No medicine man in this village has ever seen a rash like the one on Uloma’s left flank—small blisters that run as though the middle of her body is where they must not cross. Painful. Itchy . Even Aljani, who just clocked ninety and has treated more diseases than a two-year-old has seen days, doesn’t know what this rash is. He tells Uloma it must be the divination of a witch, someone cunning enough to cheat the laws of suffering; who has woven anguish like a cassock out of nothing, and placed it over Uloma’s body.
Uloma wonders who it might be. Every night is a bout of sweating. The beads buried in the skin around her neck have become bigger, mobile, and painful. She is changing, fading. Names skitter in and out of her mind. But only one sticks close: Nkese—a woman in her thirties, whose husband Uloma has rocked and fucked for a year and some months since she returned from the city.
This man’s front door continues to see Uloma’s feet; his room walls her naked body. Whenever her fevers leave and the rash on her flank fades, she heads over to his house and pleasures him. The maids there say that even though he denies it and hides his own rash in layers of cloth, he got Uloma’s familial ill luck and gave it to his wife’s sister, who soon began to cough up blood, eventually thinning and thinning until she died.
Nkese went mad following Edima’s death because, with that soul, left the dream that Boko’s seed would be housed in the womb of a woman who shared Nkese’s blood. Nkese, you see, could not bear children because she had long been forced into celibacy by the intense pain that came being entered into.
After what everyone said was a normal stabbing following the perforation of one’s hymen, Nkese relaxed in the belief that sex would become more pleasurable. But with the second sex came an even nastier pain, like an open bleeding wound inside of her. Nkese knew she had to stay away from sex after the third attempt at penetration; that night, she screamed, and prayed, and shouted the name of gods but Boko won’t stop until he ejaculated. Nkese has not been touched since. When Boko initially began to complain about Nkese’s refusal to pleasure him, she ignored it. But it soon became overbearing, and so she offered Boko the now-late Edima.
“This is my sister, have your children. Let me find pleasure on the tongue of a woman.”
Uloma can feel eyes behind her. Firm. Bitter. But she ignores them, walking past the garage where two small Volkswagens are parked, towards Boko’s front door. Three knocks, and the door opens. The attending maid walks back into the corridor after a curt bow.
Uloma takes a seat on the largest sofa in the sitting room, knowing that Boko will be with her soon. She does not expect to see Nkese, whose face is covered with white powder. She jerks in shock as their eyes hit each other, a small mirror almost falling off Nkese’s hand.
“Good. Good. Good.” Uloma swallows. “Good morning, Ma.”
“Good morning. How are you?”
“I. I am fine.”
“Okay. I was taking a bath. How is the child?”
“I haven’t taken in yet, Ma.”
“Oh. That’s a pity. Just keep trying, okay?”
“I have told you to forget her,” Boko says. His chest is pressed against Uloma’s breasts. “Forget her. I promise you, she is going to come around.”
He watches as Uloma’s eyes soften and leans in for a kiss. He rubs along her flank, noting that the rashes are barely there.
“What did you do to it?”
“I rubbed leaves.”
“And the night sweats?”
“That one is still there.”
Uloma puts a finger across Boko’s lips, pulls him close, and kisses his neck.
The sex is quick yet pleasant.
When Boko releases, he backs away in fear at the greenness of his semen.
“She has struck again!” He mumbles, gets dressed, and heads towards Nkese’s room.
Two weeks pass, and one morning, Uloma is unable to pee without screaming. Inside her urethra, urine feels like fire, like scalding oil. Another week of suffering passes, and she notices some greenness in her discharges.
When she visits Boko to speak about it, the first thing he says to her is: “Your arms seem smaller.”
Uloma barks a laugh. “You say this every time.”
“No. I mean it this time.”
He reaches for her neck and pokes at one of those beads buried behind her skin. “This has grown bigger, too.”
Uloma doesn’t respond.
“Tell me.” Boko says: “Do you have a cough that comes at night?”
“Yes.”
“Do you see blood in it?”
“Yes.” Uloma backs away. “I don’t see how this matters. I cannot pee. Could you give me something? Talk to someone.”
“You don’t get it. That’s how she died. My wife killed her sister.”
Author Bio: Ubong left hospital wards to become a freelance B2C marketer. He loves life, and food, and eats whatever isn’t poisonous—except fish and onions. His works appear on Afritondo, FANTASY Magazine, The West Trade Review, etc. Ubong is the author of Shege Banza, a comic exploration of grief you should read today. Now.