DISENTERRANDO

What happens when blood stands in the way of love?

If you were to tell this story in colors, you would not use red, or blue, or any of the primary shades, because they would be too basic to capture the intricacies within the hue of your voice; you would use a canvas, buckets of different pigments and a paint brush; you would draw layers upon layers of different colors; you would create the most beautiful rainbow.

If you were to tell this story as music, you would sit in the quietest valley with a pen and paper and a lyre and a ukulele and a keyboard; you would let the gentlest breeze whisper the perfect lyrics into your ears; you would create the most beautiful song.

And if you were to tell this story as a calendar, you would not do it in twenty-four hours because that would be too short to encapsulate the feelings and the message you aim to convey; you would not do it in three hundred and sixty five days neither because that would be too long and imperfect; and since you seek perfection, you have the perfect template: the week. You would want to write the story into seven days so that every moment and every passage goes along as you need them to; and since seven is the symbol of perfection, the week offers you the perfect outline; now, now that is what you are going to do.

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SATURDAY

This was the first day you met her. It was around three months after your younger brother, Keruo, had told you about his new girlfriend, Blessing. He had described her as the one, and you only had to set your eyes on her once to confirm that. Blessing was the most beautiful woman you’d ever seen. Her black skin radiated with such energy that had you gravitating towards her; and once you were close to her, you wanted to remain that way. Her eyes were large and clear; her natural hair, there’s nothing you love more than the natural hair, flowed down her back; and as she walked towards you, it was with a majesty that you knew did not come from practice but of nature. She wore no make-ups, she did not overdress to impress, everything about her screamed natural. And then, you heard her voice. It was music to your ears; an attachment you could not shake off even if you tried. You stretched out you right hand, she ignored it and reached for a hug instead. When her body met yours, you felt the safest you’d ever been. Like you were in the arms of one who’d known you all your life, one who you could tell anything anytime. You held unto her for a second too long, and wondered if she noticed. You saw Keruo smiling by the corner, and gave him a nod.

“Chikanyima,” she said, now extending her hand. Wow, you thought, God we know. That was the most beautiful name you’d ever heard; and it was even more beautiful because she'd abandoned her English name and chose to tell you her native name. No girl does that. You smiled after taking her hand, she smiled back and your felt your body quiver just a little bit.

“Chidindu,” you returned. She said Keruo already told her a lot about you, you responded that you’re going to kill that boy and the both of them laughed. After a while, when you both sat down in the living room chatting about Tonto Dike and her latest boyfriend wahala, she reached for your face to flicker something she thought was a fly off it. You didn’t flinch. If it was someone else, you’d have found it weird. You would have given it straight back to them that they did not respect your boundaries; but not with Chikanyima. With her, you felt seen. When it dawned on her that the black spot on your face wasn’t a fly, it was a pimple, she drew closer and popped it and cleaned it off with her wiper. You did not tell her to stop, instead, you wished that she could leave her hand on your face, even for a second longer. Although, at the time, you didn’t know what was going on with you, you still didn’t want it to end.

FRIDAY

The wedding day. The day you almost let the heat of jealousy slip down your sleeves as you stood on the carpet with the train. You had to borrow a handkerchief from Desmond, Keruo’s best friend and Bestman, to wipe off the sweat and keep yourself in check. For some reason, you were seeing Chikanyima beneath her wedding dress. You envied your younger brother; he didn’t do anything to deserve such a damsel. It could have been you. It should have been you.

“She is too beautiful.” You said.

“Very, very.” Desmond agreed.

“She is too beautiful.” You repeated. You didn’t know you had said it twice, until Desmond gave you the kind of look that screamed you did not have to say it twice.

THURSDAY

You started to visit your brother’s house more frequently. Being the first born, it was expected of you to get along with your only brother’s wife; especially when the fact that you were still single was thrown into the mix. You used this as a leverage to spend more time with Chikanyima. Even when Keruo was away, especially when Keruo was away, you were in the house, gisting with her, laughing with her, watching movies with her. She even started to teach you how to make her favorite Igbo dishes that you couldn’t learn during your childhood because your parents had employed house-helps to do everything. Keruo was happy about your relationship with his wife, everyone was happy that you both were friends. Both beneath the smiles and the laughter, you knew you wanted more than the platonic relationship. You knew because every time you got home, all you could think about was her. Even in your dreams, you saw her. In fact, there was one particular dream you had were you both were so intimate that when you woke up, you got angry with yourself and tried to force yourself back to sleep to continue the dream. That was when you knew, that you had to make a move. You couldn’t keep living that way.

WEDNESDAY

You did not have to make any moves, for the next time you were in your brother’s house, Chikanyima did that for you. It was a moment of shock; something you would never have expected even in a million years. You both had just had lunch, when she stopped in front of you as she was walking back to the kitchen with the plates in her hands. You both stared at each other, you knew what you wanted, you could see it in your own eyes, but you wondered if she saw it too. You wondered if what you saw in her eyes were what they actually meant to say. She dropped the plates back on the table and stretched forth her left hand. Slowly, you lifted your left hand and let her grab hold of it. Slowly, you let her drag you up off your seat. Slowly, ever so slowly, you drew closer and closer to each other until your nose touched hers.

“Is this right?” your own voice surprised you.

“It’s high time we stopped pretending.” Chikanyima said.

“What of…” her lips shut off your remaining words as she sunk them into your mouth. You felt her tongue over yours; you let her do with you as she wished. It was not long before you found yourselves in the couch, tugging at and pulling each other’s clothes off. Later, when you were done, you lay breathless, her body on top of yours.

“Sex has never been this good.” You said. You only realized you had actually said it out loud when she started laughing. You joined her. Never in your life had you ever been so loud in the act; never had you had such orgasm, where your body refused to stop trembling.

