She was running around, her laughter full of sparkle and that of a happy pleased child. The setting sun tinted the sky orange and purple, making it the perfect time for the children to come outside to play. The surrounding was a spread of lively green grasses, the happy voices of children and vibrant flowers that made the new season. Hearty and triumph was the laughter that filled the air. With a ball in hand, she jumped as high as her feet would lift her and threw the ball at her brother.

In the gazebo, her mother sat with her sisters. Her mother plaited Toke's black hair into beautiful cornrows and laughed along with Tenny and Kenny who sat with her. In the pool, Makinde and Samson swam as though it was a competition.

It gave her contentment and happiness from within to be among her family after a hectic day in school. The next throw of ball that came from Miracle was meant to hurt her. It slammed against her head sending her to the floor. He laughed. She disliked it. With determination, she picked the ball and threw it at him.

Then, suddenly, she had a rod in hand. Her heartbeat, each fearful thump could be heard by her. She had a dazed look, numb from what she was staring at. Blood was all over her, a dead massacre cat in front of her. She looked around, blood dripping on from her face and clothes soaked with viscous red liquid. Her family stood around. She felt the silent storm coming. She met her mother's fearful and worried eyes.

Gently, the people around her changed. From an eerie quietness, it became a clustered noise. The cat changed to an unconscious girl of her age. She was standing near the unconscious body, too still to move or say a word, accusation were being thrown and many backed away with shocked look.

What happened?

Why?

You've killed her.

What have you done Lola?

A gasp, orders were being thrown, the garbled murmurs among the students continued. She saw Sophia's mocking face. There was a tap on her shoulder. She whirled around. He stood there, his eyes filled with an evil glint and a very mischievous smile. She took a shaky step back. He took a confident step forward. Her dress had changed. She had a white silk on. Sweat coated her skin and fear travelled through her like mercury. The hallway was barely lit with light. Dread sent a power she had never felt before. Her feet moved beneath her and she sprinted down the hallway. He followed with determination, shouting her name. He roared and she saw and sensed the devil in him.

Her sobs grew louder, tears ran down her face. Getting closer to the wooden stairway gave her hope. She wanted to get away from him, from death and evil deed. She had taken the first step down the stairway when she felt his hand clamp over her arm.

A fearful scream emitted her lips. He slammed her against the baluster not giving her weakened body the chance to slip instead he tug her up and threw her into the hallway.

"Please, please, please" she begged crawling back. He ripped his shirt off. Gone was the cool man she knew. Here, she had a beast with her. As he took steps closer, he loosened the buckle of his belt that held his trousers to his waist. Red eyes budged out from their sockets. He charged at her and she screamed out her lungs, her scream was the type that could alert anyone.

He cursed, shouted she should stop as he slammed his fist over her face. His palm left a stinging pain over her cheek. He yanked her by her hair and pulled her back. She struggled, pleaded and cried, kicking her legs as he dragged her to the room.

"Please don't do it. Please don't touch me. Please, leave me alone. Please, I beg you" It became a chant he did not listened to.

Lola felt hands around her. They felt real, so real and manly. She gasped for air in her sleep. She felt the shake. It was forceful. He had come. He had her.

"Please don't do it. Please don't touch me. Please, leave me alone. Please, I beg you" she pleaded, tears running down her face.

"Lola" Joshua called shaking her from sleep.

"Please, leave me. Please, I beg you" she chanted.

"Hey, wake up" he shook her harder.

"Please" she fought him. "Leave me!" she pushed him.

"Lola" his voice became clearer to her.

"Please leave me" she cried. He did. "Please don't touch me" she rocked back and forth in bed repeating the words over and over again as she curled like a ball.

Joshua watched her. The sight before him weakened him. Sweat coated her skin. Her nightie hugged her body due to perspiration. She trembled like she was feeling cold. Her hair was a nest on her head. Her chants reduced and soon she said nothing instead her ragged breathing could be heard.

