“I’m trying to kiss you.” Isabella was matter-of-fact about it; she was not shy, not accustomed to being rejected.
“What about Toki?”
“What about him?”
“You’re engaged.”
“Like he’s not fucking around,” she scoffed.
“Listen, I’m not trying to be part of some kind of revenge plot.”
“Chill jare, it’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
“Are you not attracted to me?”
“You’re drunk.”
“I am. Are you not attracted to me?” Raised eyebrows.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t fuck my friends.” Shrug.
“We’re not really friends, though, are we?” Again with the raised eyebrows.
“I’d like to be.” Shrug.
“I wouldn’t.” Isabella’s pupils were dark discs in honey-brown irises. Her mouth curved in a smile, but her eyes stayed mute as she continued. “But if you say no, I’ll put my dress on and leave.”
So much silence passed.
Taiye didn’t say no.
She was an adaptable lover, quick to intuit her partner’s preferences and unabashedly inquisitive whenever desires weren’t entirely clear. With Isabella, Taiye took the lead. Isa was pliable, eager, vocal. They were both inebriated well past the point of inhibition.
“Try not to be too loud, my mumsie is asleep,” Taiye said against the soft skin of Isabella’s throat.
“Oh,” Isabella cooed, “you must think really highly of yourself.”
“No, that’s not what … I just mean … actually, well, yeah.”
On to kissing, fingers thrusting firmly, tongue lapping, a bite here, sucking, gasping; Isabella came quickly, hard, several times. Then, with her face still resting on the warmth of Isabella’s thighs, Taiye drew her own wetness and made herself come.
THE TRUTH WAS, Taiye would have been happy with just a kiss. She realized this, alone again in her bed, moments before drifting into sleep.
Now the affair had lasted longer than either of them could have predicted. Taiye told herself that she didn’t want to see Isabella anymore, but follow-through had proven difficult. Her resolve around these matters had always been easy to sway. Just the day before Taiye picked up Kehinde from the airport, Isabella had showed up at the gate of their house in her fiancé’s red Honda.
“I’m just here to gist small,” she’d said. “Also, I brought suya.”
She’d offered up the newspaper-wrapped roasted meat, and then started to undress as soon as Taiye shut her bedroom door. And Taiye, with a plastic bottle of cold zobo hibiscus tea in one hand and two tumblers cradled in the crook of her elbow, had stood there, defenceless.
Afterward, Taiye said, “We need to stop.”
“Okay,” Isabella replied, and licked a dusting of spice mix off her fingers. “I understand … I don’t even do this. Like I’m not a lesbian, or whatever.” She exhaled loudly and lifted her sweaty face to the ceiling. Eyes closed, she said, “There’s just … I don’t know. I like being with you, Taiye …” She shook her head slowly, having heard this from “straight” women many times before.
She hadn’t heard from Isabella since. It was a good thing.
It’s a good thing, Taiye.
Oh, the struggle to be better than oneself.
“Coca-Cola, I won’t call her,” Taiye said to the cat purring softly in her lap.
“Who aren’t you calling?”
Taiye jumped, and the cat flew out of her lap.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Farouq said as he walked into the kitchen.
Kehinde
TAIYE AND I USED TO BE ONE CELL, one zygote. Isn’t that wild? I sometimes wonder if we knew each other before birth, if we were sisters, or the same person who grew tired of herself and shed the parts she didn’t want. Perhaps I am the unwanted bits, the chaff, and Taiye the wheat.
She is sitting cross-legged on the floor by the fridge. She doesn’t see me yet, though I am just by the kitchen door. Farouq is leaning his back against the counter, his arms supporting him so that his elbows jut out behind him; he doesn’t see me either.
Their voices are low. I can’t properly hear what they’re saying, but Taiye has this look on her face as if she’s about to crack open and pour everywhere. She’s shaking her head slowly, and Farouq is nodding.
I’m curious, I feel left out, but I don’t want to interrupt, so I go back up to my room. I don’t understand this jealousy that has crept inside me; I am not usually possessive. Maybe it’s the heat.
I married Farouq at city hall with five friends as witnesses. Afterward we went dancing at this tiny Haitian bar I love in the Gay Village to celebrate. I was several tequila shots and a tab of Molly deep, dancing on a mirrored floor with strobing pink lights and a bass so intense I felt my insides vibrate in time to the music. I looked up from the bottom of another shot glass, and Taiye was dancing right in front of me, beckoning me to join her. She was wearing the same black halter dress as I was, had the same waist-length box braids. But I was sure it was her. Even in the dimly lit club, I could make out the scar on her chin. And the way she moved. Taiye moves differently from me. She’s not afraid to be seen.
I walked toward her on the dance floor, I tried to take her hand, but in an instant, she was gone, and I was left pawing at my reflection on a mirrored wall.
All this space between us now is dense, heavy. I know that it’s not normal for sisters. It hasn’t always been like this. Even though I was seething before, I don’t think it’s supposed to be like this, not anymore.
I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you about the bad thing, the first thing that split us.
It started after our father’s death, with Aunty Funke and the man she brought, Uncle Ernest. Aunty Funke was one of our father’s distant cousins—it is only after many steps and ladders that their connection becomes clear. She came for our father’s funeral and stayed long after we’d put him in the ground at Ikoyi Cemetery. She claimed that she remained to “help with the children, because a mother should not be on her own at a time like this.” After many weeks of her ignoring us, hosting prayer meetings in the living room, and ordering Sister Bisi around, Uncle Ernest came to join her. He arrived with the rainy season, so we were confined to the three storeys of the house.
The day he arrived, Taiye stopped sleeping my bedroom with me; though we had separate rooms, we shared mine at night. She told me and Sister Bisi that she hated him, but she didn’t know why. She would climb into my bed and hold my hand until I fell asleep. Then she would tiptoe down the hallway and curl herself at the foot of our mother’s bed.
Aunty Funke and Uncle Ernest slept in one of the guest rooms on the ground floor. Every day after school, I saw Uncle Ernest sitting on a stool outside the black wrought-iron gates of our compound with the gateman. A big smile eating up half his broad face, he often asked, “Ibeji, you’ve come back already? Didn’t you just leave now now?”
I laughed, but Taiye never responded. She always struggled out of his attempts at hugs and ran inside, away from him, dragging me behind her. She said it was the way he looked at us. I didn’t see it, even after Taiye whispered into my ear one evening, “I don’t like the way he makes his eyes.”
It’s