Lash wakes up and checks the time. She jumps, fretting as she realizes she's missed her Subh prayer. As she stands up, she feels herself damp. Looking down, she sees blood and almost screams. She takes her bath and scrambles her drawers for a sanitary pad. She finally finds two pads and she almost squeals in joy.

After getting dressed, she hears the bell being rung so she wears her Hijab and rushes outside. After collecting her orders and signing, she goes inside and organizes everything. She picks her phone and sees a message from Zulqa. Smiling like a loon, Lash takes her raspberry veil and drapes it over the slate Atelier Vedahno gown she's wearing. Adding butterscotch Ray-Ban spectacles to shield her eyes, she slips on ebony Fendi heels and takes her phone and the key to her Porsche before securing all her doors with locks.

Once outside, she locks the main gate with a huge padlock before hiding the keys in her pigeonhole. Then she drives to the garden.

On reaching the garden, Lash says her Basmallah then walks into the garden. She sights Zulqa sitting on a bench and immediately she sits beside him, he stands up.

"Start talking." Zulwa simply says as she stands about seven feet away from Lash.

"When I got promoted to SS1, I told my mum I wanted to start a business because she's getting old and I don't even know my father. We were running short on money and it wouldn't be long before I had to write my external exams, then I'd have to get admission to the university. We needed money and my mother's business - which I didn't know what it was at that time - wasn't striving...

"Lash!" Lash's mother calls fourteen year old Lash into the parlor.

"Ma!" Lash says from the kitchen and a petite fourteen year old who'd pass for a ten year old any day if not for the prominent outstanding breast comes out.

"Take your uniform and put them in a nylon. You have three minutes." Lash scurries to her room and takes her checkers. Rushing out, she meets her mum talking to a man. She walks out not bothering to ask who the man is, what he's doing in their house and why her mum is blushing as he talks to her since she knows that her mum has already sworn to not have any relationship with a man - the reason she isn't aware of -, not that her mother would bother to answer her anyway. That's how they roll, everyone minding their business - not that Lash would like her mum meddling in her affairs.

She walks out and she's surprisingly met with a beautiful ruby 2019 Volkswagen Jetta. The car is literally... She can't seem to find the word. But one question invades her once happy mind. Whose car is this?

After standing there for almost five minutes, Lash gets tired and suddenly remembers the Agwaluba - African star apple - someone dashed her in school today. She hurriedly takes it out of the pocket of her checkers and without washing it, she removes the little branch poking out and then presses it making all the transparent jelly juice come out. She uses her mouth to stop it from dripping on the floor and she suppresses the urge to moan. That is one heck of a delicacy.

Within a minute, she's done with it so she pours the seeds on the ground and cleans her sticky palm on her oat dress. Her mother saunters out in a beautiful gown she's never seen her in. Where'd she get the money to buy such beautiful gown when she hasn't even paid her last term's school fees? She knows how much her mother abhors the idea of lending or borrowing clothes or anything for that matter. This might be a trick into getting her to ask so she can get beaten, again. Nah, not happening. She isn't going to say a word.

Her last thought is confirmed when her mother calls her and twirls in front of her asking if she looked good. Undoubtedly, Lash's mother looks so carefree and beautiful as she twirls so Lash sums up the most convincing and honest smile her body can produce.

"Ma, you look so gorgeous." Lash's mother grins and brings out what seems to be a car remote or is it a car key? Lash doesn't really know, not that she actually cares. The car door automatically opens and Lash is asked to go in, which she does without arguments.

The man - whose name turns out to be Adamu - drives them to a huge three storey building in an area which clearly houses influential people. Lash gulps, she hoped they're not becoming maids in this man's house. She's heard stories about how maids suffer in their master's houses and heaven knows her fourteen year old self cannot condone that.

After they've gotten into one of the most beautiful houses there, the man - much to Lash's surprise - hands over the car key to her mother before kissing her long and hard square in the mouth. Lash visible cringes, bile rising up to her throat as she watches them shove their tongues down each other's throats. Things get heated when she watches her mum's gown get bunched up to her abdomen, showcasing her fair tanned laps and her transparent silk pant. The man pushes his hand into Lash's mother's shirt, bunching up her gown more and Lash decides to look away seeing as she's seen enough things to last her a lifetime supply of disgusting nightmares.

After about five minutes or more, Lash hears her mother giggle and peck someone - definitely Adamu - sloppily and she can already imagine the amount of saliva he'll have on his face. Adamu groans.

"If not that your daughter is here, I would've taking things farther." The man traces Lash's mother's boobs with one of his hands while the other gently squeezes her behind.

"Let's take it one step at a time okay? Come back next week. Same time." Lash's mother smiles seductively and the man leaves, without the car.

