"Who was that?" Mustafa asked, obviously displeased that his might be opponent was better.
"Just somebody I know." She successfully wiggled herself from his embrace and took an arm's length step away from him as they went back to the bar.
"If you're done here, we should move to the room."
"Don't you have a girlfriend?" She asked, wanting to keep talking.
"Why, are you going to change your mind if I do?"
"No, you're handsome. It's disbelieving that you don't have a girlfriend."
He smiled. "I would have said same for you, but you have a godfather. Why did you let him dictate your life like that? Do you like him?"
"Can we stop talking about Brother Abubakar?"
"You like him," he concluded. "That's why you can let him decide for you."
"He's not deciding for me now."
"Then let's get to business." His voice became laced with impatience. "You see, you have have these things that can kill a man, and a man gets impatient with things that can kill him."
"A man must be very stupid then." She forced a smile and stood to meet him. She collected their room number and turned to see if Efe was anywhere around, watching, before she led the way to the room. She hesitated before entering, she had never imagined getting defiled by Mustafa, she had never actually thought of getting defiled. Subconsciously, she had thought Alhaji would tell her when to, only to realize he was saving her for himself?
She opened the door and got in. Mustafa shut the door after he entered and hurriedly took off his clothes. Soliat, on the contrary, took her time. This was not how she had imagined it, she had imagined shyness, a little chase, the sensual and gentle removing of her clothes with a smile plastered on her face. Her heart was thudding inside her chest and as her Mustafa reached to help her, she shrugged his hand away.
"I'll do it." She pulled her gown and stood before him in her underwear. Her drank her appearance as his eyes raked through her. She was thankful for the noise outside, else he would have heard her beating heart, and she finally accepted what she felt from the time she stepped into the hotel, she was scared, scared of what they would do, scared of doing it with him. Was it too late to back down? Would he take an offense if she said she was no longer interested? She had texted him, excited him, and wanted to leave, she felt stupid.
"Are we going to get into the bed or you want to do it standing?"
Silently, knowing his eyes ate her, she moved to the bed and laid on it. He laid next to her and tried to kiss her.
"No, don't kiss me," she warned out before she could stop herself.
Mustafa appeared hurt, but he did not stress the issue, if he did not want a foreplay, then he had no problem with it. He took his shorts off and watched her look away. "One last question, Solia, you like your godfather, don't you?" He waited, and when she didn't answer, hooked a finger in the waistband of her underwear, tears gathered in her eyes.
She didn't want to do it, she wanted to stand up and leave. She felt him play with the waistband for a while and dreaded his next moment. It never came, instead the door opened.
On seeing that the door opened, Soliat's was relieved, on seeing that it was Alhaji who opened the door, she let a teardrop fall.
"What in Allah's name!" Mustafa nearly screamed at the intruder, then paused when he saw who it was. He turned to look at Soliat. "I thought you said he didn't know about this?"
"On our last encounter I warned you not to come anywhere near her," Alhaji said softly.
Soliat remembered the day well, it was the day she broke up with him.
"You said he didn't know anything about it!" Mustafa thundered.
"Sorry," she managed to say.
"Sorry? Do I look like a joke to you?"
"Mustafa, I don't like seeing a naked man near my woman," Alhaji said. "So, get out."
"She's not your woman, if she were then she wouldn't be her with me like this. You've dictated her life too much, let her do what she wants."
"I'm not going to have this argument with you, get out before I do something you don't like."
"You think you can barge into people's room like this? She's here out of her own free will, I did not force her, she wants to be here, she wants to do this," Mustafa argued, not liking that he had been excited for naught, that he had spent days imagining it, but it would only end in his imagination.
Alhaji looked at Soliat. "Tell him to get out."
"Go," she said softly.
Mustafa scoffed. "So you're going to be his puppet forever? Why don't the both of you get married." He picked up his clothes. "I was really looking forward to having your blood stain my—"
Alhaji punched the rest words down his throat. "Get out before I break your teeth."
Mustafa quickly wore his clothes, and holding a hand to his bruised jaw, he cursed at them. "Fuck you!" Before leaving the room, brushing Alhaji's shoulder as he did.
Now Soliat was left with him, how had he known, had Efe told him? She was grateful for the both of them, she wouldn't have been able to forgive herself if she had gone through with her plan. What she feared now was Alhaji's anger. He had warned her, seized her phone, and now he was angry. He watched him walk to her dress and picked it up.
"Get in." He held it for her, she acquiesced and let him dress her. Their eyes met for a while, then he turned her around and zipped her gown. He took her hijab.
"I can do that."
"Shut up."
"She fumbled with her finger. "Brother Abu—"
"Shut up, Solia!"
She sniffed and whispered. "I was so scared, I was scared."
He thumbed her tears away. "I know. Stop crying, I cannot be angry at you if you're crying, and I want to be angry at you, I want to shout at you and tell you how senseless you are, so stop crying." He moved away from her. "I'll be waiting for you outside, two minutes."
Soliat allowed herself to don when he was gone before cleaning her eyes dry. For one thing, she was glad nothing had happened, but for another, she had disappointed him. He would never say it, but she knew he wished she did better.
Their ride back to the province was in an icy silence, an unsettling one. This was their first serious fight since her childhood, she would never have guessed it would involve her sexuality.