"Lola" his voice was almost inaudibly as he moved closer to her. She lifted her eyes. The lamp on her nightstand which he had switched on had casted a glow over her damp face. Her eyelashes were wet from weeping. "It was a nightmare" his voice, as soft as a wind, floated across the room. It was soothing, reassuring.

Tentatively, he placed a hand over her shoulder. She had not flinched instead she allowed him caress her hair and wipe her sweat to relieve her. Lola raised her eyes to hold his. He saw vulnerability in them. In the glassy pair was fear.

"You are fine" he whispered running a hand up and down her arm.

"I am alright" she said detaching her eyes from his. "Please I want to be alone" the words had not come out harsh instead they came from a broken woman.

He did left her and rose from bed to visit the toilet. Just as he entered the toilet, she got down from bed. Her head pounded. She felt like her brains were vibrating. Standing on her feet was an issue. She felt frail. She managed to get to the drawer where she kept those pills, took the ones she had forgotten to use and sat down to relaxed herself. She stretched her stiff muscle. Her bones cracked.

Relieved, Lola got up and went to the closet. Few minutes later, she came out with her nightie's kimono on and headed to the living room. Joshua walked out immediately she closed the door behind her. He headed for the drawer she had picked those pills from to check them out. He saw the bottle of pills hidden in a leather bag under some clothes. What's wrong with her? He knew nothing about medicine so he took pictures of the plastics and sent them to a certain someone with a message telling the person he wanted to know what the pills were for. He was left deliberating on what was wrong with his wife and what she was hiding from him?

Joshua found her in the living room trying to switch on the television. Her kimono flapped in an elegant swirl to the air the ceiling fan blew.

"Why did you get out of bed?" he asked resting on a chair. She does not seem surprised which meant she knew he was standing behind her.

"I wanted to get a different air" she replied tilting her head slightly to give him a soft and easy smile.

"You got a pretty face"

"Many say that" she looked away slightly flushed.

"And a nice skin" he moved closer.

"Admiring? Aren't we?"

"I can't help it. It's too late to be up"

"What's the time?" she looked back at him.

"Few minutes past two" he replied.

His eyes lingered on her. She saw what he wanted to do. He wanted to ask her about her nightmare. She tucked her hair behind her ear mindlessly.

"Don't ask me about it" she said.

"I won't" his mouth quivered up.

Lola shifted away from the television to sit down in one of the sofas. She crossed her legs and rested her back against the seat. Joshua lifted his body from the railing to have a good view of her. There was confidence in the way she sat. She was majestic, gracious and emitted strength, a woman who was her own boss, a woman who disliked to be controlled. Her hair fell perfectly without her even trying to smoothen the waves out. A graceful neck held her head high.

"Was this a shoot or you rode a motorbike here?" he asked taking out his phone to show her a picture.

In the picture, she was dressed in bum shorts, a tank top with the red sport bra she wore underneath peaking a bit. Her feet were cladded in white sneakers, chains around her wrist. Lola rested on a bike.

A smile, slow and soft, grew on her face. "Do you stalk me handsome?" she laid a hand on the armrest wanting to rest her head on it. Her eyes, he was not sure, but there was something different in them. They barely left his face and there was something more beautiful about the brown pair that pulled him to her and roiled his body with hot need.

"No" he tucked the phone away into his pyjamas pocket. "I was on Instagram when I came across it. I decided to check your page" he moved to seat opposite her. They had a coffee table in between them.

"It was not a shoot. I rode a bike there" Amusement glazed his eyes with a little lift of his bushy eyebrow. "It was a trip to Morocco. I met some bikers in the desert and took a ride with them"

"It means you know how to ride a bike?"

"Yes" she lifted her head from her hand and left the hand dangling over the armrest. Her flawless refined fingers had his attention which he denied to give. "I learnt it in California" Even though those eyes trifled with him, they did not hide the misery in them.

"It's a beautiful photograph"

"I have travelled a lot. When I went to Havana, I rode one of those vintage cars in a car race. I might not have won but it was thrilling to ride at a speed above normal" she smiled showing her teeth.

