Chapter 1
Little back story.
Christian and Ilham had just moved in together after dating for about four years in university, they had met in the second trimester of their first year in the university for Development studies when Christian almost bumped into her with his car at the roundabout in the middle of the school's campus, this almost tragedy turned into a whirlpool romance enriched with a lot of make-out sessions and humping!, Oh the humping!.
Ilham was a sweet Muslim girl whose father was some sort of an Islamic scholar, “Sheikh” was the precise word and on a much let me say lower rank an imam, the one who leads prayers, so you see why maybe humping was the furthest she could go with her four year boyfriend who she would be killed if she was caught having.
Christian on the other hand had lost his dad when he was very young, this time was a really hard time for this young boy because of how much his father was such a role model to him. His dad was one of the first to own a new age computer among his peers, the ones that looked like they could crush the surface on which they stood. Christian and his dad would spend hours together and his dad would try to explain to him a concept called “World Wide Web” and how we could all be connected, even though he looked at his dad with the most confused eyes then, he was not looking confused anymore driving as an undergrad while his lectures were trekking to catch a “keke” or fastening their helmets as the one requirement for entering the campus. He channelled all his grief into Internet fraud for he a was very smart kid just not in the way our Ghanaian society had appreciation for or had any concern for, so he got away with it, his sudden wealth nurturing a humbling obedience due to his realisation of human ignorance, how he had used love from the grief of losing his dad to attract all the things he had ever wanted and to his surprise had always received. In this moment he had no overwhelming feelings of young boy confusion or young man surprise, just safe love, in love with his girlfriend Ilham hoping she would let him marry her regardless of fraudulent activity, if only she understood that he used his mind but maybe not the conniving part just the magnetic part, energy and all the things she didn’t even want him talking about, things he tried to whisper into her ear while she yearned for him, while she craved his fullness, his urgency.
Regardless of religion, so what if her dad had an Arabic school where he taught young Muslim boys to not be like Christian and cheat people out of their hard earned money. They were meant to work hard themselves and be upstanding, maybe be an MP and help their communities, make their pockets swell, build an institution like an Arabic school that can help young kids, study more of your religion and die a pious Muslim like him and some other well renowned men in their community. Of course he would accept him, you know, just like the song “rude”, as Ilham was in love with him and she’d go everywhere he went. Regardless of the fact that he could never go all the way with her, show her how he truly felt about her, how much he loved her, to truly love her, how man was intended to love woman, unrestricted, in total devotion because he didn’t want any other person the way he needed her. He didn’t have to think twice about being faithful to her, she was his wife already and he was her husband, he was attracting it to himself but he was scared of being abandoned by another person he loved. He wanted to spend his leisure time with her, as a matter if fact all his time and if he could I’m sure he would try to buy more time to spend with her because he could and he would. If left to him he would take her and have her right there and then without a thought, without a doubt even with them in sight, he would be sacred about it because he saw value in things like that, being the first to make her feel a certain way, being the first, that wasn’t so much to him as being the only for a very long time. That’s why he could wait for as long as she needed. He would remind himself that it would be worth it because only then would she feel safe enough to spend a longer time off campus with him without having to run back because maybe one of her parents or brothers showed up on campus to “drop something off”. She deserved to not have to run off after something like that. He needed to handle her for like a week straight just for preparations, psyching her mind, her body, her insides and her outsides separately and all together in whatever way would get her bezerk, wailing, crying, screaming, scratching, twitching, licking, sucking, biting, blushing, face burning, lip biting, sharing sweetness with the lips till she was begging him to finally give in to her, so she would try to get him to break, try to tempt and seduce him of some sort, but she was too shy to say it directly so she’d use that mind of hers, that smart mind of hers to connive a slippery plan and he her husband would allow it. He’d play her little game and let her win over and over again. He would let her have a challenge though knowing he would lose but playing like a true soldier or a lamb to the slaughter?. He was not sure now because the things he wife would do sometimes would astound him not being able to recognise her form sometimes, her eyes drunken with desire, her lips yearning for his, her body bending towards him always leaning in as if to sink into his skin, to stay there forever, to become truly one. She would bewilder him and he would have to hold back for both of them because she would beg him to finally take her but he knew she wasn’t ready and he couldn’t ruin all that he had planned, so when she got too “hot”, he would leave her for a bit, maybe go and stay in one of his other houses out of town, focus on other things, maybe his other businesses he kept to distract himself from always ogling her body and trying to tease it. Maybe a new project would help, maybe repaint his whole house!.
