POISON & WINE (Preview)

12; Egregious Palaver

Alhamdulillah! 13.03.23 is the date guys! This book is officially completed and In Shaa Allah updates will be coming back to back. Taking it off twenty four hours after it's completed. Thank you poisons!!! I love you all. And you guys are not commenting💔

Katsina.

"You won't ever succeed with such work, Mariam." Aissata had screamed at her daughter one night when she couldn't hold it back.

They had just finished eating dinner from the same bowl when she shook her head, her hands tightened in little fists as though she wanted to punch her daughter in the face. Mariam was insouciant, her eyes on the last morsel in front of her. Now if she eats this, her mother is going to snap some more and Mariam was honestly not ready for that.

Slowly raising her head to meet her mother's eyes, Mariam said in a cool devil-may-care voice. "Like you said, Maman, work. I'm working but not like the way normal people do. This is not the life I want..." she gestured around their cramped room with repugnance, "...I want something bigger, more lavish and opulent."

Aissata grimaced at the sheer naked hunger she saw in her daughter's eyes. She's gone. "Prostitution you mean to say? Selling your body like a worthless piece human? Is that what you call business? That is called whoring!"

"You may call it whatever you want to, Maman. Hooking, harlotry or whoring, I don't care. It is the life that will get me to where I want to be. Where I should be in the first place." Her expression and voice was still very much nonchalant. She appeared to be almost bored of the topic.

She's becoming a shell of what she was. What she used to be. That was what Aissata was afraid of from the beginning. She's seen how life treats people in her age. She wanted to get her married to any respectable man that wants to have her. Mariam had the suitors; rich, old, handsome and powerful but she wanted that heinous grotesque life for herself.

Aissata swallowed a scuzzy large lump in her throat, the food they'd just eaten threaten to abdicate her belly. "You can marry Alhaji Zubairu and live that life. He is very rich."

Mariam had rolled her eyes. "Rich? That man is just a little above average, Maman. I've seen rich men and what wealth means so he won't intimidate me by his cars that aren't worth more than five million each. I want to become someone in the society!"

"By whoring around? You will become no one but a first class prostitute with no dignity. No one will marry you in future, mark my words!"

"You think I want to marry? Never! I'll be so rich that men will be at the bottom of my thoughts. Well... except when I want to use them for money." Mariam let out a malicious grin.

Seething, Aissata stood up hastily. "Is that what you want? Then you are going to leave this house and go to wherever it is you belong. You are cursed! I curse you, Mariam!"

MARIAM lie down on the bed grunting annoyingly. They are staying at a hotel that is totally beneath her standards, their food a total zero because she doesn't have appetite for anything. After meeting Abbas's mother yesterday, all she could think about was how she is going to live with those people as her in laws. And she is getting married for a very long time. A lifetime thing.

Why is she getting married? Why would she get married?

She's been asking herself that question since after her meeting with Silas in Haiti. Her feelings for Abbas was enigmatic, extremely deep too but that doesn't mean she has to get married to him. She's managed to find out every single thing about him in a span of few days. Everything she uncovers about him, she falls more hopelessly in love with him.