"Brother Abu—"
"Shut up! Dan Allah Solia, I don't want to hear a word from you." Then after a while, he asked her. "Did he touch you?"
"No," she murmured.
"Did he kiss you?"
She shook her head.
He did not ask her anything again and she did not try to start a conversation too until they reached her house. He led her to the dining and sat her atop the table. Then he stood in front of her and asked. "Why did you do that? Why did you betray me?"
"You betrayed me too, all those times you acted like you genuinely care about me when you had plans of taking me to bed."
Her words burned him. "Is that what you really think?"
"That day, in your bathroom…" she let her words die. "Were you supposed to do that? We're siblings."
"We're not!"
"Yes, that's because you want to sleep with me."
"Yes, I want to, I've envisioned it since you became of age, and I don't want another man's hand on you. Wallahi, you don't even know how I felt when I saw that goat naked on you. But what about you, have I always been your brother? Has there never been a time when you looked at me and felt like I would be better off without the clothes?"
"That's because you did it to me," she accused.
"Nonsense!"
"It doesn't change the fact that you deceived me, you never liked me, you had ulterior motives. You think I really wanted to have sex with Mustafa? It was you who took advantage of my trust, you let me date boys, but you made sure I broke up with them and all that time I thought you did it because you really cared about me. But it was because you wanted to have me for yourself.
You should have told me back then the man reason and not tell me those boys weren't right for me. Who is? You?"
Abubakar backed away from her, speechless.
She went on. "There was this boy I really liked, I really liked him but you said he was not a gentleman. I told you he could change but you said we've been going out for six months and that six months was enough time for a person to change, you convinced me to break up with him. Foolish me, I did, and maybe if I hadn't, we would be married by now, and Baba and I would not have this issue, and nobody would call me a prodigal child." She knew it was unfair to blame him for what happened between her and her father when he wasn't even involved, but it was easy to do, and she was upset.
Abubakar stared at her for the longest time before he brought out her phone from his pocket and dropped it beside her. "Go."
Somebody's throat cleared and it distracted them so that they turned to look, it was Baba and Yasmin. They stared at them with the look that told they overheard.
Abubakar turned back to Soliat. "Go after you finish talking to your father."
But Baba shook his head. "The dynamic is going to change today, I'm going to talk to you, Abubakar, from what I've heard the both of you say, I need to talk to you."
Yasmin watched the two men leave before walking to the fridge to take a bottle of water, pouring two glasses and pushing one to Soliat.
She took the glass without complaint and emptied the contents into her stomach, she had said so much words and it left her thirsty. "When did you come?" She asked the older woman.
"We were here the whole time, you were just too occupied to notice."
That means they had heard everything, including that she tried to sleep with Mustafa.
"You know I'm not going to ask you anything, Solia. Abubakar is man enough to settle his disputes, but go and stand behind the door and hear what they're saying, from what I hear, you're good at eavesdropping. Go."
She walked stealthily to the door as told, and placed her eyes on it, listening. Behind the closed closed, Baba said. "Before I told Soliat about getting married, I came to you and asked if you wanted to marry her, do you remember?"
Baba did that?
"Yes, Baba," was Alhaji's reply.
What? He really did?
"You said you were but she wasn't ready."
"Yes, Baba."
"I don't have much words for you, Abubakar, I gave her till the end of Ramadan, Ramanda is over, if you won't be serious with my daughter, then let other men."
"But she's mine."
Annoyed, the older man retorted. "She's my daughter, young man."
"And she's the woman that's going to be my life."
"Then marry her!" He stamped his walking stick on the ground.
"She's not ready for that, I do not wish to force her."
"I don't care whether or not she's ready, I want her in a family. You think I don't know it was you those times I sent men to find her?"
Soliat's eyes nearly gorged out of its socket. Baba had sent men to find her? Brother Abubakar had done something about it?
"Does she even know you care about her this much?"
"She should now if she's by the door." Unconsciously, she shifted back. "She has a bad habit of eavesdropping."
"See, I know you like my daughter, I watched you both grow up, saw the way you looked at her, and knew it was anything but brotherly, that was why I told you to leave the house. I'm actually surprised she's still untouched, what are you doing playing a patient game with her?"
"Why are you so bent on making her marry?"
"What is a woman without a husband and children? She's young, her flower at its peak, soon she would start to fade and lose her shine. I'm doing her a favour, like I did with Yasmin."
Alhaji leapt to his feet. "Don't bring my sister into this. It was different with Yasmin, I had no power then, I couldn't fight you, I couldn't help her, but now it's different. And Solia is somebody I care about, somebody I intend to marry, I won't let you wreck her life like you did with Yasmin."
"I did not wreck your sister's life Abubakar, she did, I simply helped her."
"Marrying her off to a man fifty years older than her is what you call help?"
"I see you have a grudge against me. Shall we fight over Soliat, Abubakar?" Baba smiled. "You know, her mother adored you. When she was a child and you would hold her in your arms, she would tell me, in Yoruba, that Soliat found herself a husband even as a baby, she would talk about when you two would marry. I also hope to see that day, that's why I'm telling you to marry her. If you don't, then you'll have to fight me and I hope you know it's a battle you can't win? Just like with Yasmin." He rose to his feet. "Till the end of this month. If you don't marry her by then, then you'll be a guest to her marriage to someone else."