Chapter One (b)

I don't know this woman whose sentences rush out of her mouth as though trying to win a race in the Olympics. Or, for that matter, this woman sitting in my room, on my bed, discussing therapy with me. Her whips and caustic tongue have the best therapeutic effect, after all. They leave long lasting impressions on my skin, mind, and head. Impressions that are deep enough and agonising enough for them to keep me away from things I shouldn't do.

This woman who caught me in an unspeakable act and only let out a short strangled sound, stepped out of my room, closed the door without so much as a click, much less a bang. The woman I know would have pounced on me, ripped the panties that dangled around my ankles. She would have pulled me, naked as the day as I was born, by the ears to the kitchen, whacking and shrieking at me along the way.

My mother would have made me watch as she ground red pepper on the local grinding slab. She would boil the pepper over a low heat. The longer I had to tremble and sob in anticipation of what would come, the greater her pleasure.

I spent all of yesterday, since that afternoon, and all of today, imagining how she would soak the lethal koboko in the boiled pepper and horsewhip me to a coma. Maybe, due to the nature of my crime, a large portion of the pepper, still steaming hot, would go between my legs. Some would probably go into my eyes, as well.

When all this didn't happen yesterday, I thought she was playing one of her sick games. Making me distraught with terror and dread. When it didn't happen overnight, I braced myself for this morning. Morning came, trickled by, and I trudged through classes, profoundly sick with fear and unable to think of nothing but my impending doom and possible death.

Now, I'm not entirely sure she isn't still playing games. I'm not entirely sure she is.

Either way, I'll be damned if I sit before an ugly, self-righteous wench—therapist—and lay bare the most intimate par...

"She gave me a questionnaire. You'll have to answer the questions, and I'll send it over before we meet her. That's okay, right?"

This is the only trick question I recognise. So, though I want to say no, it's not, tell her to mind her shitty business, and go hug a transformer, I say, "Yes, it is, ma."

"Okay. Okay." A pause. "I'll..." She stands. "This is the questionnaire. I can wait and we can answer it together. That's if you want," she adds.

My mouth is about to say something I'll hate it for when the nearby mosque's speaker crackles to life, and a brother, who I've never seen but who has done several voiceovers for the male stars in my sexual fantasies, calls the Adhan for Maghrib.

"Ah. It's time for prayer. I'll just drop the questionnaire and maybe come back later." She walks over.

With each step she takes toward me, my heartbeat spikes. She drops a thin pad of paper on my study table, picks it up, flips through it. "There are boxes before each question. You just need to thick the right box. Maybe use a pencil. Yes"—she places the paper back on the table—"a pencil will be good. In case, you make a mistake."

She reaches for me. I recoil, visibly. Her hand hangs in the air for a moment before falling to her side. "I'll leave you to pray," she says. Dress swishing, she glides out of my room.

My eyes hop to the door, don't hop away until I can no longer hear her footsteps. Then I'm hit. A full blast of mingled emotions burst through my insides and spread like hot, dark venom in my veins.

Rage. Revulsion. Confusion.

Shame.

Need. The burning need to make all these painful feelings go away. I pull out the desk drawer, scrabble about for my phone, find it. As though it's been waiting for me to come along, it beeps.

There's a text. I know who it's from.

I won't tell him Ummi caught us yesterday. He saw the shock in my eyes.

I won't tell him she's booked a therapy session for me. He'll laugh and say if Ummi knew the number of porn videos on my phone, the number of times he's seen me naked, the number of times he's commanded me to pleasure myself and watched while I did, she wouldn't book a therapist. She'd book a fucking exorcist.

He'll chortle about my mother's naivety, and I won't like it. I won't like it at all as it will be a mockery. Of me. Most especially, of Ummi.

And I may hate her to the last cell in my toes, but I won't stand for her being mocked.