Lash looks at her mother perplexed who grins and says "that's your new father."

"You're getting married?!" Lash blurts and almost immediately covers her mouth as if to block the words from spurting out, but they already have.

"Yes, so?" Lash mutters nothing and wordlessly follows her mother into the house. A maid is sweeping the house, another is cooking and another is arranging clothes in the rooms.

"This is your room." Lash's mother stops at the end of a long corridor on the first floor. Lash nods and enters wordlessly. She wanted to ask, how does she get a room but knowing what the consequences of her actions will be, she keeps her mouth shut.

Two weeks later.

Lash walks into the house from school gloomy, as usual. She starts strolling past her mother without any form of greeting or acknowledgement, not that she'd be given any attention. There was no need to acknowledge her. She obviously heard her exchanging pleasantries with the maids.

"I've changed your school. Your bus will be here by six thirty tomorrow to pick you up. You're going to be attending Nigerian Turkish International College. Your uniform is on your bed. I also got you a phone, the SIM card, charger and ear pod are on the bed." Lash looks at her mother, astonished. Where could she have gotten all this money from. First, a car, then a house, a new phone, a wierd man coming to their so called 'house' every day to do disgusting things with her mum, then a forbidden room, and now this?!

Lash looks at her mother and sums up the courage to ask her mother, she knows the consequences but heaven knows she's kept quiet for a while now.

"Ma, what's going on? I've been seeing how you're lavishly spending money and I know we don't have any money so please, care to explain?" Lash knows that her last sentence sounds rude but right now, she doesn't care. All she requires is an answer then her mother can go to hell for all she cares. Not really. She really loves her mother. Wierd right?

Surprisingly, the consequences never came. Instead, her mother calls her full name - Nana Aisha Humaira - making her cringe. Anytime she calls her full name, it's either she's angry, or she wants to make her do something despicably and contemptibly all shades of wrong. It has to be something vile.

"Look at me." Lash's mother says in a soft voice making Lash to tear her gaze to her mother. This is what she hates about her mother - she uses emotional blackmail, to make her do vile unsayable things.

"Naima!" One of the maids Lash has gotten acquainted to appears.

"Get my calabash in my forbidden room." Naima nods and disappears as if she was never there. Soon enough, the maid comes back with a calabash covered with red silk material. Opening it, Lash's mother mutters somethings under her breath and soon enough three wads of dollars appear in the calabash making Lash gasp. Where'd the money appear from?!

"This is where I get all my money. And don't think because I answered your question I won't punish you. You'll be punished. But for now, you need to start learning more about this stuff. It's called sorcery and is going to be our family business."

Lash can't seem to continue as her miserable excuse of a life plays in her head, like a movie she's watched thousands of times. She would've loved to continue, would've. But the pity look Zulqa is giving her is making her feel insecure and not so sure. Here comes the Lash she's successfully hidden for almost ten years.

Zulqa looks at her as she finishes and the next thing he does surprises her. He rushes to her and hugs her so hard while wetting her cloth with tears.

"I'm sorry I judged you without giving you a listening ear. I didn't know you had no choice. But do you know what? Despite knowing that you were a sorcerer, I couldn't stop thinking about you. I couldn't stop imagining you doing things. I couldn't stop remembering all our memories together and I had to resist the urge to rush to your house and talk to you or at least catch a glimpse of you. I'm sorry Aisha, I'm sorry. " Lash hugs him back as tears gather in her eyes, she doesn't know what she did to deserve him but whatever it is, she hopes it stays the way it is.

Zulqa suddenly detaches himself from her muttering Astagfirullah.

"What's wrong?" Lash asks taken aback by his sudden detachment.

"It's Haram for a man to hug a woman that isn't his wife, sister or mother." Lash nods and a smile suddenly breaks into Zulqa's face.

"Leave your car here and get in my car. I'm coming, let me make a call." Lash nods and he tosses her the key. She catches it with zero effort and Zulqa sends her a thumbs up. She smiles a smug smile and walks to his car.

A few minutes later, a man who looks exactly like Zulqa just that he has fuller hair which has been tangled comes. Maybe he was sleeping when Zulqa called him. He still looks handsome nonetheless. He turns to Lash and gives her a disgusted look before he shakes his head as if to say no to Zulqa. Zulqa clenches and unclenches his fist before pointing a finger to him. The other man slumps his shoulder before Zulqa hands him a key and he glares at Lash before entering her car and zooming off angrily.

"Hedoesn't like me right?" Lash asks, she can't help but feel apprehensive.

"Huh?" Zulqa feigns ignorance.

"Your brother, he doesn't like me. Right?" Zulqa chuckles humorlessly.

Well shit just got real!