"When do you plan to leave for your journey to those other places you mentioned you will be this year?"

"You are my fan. How could I not know?"

"I stalked you on Instagram" He admitted "And checked your posts on Snapchat"

"A month or two from now" He hoped they would go together. He prays things would have been better between them. That can be a honeymoon trip for them. "I love photography. I got my first digital camera when I was fourteen, a gift from mummy. I love to travel. I want to document places and if I live longer than today, I will visit every part of the world" She uncrossed her legs. "Are you planning to work in ExxonMobil all your life?"

"No" he shook his head coming forward. He placed his elbows on his thighs and joined his hands together. "I am planning to own my accounting firm"

She looked at him. He was attractive. Dark hair and a sharp face, the undying glint in his eyes, a tall leanly muscled body. "You're planning to own an accounting firm?"

"Yes"

"Wow! Well, I have plans to change my studio" she stood up and glided like a feline onto the coffee table. "It's something I have been planning before we got married. I had stopped the preparation when I had to leave for Monaco. It's been three weeks since our wedding" she crossed a leg over the other. "It's bigger than my present studio, more spacious and it has many sets"

"How far have you gone?"

"As far as furnishing the place" She shifted closer to him. He sensed something was abnormal about her. "How was life in Isale-Eko?" a hand rested on his lap.

Lola could not tell what made her to do that but she had to. He was waking up something in her. He dropped his eyes momentarily on the spot then looked back at her face. His little smile grew wider. He got the message.

"It might be torture to many but that was life to me. I grew up there and I was born there. Life was not a bed of roses because we barely had money but it was fun. Those guys we met that day are family to me. Life was rough and violent. Little boys begin to form gangs and girls become what I don't know. Not all but most of those who grew in the ghetto area without proper parental training. I had friends whose mothers were prostitutes and fathers were thieves. That place is a part of me, was a part of me and will always be a part of me. It is a place I do not want to forget. I had my first cigarette at the age of twelve"

"You have got to be kidding me" the words rolled out of her tongue with disbelief.

"No" He gave a careless shrug. "I am not. A guy we call Chairman then handed it over to me and I took the risk. At fourteen, I was a heavy smoker, into drugs and drinking"

"How did you give up on everything?"

"Let's say God answered my mother's prayer"

"That must have been hard on your mother" she lifted her hand from his lap to rest it on his face, her voice sympathetic because she understood. Her mother had also gone through the same problem because of Makinde. "Your tattoos. How did you get them?"

He placed a hand on her exposed arm to leave light caress. He received a slight shiver from her which amused him. Does he have an effect on her just like she has on him? "I was in my second year in the university when I got the first one" He moved his hand from her arm to her hair.

"I like it" she stated sliding her hand down to lay on his chest.

Neither of them said a word. Lola dropped her hand back to his lap while his caress soothed her and made her relax. When she ran her pink tongue over her bottom lips, his eyes jerked to her lips which she liked. She was getting his attention and she loved it. He slithered away from the sofa to the table behind her, their laps brushing. Lola stifled, holding her breath at such contact, a contact that left goose bumps in its wake. He sat behind her reaching from her hair. He might not have noticed but her breathing had grew a little bit louder. She tried holding in every feeling which made her sweat. Silently, like it was his job, he gathered her hair in one large hand as his other reached for her wrist.

He took in her fragrance wanting to get familiar with it. He sensed the warmth her body gave and he wish he could hold her to him and enjoy it. She flinched to the contact his hand made on hers.

Something was wrong somewhere? Lola thought. There was a pull they both were not trying to repel. Why does he make her feel this way? Many men had come and go and out of all of them just one gave her feelings she never felt.

"The hair band on your wrist?" he whispered, a request she granted. Her palms were damp when he held her hand to remove the band around her wrist to hold the mane together.

