she felt sorry for in all of this was Chychy.

I was brimming with so much anger as I recounted the story, the lying, cheating bastard! He had claimed he and the girl were not even friends, just colleagues, yet he went and knocked her up. The pig! Through the fog of my anger and tears I was aware of Qam’s strong arms around me, his fingers stroking my hair and his whispers of “I’m so sorry baby, you deserve better anyway”. Lost in the comfort he offered, my tears subsided and I held on to him tightly; this was the third time I’d cry on his shoulder- literally, over boy trouble.

“Come on, let’s get you freshened up, there’s a party downstairs!” he said as he raised my head from his chest to give me a forehead kiss. I didn’t understand what was happening, or how it was happening, all I know is that I pulled his face down to me and fused my lips to his. I could feel his shock and surprise, but I didn’t pull away, I kissed him slowly, tentatively, hesitantly.  This was new and uncharted territory for both of us and I didn’t even know what I was doing, just that I must do it and before my head could remind me that I shouldn’t be doing it, I kissed him more brazenly and opened my mouth to his.

That’s when he lost the battle. He released an audible sigh and he kissed me back hungrily, pushing me onto the soft mattress as he explored my mouth thoroughly. I found myself pressing my body against his in a silent plea for more, when he moved his hand away from my face and cupped my breast in his palm, I could hear my own gasp as shockwaves of pleasure ran through me. When he trailed kisses on my neck and my ears, I whimpered and shivered in reaction; I was already half delirious with pleasure. All of a sudden, I felt I must touch his body, his warm, bare body. So I grabbed the material of his buba and hoisted it up, breaking the kiss so I could get the offending cloth over his head and out of the way, but I looked up into Qam’s eyes and saw that he had other plans.

There was hesitation in his eyes; Qam had changed his mind about this “Look Chy, we shouldn’t be doing this. You’re distraught and I shouldn’t have touched you. I can’t take advantage of you like this”. “Mscheeeew” I hissed so loudly that he turned to look at me with bewilderment.”Rubbish”, I thought, “what is this one saying? He shouldn’t have what?”  Without stopping to think, I pulled down the zip at the side of my dress, slipped out of it and threw the garment aside. Fire blazing in my eyes, clad in only my flimsy undergarments, I faced him “Qam I WAS distraught, now I’m ANGRY. What do you mean you shouldn’t have touched me? In fact, you should have touched me long ago and if you had, maybe I wouldn’t have been chasing shadows with that bastard Uche”

Filled with righteous anger and determination, I straddled him and plastered my mouth to his again, pressing my curves into him, plundering his mouth with pent up desire that I didn’t even know I had. I felt the fight leave him slowly and I gasped as he grabbed my derriere in both hands and pushed my core against his erection, and then he suddenly flipped me over so that I was lying on my back, with him on top of me as he proceeded to do things to me that made me gasp and moan and shiver alternatively.

We completely divested each other of our clothes and he looked down at me tenderly, lovingly as he gently and slowly inserted his phallus into my warm sheath, so slowly that it caused excruciating pleasure, and with that very first thrust, I blurted out ”I love you Qam, I love you.” And I realised that I meant it. Qam was everything to me, I just hadn’t realised how much he meant to me because I had blinded myself to the possibility. But then, with his lips causing wicked delights as his tongue darted in an out of my ear and the rhythmic strokes of his member in me, I knew just how much I loved him.

 

Legs locked around his waist and bodies fused in that dance that is as old as man itself, Qam took me to the heights of heaven and held me suspended there. When I began to shake and whimper and speak in languages foreign to even my own ears, he increased the pace of his thrusts, put his fingers between our joined bodies and touched some secret button somewhere there. That moment, we both spiraled downwards, into a vortex of ecstasy that ended back here on earth, on his bed with the Arsenal football club themed bedspread, in his house that was next to mine, while an Ileya party raged on downstairs. I sobbed as I came, and he whispered “I love you too Chychy, I always have”

 

I roll over and wake my husband with a light kiss on the lips. That’s enough reminiscing for one morning; this day, March 13 2013, Qamar and I have been married for 15 years. I shudder to think what would have happened or how our lives would have turned out if I had let tribal and religious differences blind me to my one true love.I shake Qam “wake up joor sleepy head. Happy anniversary. Now get up and say your prayers, it’s already 5.30.” He mumbles good morning to me groggily, gets up and goes to the bathroom to perform wudu, I kneel down by my side of the bed, grab my bible, close my eyes, and bow my head in prayer.