Dimeji made a sucking sound as he took a long drag. He held in the smoke and passed the joint to the police officer in the passenger seat next to him. All four windows were wound up, the music was loud, the AC turned on high, and he was driving fast.
Blindfolded, Naomi kept track of the sudden decelerations and the periods where the car slowed – something she used to do during the first few times she made the trip. Perhaps today she would know when they were on the express and she’d count the number of turns till they got there. If only she could hear the sounds outside, especially when they were stuck in traffic. Bus conductors calling out for passengers would help to plot a mental map. Once when she was riding with Malik, who also played music, but not as loud, she’d heard a conductor shouting ‘Oworonshoki’ but she couldn’t be sure what direction they were travelling. Perhaps that was the purpose of the loud music: to make it even harder to tell where they were being taken. Malik had explained from the beginning, ‘The Harem is a secret. You cannot talk about it to anyone. For your own safety it is better you do not know how to get there.’ He never explained why it was dangerous for the girls to know the way. At first Naomi imagined it had something to do with deniability. Then when she thought more about it, she concluded, with a cold shiver, that he was alluding to the authorities finding out the place existed, an embassy of Sodom and Gomorrah in the forest of Nigeria, getting their hands on a list of the girls who ‘worked there’, and torturing them one by one for directions. But that was dangerous for him, not her, not the other girls. And at that point, many months ago, when there was a gaping inconsistency between what he said and what he might have meant, she stopped dwelling on it because to do so would be to admit the threat to her life he had made.
Marijuana smoke thinned in the cooled air. Dimeji was taking a break before lighting the next one. Naomi finally filled her lungs. She would feel the effect of the drug no matter how much she tried to avoid inhaling, but he wouldn’t light another until they arrived. She was in the middle of the two girls. One of them was snoring; the other rested her head on Naomi’s shoulder minutes after they left Ikeja. Naomi would have also slept, only to be woken up by a lack of motion, the absence of the engine sound and of loud music when they arrived. But she stayed awake, fought the fug clouding her mind, and struggled to concentrate on the journey and the phone inside of her, and on suppressing the need to pee.
As the weed began to take effect, she thought of what would happen if she forgot what was inside her and a client discovered it, thrusting his penis into her. Was that what happened to Florentine? Did a client bruise his dick on a phone she’d hidden in her pussy? Did Amaka make her do it? Is that why they tried to kill her? What was she thinking? She had to get rid of the phone as soon as they got to The Harem. It was safer for her not to know how they got there.
Keeping her thighs together and walking sideways, Naomi began to go up the stairs, one foot joining the other on one step; clench, then repeat. Malik was at the bottom with the new girls, watching her and about to stop her, she thought. But he didn’t. Midway, she stopped and looked at him. He was looking at her. She fought the haze; reminded herself that she was high. She had to be careful. She had to concentrate. She was being paranoid. She suddenly remembered that she still had the phone in her. How did she forget about it over just a step? The weed. Fuck.
‘Yes,’ she said. She heard her own voice as if it had been played back to her. Why did she have to shout it? He was looking at her, waiting for an explanation. Did he just ask how she was, or was it something else? Did he mention the way she was walking? Did he actually say anything?
‘Dimeji was smoking again, abi?’
‘Yes.’ The haze lifted, giving her a window of clarity, but she knew it wouldn’t last. ‘I really need to wee.’
The lucidity was gone; no recollection of making it to the top of the stairs. She was sitting on a toilet bowl, bent forward, her shorts gathered around her ankles, her fingers deep inside her, trying to get higher up still. She couldn’t feel it – the knot of the condom in which she had inserted the phone. She leaned her back onto the cistern and raised her bum above the toilet bowl, but rather than give her a deeper reach, the position caused her nails to scratch her. She was sweating. How long had she been in there? She was squatting on the floor in front of the toilet bowl. When did she get off the bowl? She pushed. The tips of her fingers touched it. She pinched the end of the condom and pulled.
A knock on the door was followed by a voice. Sisi. ‘What are you doing in there?’
‘I’m coming,’ Naomi said. The knock, Sisi’s voice, her own words, the sound of crickets outside the open window of the bathroom, all were sharp and crisp. The room brightened as well. Her thoughts cleared. She had the phone in her hand. Slimy and dangerous.
‘You’re not in this room today,’ Sisi said from behind the door. ‘I need it for some new girls.’
Naomi looked at the lock on the door then stood up, careful not to make any sound. Holding the phone, still safely protected in a knotted condom, she looked around. She had two options: stand on the edge of the bathtub, reach out the window and throw, or flush it down toilet. She pictured the compound and what lay below. She slid off her shoes and quietly placed them on the floor, and she climbed. The fence was too far from the building and too high. She weighed the phone in her hand and climbed back down.
Sisi knocked again, ‘Naomi, did you hear me? I need this room for some new girls.’
‘I’m coming,’ Naomi said.
She listened. She hadn’t heard Sisi walking away. Naomi gently placed the phone on top of the lid of the cistern, then, just as carefully, she lifted the ceramic top and slowly placed it across the toilet seat. She picked up the phone and put her hand into the cold water, dodging the parts of the flushing mechanism as she did so. After she replaced the lid, she tore off some toilet paper and wiped the top where she had placed the phone. She flushed and looked about the floor. Her panties and shorts were entwined next to a clothes basket.