"You bother me, Orekelewa" his voice was soft barely a whisper for her to hear. His warm breathe fanned her neck lifting the hair around it. Her heart staggered just as his did. There was a spark in the air around them, a spark they were yet to admit. He stood up and sat in his seat leaving her to get a hold of herself.

There was a powerful attraction for one another. She held in many miseries she chose to keep hidden. Whatever that nightmare was, it bothered her. It made her worry. He saw the hidden fear in the brown eyes that had gone soft. The softness in them were something he had never gotten from her. Kanji is bad. He thought trying to calm his body which was begging for released.

"We all have secrets we keep hidden, secrets we are scared to expose, secrets nobody see or know. You are not the only one life has dealt with Lola" he held her hand. "You have to know that we all have pain in here" he pointed at his chest where his heart was.

Lola maintained eye contact with him. Her heart thudded in her chest. Her pulse fluttered. His eyes, deep, dark and framed with thick eyelashes, the most enthralling of eyes she had ever looked into. The speed at which her heart raced increased scared her. What sort of man will have eyes that will give her these feelings? She looked into his eyes, seeing his soul and what was within. His eyes were hard and held pain. They were angry. There was a quiet fury in them. Why he had made her see the anger and pain, she had no answer to it.

"Your eyes are full of malice and rage" her eyes narrowed a bit as she stated her observation. "What could have put them in there?" her eyes searched his.

-----

He examined her from where he stood, well-built body against the door frame, a hand in his sweatpants' pocket. His lustful eyes trailed every inch of her. The nightie she had on was backless, a present from him to her. It was baby pink, complimenting her creamy gleaming skin, a result from many spas and skin treatments he had taken her to. It ended a little bit below her rear end, giving him the silky view of her legs. He had always wanted his wife pretty, someone he could flaunt, someone who will obey every rule of his and he had her. Her hair, long and silky was held up into a messy bun, few tendrils falling down the side of her pretty face. She had a small waist which enhanced the size of her hips and behinds. As though she was a meal and he was the lion eyeing his prey, he ran his tongue over his lips.

She had her head down, pink fluffy lips pressed in a line as she washed the dishes in the sink. Her eyelashes, long and thick caressed the hollow of her cheeks. She appeared innocent and feeble which was what he liked. He hated it when she get all chatty and rude. He had his ways of correcting her. Too absorb in lust which was hot and pumping through him, he raised his body from the door frame and threaded towards her. She was so engrossed in what she was doing to hear his footsteps or sense his presence until she felt the strong arms around her waist and her mellifluous body pressed into his hard one.

"Ahmad" she gasped out, her body suddenly rigid. Her heart propelled in her chest, sending the familiar feeling of dread to crawl into every part of her.

"Searched for you in bed, you were gone" he husked out, his lips barely an inch from her ear. "Why did you leave?" he questioned, his voice low and very rough from both sleep and desire.

"I...I...needed to do the dishes" she managed to squeak out.

He said nothing. Her breathing hastened, sweat seeping slowly from her pores. He lowered his lips slowly to the base of her neck and left a feathery kiss on the spot. When he received a slight shiver from her, he smiled with contentment.

Haseenah was fed-up from within. She was tired of everything, tired of a man who thinks he has every control over his wife, a man who was abusive, a man who believes she has no right. Every thought bowled the waves of sorrow to crush at the brim of her eyes. She was immune to his touch, shivering because she was scared and he had called that want. He peppered her neck with kisses that grew stronger and filled with want. He nibbled her skin, trailed the kisses to her shoulder, his hand roaming about her body wanting to feel every inch of it, every edge of it.

"Sweet" he moaned on her skin. "Fresh" he continued his kisses to her back, his lips hard and yearning.

Her scent was aromatic, exquisite, the smell of life, a scent that drove the senses of a man crazy. He spun her around, to crash her body into his. He had not felt her resistance, instead every inch of him went hard with need. His hold around her grew tight like he could not have enough. She said nothing when he brought his lips down to hers. She said nothing when he lifted her off the ground, took her to the room and quenched his desire like the beast he was.