So you see she wasn’t an easy woman to deal with. It wasn’t as if he was always in control, she highly influenced most of his decisions, even though she supported most of his decisions she didn’t support all. The one’s she didn’t support were related to Christian’s intoxication, the drugs. Christian didn’t do much for most of his days he was an upstanding man at least in the point of view of the people he helped, his family knew his heart, Ilham too, she knew him most of all, his little insecurities, little fears and worries. How he worried she would leave him if her father did not approve. She knew she wouldn’t and she told him but this little fear of his was pretty. He feared losing her is how she would put it. She would never abandon him, that she didn’t fear her dad enough to let go of her soul mate, that there was nothing that could make her lose him and in her own way was using his fear to test his love for her to see if he really did and why for she was just a simple girl not as fun as the other girls he was accustomed to, the girls who were known as the “baddies”, the ones who created trends, the ones who would make parties lit, the ones who had their little businesses and their big ones, whatever they set out to do they did and they were “bad” at it. They embraced all sides of themselves, did not pretend, did things for themselves not because what people would say. Ilham always thought about what people would say especially the people at the mosque, the young ladies who were being moulded to be like Ilham by their mothers. What would the mothers say?, would they take her for a fraud?, a wolf in sheep clothing. Would she become what the mothers would teach their daughters not to be?, that she was the worst dating a fraud boy and going to his house to let him be with her while he was on all those drugs, those drugs would make him be with her for long periods of time. Ilham didn’t understand why people thought like this because why couldn’t it mean something else, maybe because he was loving and gentle and took his time to get his woman all right, that he understood the concept of how a woman’s body activated; sort of like an oven whilst a man’s was like a kettle. Wouldn’t it be wise that a man would spend a long time making love to his woman so at least she could enjoy it too unless the man did not regard the woman’s pleasure which was not in her case but in the case of other girls, she had heard a few narrations about those girl’s encounters and it did not sound pleasant. Ilham realised that if everyone thought this way then it was most likely miseducation from their mothers and aunties who were not having similar luck in the bedroom either but instead of having honest conversations with their daughters about these things, they would simply say incorrect things like stamina was a bad thing and only a man who took a lot of drugs had such capabilities. The only thing she would change about Christian was the drugs. She would also make sure he never saw a baddie again in his life, Christian couldn’t convince her he didn’t find those girls attractive. Aside the fact that they looked like they were being paid heavily just for existing, they were mostly ambitious young women who had made substantial money in their businesses, they had also become so popular that men were proposing love left and right, flying them out just to feel their presence and company. They carried their own weight and had beaten the odds. Some were already making six figures or more while she was still in school and heavily relied on her father for her upkeep. Her dad made it clear he wanted to get her all she needed so she wouldn’t seek it in the wrong places, which he considered to be a fraud boys house, so even though he provided her with more than she could ever want she still found herself at the exact place he had warned her about not out of disrespect for her father but because she believed that he was her soul mate and they were meant to be, and she was right because you should have seen them together, like two puzzle pieces that fitted into one and now can never separate fitting perfectly together. They were always happy together, making jokes and of course making out, but that was not all about them, there was this connection, like they had always known each other like their souls travelled in the same direction and danced to the same songs. They were indeed soulmates and they were not letting anything ruin it not even their dumb insecurities.





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