“Keruo won’t be back till weekend.” She said. You nodded your response, and realized she was staring into your eyes again. Later, when you both woke up from sleep in the evening, you had sex again.

TUESDAY

The day your life literally flashed before your eyes. You’d promised yourself that you would be careful with your movements around Chikanyima. You started visiting Keruo’s house less frequently so as to avoid any suspicions. She knew this too, even if you’d never directly discussed it with her. Then that day, she promised that Keruo was away on a business trip. You planned you would spend the entire weekend in the house and packed one clothe or two into your bag. It must have been nemesis, reminding you that it would always be at the corner patiently waiting for you to slip up. But when the loud knocks came on the front door at 11pm that night, you and Chikanyima had already gone so deep into each other that you did not hear. Keruo called and called Chikanyima’s phone, but she had left it in the sitting room. Downstairs. He went back to his car and retrieved his spare key. It was within this time that you both climaxed and lay exhausted, side by side. Then you heard the clink-clink in the door, and your heart flew into your esophagus. The speed with which you moved that night would always baffle even you. Quickly, you got up from the bed and grabbed your clothes from the floor; Keruo almost saw you as you fled across the hall into the guest room. So close, you thought, so close! Everything was fine in the morning, but you’d learned that no matter how careful you claimed to be, you were hardly in control of things.

MONDAY

You had your first argument with Chikanyima. It was not about ending the relationship, that much was out of question at the time, because never in your all your previous relationships had you ever been that happy, it wasn’t even close; it was only a shame that you had to derive the happiness from your brother’s wife, or not. It was about managing the relationship going forward. You wanted her to always be absolutely sure that Keruo was not around before calling you over. She said she could come to your house instead, that way, the risk would be eliminated. You said it would be weird. She asked how. You said you didn’t know but that it wasn’t normal.

“Oh please, people do this all the time,” she said. “I don’t know why you are so agitated.” You were shocked.

“I haven’t seen.”

“You haven’t seen because they will not tell you they are doing it. You think anyone could suspect us? You’re kidding.” She laughed, you wondered where the joke was.

“This is a very serious matter! You are acting like being a lesbian in a country as homophobic as Nigeria is something to laugh about!” Your voice was slightly raised; you had to hold back.

“I’m not a lesbian,” Chikanyima said so nonchalantly, “I’m bisexual.” Your jaw almost hit the bed. You dropped a hmm and nodded. You had never been gay before, you weren’t even a lesbian before you met her, so you didn’t know what else to say. She leaned towards you and tugged at your bra, again, you were powerless to stop her, even though for the first time you really wanted to.

SUNDAY

That statement stayed with you for the next fortnight. Although, you still met Chikanyima; although, you still did things with her; you couldn’t stop thinking about it. It must have been the way she said it, that smile, the fact that she didn’t think it was even a serious topic worth paying attention to; it must have been the fact that you thought she did not see you as you saw her, like she saw you as a toy, a pleasure outlet to alternate your own brother; something from that argument definitely clattered into the walls of you heart and plunged you into an internal cataclysm. You woke up that Sunday morning, dialed her number to find out if Keruo was around, and when she said he wasn’t, you asked her to tell you, plain and simple, if she loved you. There was a long pause over the phone. A dog barked across the street. A car engine revved somewhere in the distance. Birds chirped past your roof. You were taking everything in while her silence over the phone almost deafened your ears.

“Do you love me, Chikanyima?” all of the previous two weeks, you had embarked on a soul-search. You browsed through the internet; you read every queer material you could get your hands on; one lady in one of the videos you saw kept hammering on personal differences on the journey of self-discovery. How different situations could spark one’s sexual realization, especially in societies where such realities were deemed criminal. Like Nigeria. It was then you began to understand how and why none of your previous five relationships with men yielded nothing; why your parents’ regular preachings about finding a husband never really sat with you. It was then you realized that it couldn’t just be Chikanyima, you could find someone else if it didn’t work. You’d admitted to yourself long ago that you were in love with her; now it was her turn to tell you if she was in love with you too. The suspense raised all the hair in the back of your neck, but not in a bad way. You were no longer hopeless.

  “Can you come over to the house? Let’s sit down and discuss this.” She said.

“Do you love me?” Your voice was so stretched it almost broke that time. You did not want to waste any more time. You did not want to relax. You certainly did not want to sit down. “Just tell me if you…”

“Yes! Yes, I love you!” Your heart sunk into your belly, that was not the reaction you were expecting from yourself. “I’ve loved you since the very day I met you,” She continued, “But so what?!” Chikanyima sounded like she was sobbing over the phone; you sighed. “Can’t you see that it doesn’t matter? Can’t you see?” you could not, in fact, see, because this meant everything to you. It was a beginning, the foundation for the rest of you live. Your lives. You sighed again. “Say something.” Chikanyima said in almost a whisper.

“I… I think we should do something about it.”

“What?”

“When two people love each other, they make it work regardless of anything. We should..”

“He’s your brother! He is my husband!”

“But you don’t love him. You’re going to stay married to someone you don’t love?” you couldn’t believe the words as they spluttered out of your mouth in desperation. “I’m the one you love,” you said, “I’m the one you should stay with.”

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When you look back at your story and how everything unfolded in the following years; when you see Chikanyima and recall the haste and the hassle of your elopement, the moments you both chose each other and damned everything else, you come to the conclusion that that is what life is all about. You know, that happiness is tied to living in one’s true self no matter the stakes. You know you breached the boundaries of love and of fate and of family. You know you would make the same choice over and over again for yourself, and for her. When you see her walking towards you with that ever beautiful smile, you know you won.