BE FREE by Ubong Johnson

When he buries it deep—balls deep—you shut your eyes. You don’t want to see. Tonight, you’re a grave, and his penis is a body that is thrown inside you. But. Whom has killed whom? You, or him? Maybe no one has killed anything. Is this death? It does not seem so. It seems instead like you have just found life in this man’s hands, in his insatiable desire for the warmth of a vagina over his penis.

If anything dies or has died tonight, it is his purity and not yours. It is his hope; yours does not die, it comes alive. Because, when all this is over, he would fulfill his part of the bargain. He would tell the lie that would save you. He would say he reached into your soul and took a hold of it. That he cast the devil deep into the ground, never to come to light again.

Don’t cry. This man, it is he who is the pure one and has something to lose. Remember? It is he who gets bowed to by those peasants in his church. This church.

You are many things, and pure is not one. You are not the one losing tonight. Don’t cry. To your father, who is standing just outside the gate with your brother, waiting, you are a witch; you killed your mother. To him, you are not a sixteen-year old and definitely not his daughter. You are forty. Or perhaps more than that.

They say nothing is the same in the world you really are from.

When last night your brother whipped you with a broomstick, he had asked you to say your real name. He is 21.

“What is your real name!?” He thundered.

You said your name, and instead of growing calm, he whipped even harder.

“I mean your name! The one they call you over there. You think I don’t know you’re a witch? That you swallow everything down there. You are witch and you killed my mother.”

You looked up at father, and he threw his face the other way.

“Answer the question.”

Seconds passed, and when you said nothing, the broomstick lost its value to your brother. Brother tossed it aside and moulded his fingers into a fist. He crouched on a knee beside you as you lay there on the ground, and soon, your flesh was an artist that painted his knuckles with blood paste.

“Please!” You barked. “I am not a witch. I promise. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anyone!”

This wasn’t the first time this was happening. This confrontation. This beating. In fact, it started happening months ago. When mother died. When some cat began to cry atop your roof from midnight until morning. So, your brother and father weren’t moved by your crying. The first time, they sure we’re moved. But now? No.

“You are lying.”

Two more punches, and your father lost it. Somehow, somewhere in there, something melted. You didn’t look up, but you could see it. Imagine it. A flicker of emotion: something alike to pity but not necessarily it, loosening the taut furrows birthed of scowls across his forehead.

“Leave her alone. We’d take her to church tomorrow night. One last time. And if she resists the deliverance again, if she lets that demon fight Pastor’s spirit when he rubs olive oil across her forehead, I’d send her out of my house. She can then go kill as many people as she wants to kill.”

*

Your squeeze your eyes even tighter when his weight presses over you. He is jerking all over. The sweat from his forehead slides across your neck, and he whimpers like a child before going still.

It is done.

A moment passes, and he climbs to his feet from off you and gets to buckling his belt.

“Stand up.” He says. “Stand up.”

When you stand, you are a mess. The warm semen slithers down your thighs and you can almost smell the shame in the air you breathe. At least, it does not hurt. You are fine. Sort of. You’d be fine.

He looks at you for a moment, then takes his eyes away.

“Clean up. We’re going out now. Get yourself together, and never say anything about this.”

You nod and offer him your hand. He takes it, and by a gentle grip guides your walking beside him.

Paces behind the gate, he begins to speak in tongues.

“Chief, come take your daughter! He whom the son of man has set free is free indeed!”

For the first time in months, there’s a smile on your father’s face when he looks at you.

You are free.