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It was on a knife's edge, they had done everything to not feel the way they did about each other. She had walked away submitting to the need to maintain her sanity.

The backward and forward was too much, had occurred too many time. She was addicted to the drama. It was the fact she spoke her language, shared history, same culture.She saw what she wanted to see.

The empty bottles of cheap whiskey, she chose not see nor the empty cough syrup bottles and the stale smoke of cigarettes that clung to every fabric in the room. From the mustard colour drapes that where once bright gold. The burn marks on the carpet either from spilled hot incense or cigarette ash.

In the beginning it was different, she had met in her brother's. Recognition at the door. She did not always trust her instincts and did not this time, and put it down to wishful thinking. 

There was talking and laughing within the group which she now recognised as flirting. She hadn't asked why she had such a good time. Why she bouncing and full of energy. Why she found a reason to return to the brother's house and why she did not find the same spark or energy when she in her absence. 

They bumped into each other a few times in social settings then she heard she had married and that was that. 

There were rumours that she was estranged from her family for marrying a christian, she had heard how she had become an apostate and her mother had refused to even see her children four girls and a boy. She had heard tales of poverty and domestic violence and soap opera drama. Which she dismissed as rumours. 

The met again at a funeral of her father, she's come in as was the custom to greet the family during the seven days of mourning. She was bumped by large lady holding a tray of kunu for the guest. It was uncommonly cold even for the harmattan season with chapped lips and cracked feet and scratchy looking cardigans. 

Sorry, 

No, I'm sorry she said, the tray seemed unstable in her hands. 

Here let me help you, she reached out and caught the scarred arm. She almost flinched, she had not expected any sign of deformity. She internally kicked herself for flinching as she saw her shrink in size right infront of her eyes. 

What happened to the vibrant young woman she had met that fateful day. 

No, please let me help you carry the tray. My leg is cramping from sitting down on the mat. I must be old. Sitting on the floor especially in the cold is not great for my joints. She tried to be funny it fell flat. 

There was awkward silence, she left her to the tray and her defeated air. Selfishly she was glad to be away from her. To be away from brokenness and loss. 

She looked at her phone, she needed to get out her skin to shake the cloying darkness she felt. In her youth she would have gone to a club and regretted it.

Today she had found out that she had put her name on the list. Claiming they had had an affair and her ex-husband had found them together in bed and had punished her by crushing her arm in the car door as they where running away. With her kids as witness to the brutality. 

It was false, at least false for her. At least she now knew how she had got entangled with this kangaroo court. As her cousin had spat at her there is no smoke without fire. 

He would say so, he had been turned down by her father when he had asked for her hand at 15 years. One of the many conversation's she had had with her dad in her thirties when he had finally imagined she was mature enough for a conversation.

That she had any self esteem as a young person was a miracle. She remembered him, her cousin stopping her in the alley of his house. 

She had gone there during Eid, with a bunch of female cousin's to take rice and stew and Sallah meats as was the tradition wearing their new clothes or newish clothes in her case.

She did not make a big deal out it. She was adept at dodging boy's and men in the family alley's. Normally a sharp tongue or a witty cut remark did the thing. 

It had to be balanced just right, not blunt enough to damage their ego and elicit a violent response like a slap on the face. Though with age and wisdom she was surprised that she had not heard of more sexual violent acts.

She thought oath rumours she had heard about white things running down some female cousin's leg as she returned from the communal bathroom and how the shame was always the girls. 

Always. No she was clueless to that type of danger as she stood up to this 45 year old giant of a man. Who looked at her in ways that disgusts her had to be handled carefully. She decided to play dumb.

Duniya, come here.

Sannu Hamma, she greeted him by calling him brother. 

So how are you he took his huge paw of a hand and reached for her pulling her close to him his huge bulging stomach a barrier from his rapidly rising privates. 

She pulled back slowly, trying not to arose him more. 

Barka da sallah Hamma we have come for our Sallah money.

He put his hand in his huge baban riga, He could have been fondling himself or reaching for the bundle of naira notes stored there.

It was not uncommon for bundles of five naira, ten naira, twenty naira notes brand new. She stood there torn between increasing her tally of Sallah money so she could boast to her cousins and standing there letting her cousin fondle himself. 

She stood there staring, it wasn't particularly impressive and looked like a fat worm. She wasn't stupid. She had consumed hours of her father's VHS adult collections from the seventies and eighties. She wasn't particularly curious, she wondered if she could entice him to give her more money.

Money meant independence she understood that, but this type of money had a cost. She did not feel shame and stared her cousin in his droopy eyes. She felt dirty and powerful at the same time. Can I make men do things for me?

She heard a noise and turned her head. Her eyes classed with his wife, also her cousin standing by a side alley possibly from her way to the communal kitchens from her apartments. 

She was covered in Saudi gold not the cheaper yellower Indian gold and the most exquisite embroidered heavy materials. She looked like a shy "ameriya" even though they had been married for 17 years with a sickle cell daughter raised by his mother.

There was a sad air about the compound, she rarely came to this house. He was not a favourite of hers and there was an underlying menace in this space. 

Things were sacrificed, things were buried here. There were leather charms and tablets with Arabic writings in the sitting rooms and bedroom. 

The wife, did not lookout them even though she could see both. And it must have been obvious to her what was happening.

She had heard stories about their wedding and how no expense was spared on his wedding. She had heard stories that he was impotent because he had no sons except one sickly daughter.

Later when she was older she heard he was gay and had gay lovers. 

It was hard to tell what was rumour and what was real. She should have felt a kinship to him a fellow homosexual as it were. But he was a wife beater and that was enough for her. 

She visited to his household less than eight times in her memory.

Her head hurt. It was in her nature to be blunt and direct. But she had been warned to shut up. Whatever "western" ideas she had was likely to work against her. 
Did she listen to her ego and "be herself" a reckless sign of self harm? Or should she be what she was being asked to be. Silent. Reacting to their positions, keeping it all close to her chest. 
She knew for a fact that they did not what they thought they did. She wished she had studied the lawyering or at least trickery. 
This is why she was in this position. She thought you of it as trickery. Already she was lost. 
There is no be yourself and be happy in the real
world. There is only survive, surviving, survivor. 
She was surviving. She had to find a way to be a survivor. To win. 
She needed allies. But her "friends" had more to hide and would throw her red meat to the hungry wolves. 
She needed to make friends with the wolves. She needed a wolf. 
Who was the largest biggest baddest wolf she knew? And at what cost ?
She worked best with her head on the guillotine.  
She wished she was a chess player. She wanted to be a many things. But she was just her. A woman who's crime was to be unlawful in her choice of whom she chose to love. 

How do you become a wolf? How do you give up your friends and lovers and disown your very self to survive. She did not have the stomach for it. She would not do it. 
She could not. 

She thought back to the choices that she made. The first boy she said no to. The first girl that she had said yes to. The crushes, the choices she had made. 
Yet she was not happy. And really what did it matter. Who was she protecting? 
She thought of the grey prison walls. Her solitary cell a luxury where there were tens of women crowded in cells. Urine, fences, lice, flies the least of their worries. The brutality the bullying the constant fear of bodily harm and pain.