She responded to its touch. The invisible one could feel it in the way groaned. The trembling in her body told that strange creature of her gathering excitement. She could not recall the last time she had shivered in someone’s arms like that. She realized that its hand on her body was completely steady. Somewhere inside her, there was a cloudburst. A hot rain poured down, drenching regions that had been patched and dry for what seemed permanent.

Suddenly, there was a rain forest where there had only been desert. The raw power, the driving need, and the exquisitely painful anticipation that shafted through her was the pulse of life itself. Its laughter was fraught with nervous energy. It then sent sparkles of light through her. In the next moment, the small sound transmitted into a sweet, anxious murmur. It kisses became extravagant, quick, eager.

True to the incoherence of the scenes of that dream, she could not really think clearly. The fragrance of its body was a disturbing, disorienting incense that clouded her thought; but she knew that the strange creature was swiftly losing control, longing with a demonic urge to use her. In the throes of her orgasmic pleasure, she woke up and sat up suddenly on the edge of her foamy bed. She looked tired, gazing around the familiar bedroom, and trying to be conscious of her surroundings.

She was gradually conscious of the bed on which she sat, then the familiar bedroom, and noticed that it was dark already. Had she been sleeping throughout the day?  She wondered. Quite suddenly, her thought was awakened to the consciousness of the people in the room. Her family and another person she couldn’t identify.

“How are you feeling?” the man asked.

“I’m fine. Who are you?” she croaked weakly, her voice seems to have suffered from shouting so hard, shouting she had no idea she did.

“Like I was saying, she has been possessed by a demon. And from what I’ve quietly understood from her symptoms, He’s a demon, her eternal spouse.”

Both Saudah and her family members gasped loudly. A demon? An eternal spouse?

“Can you explain to me everything you feel these days?” the Malam asked, looking at Saudah closely, his eyes and voice both scary. They all listened attentively as she narrated what she feels, including the dreams she sometimes has and the orgasmic pleasures she feels after such erotic dreams.

The Malam brought out his tray of sands and went into silent divination that lasted some minutes; drawing some line on the sand and shaking his head. He then concluded, after a while that Saudah was actually married to a demon, her eternal spouse, from the world beyond.

The Malam then suggested that a complete cure of Saudah’s affliction was in dis-engaging her from the demon. The Malam suggested that three spotless white rams should be slaughtered to appease it. A portion of the ram's blood shall be used to write some Qur’anic verses and make a rubutu liquid which she would drink. Her un-plaited head would also be washed with a certain quantity of blood; while the meat of those three white rams would be distributed among beggars. Seventy-one incisions would then be marked around her pubic hair to scare the eternal spouse away from her.

*

Saudah’s dad had paid the Malam for his service, including the purchase of three white rams. They had been speechless ever since the revelation of Saudah being possessed with a demon was made.

“No wonder she had been behaving worse than she had been. She barely sits with us now and talks.” Zainab lamented sadly.

“I knew something was wrong with her, I just never knew it was this worse,” her mum added.

The black and white checked floor of Malam Garba’s veranda was wet with some watered-down blood of the three rams slaughtered. As the third ram was over-powered, one of the Malam’s assistant went to call Saudah.

She then emerged from the room adjoining the veranda where she had been sitting with her mother. It was necessary for the person in whose name the sacrifice was made to touch the knife. She touched the knife, and the Malam cut the ram’s throat with a short precise cut.

*

“Hurray!” the invisible ones were jubilating, making a feast of wild raspberries out of the three spotless white rams sacrificed in Saudah’s name. The animal's blood was preferable to them. How this had added to their fun was known only to their maker. But they seem to be taking delight in seeing man sin against his God, innovating practices alien to the path of total submission; and the delight in pleasing the devil in the guise of sacrificial animals. So, if they were not at a three path road, devouring a pot of soup aimed at appeasing them, they were attracted to this kind of feast.

Here, on a heap of garbage, they were numerous; and even countless. Some of them rose in the sky: slow, majestic; their wings spread, hovering in the breeze, rising and descending with the current of the wind; all of them were ugly, impassive, cruel.

“Thank you brother,” one of the invisible ones said, thanking the one in Saudah, “you must have tormented your human victim to compel her to make this huge appeasement!”

“Yes brother, but let’s thank the one in Malam’s employ. It taught him our ways and made him mislead others who took him for a believer in God,” answered the one in Saudah.

“We thank you  both”, interjected another one in a shadow form, “for working hand in hand.”

Others had listened to those words of gratitude, celebrating human folly. Soon, one arrived from the red sea.

"I congratulate us all for another fall of man," it said in a fiery gaze, "human inhabitants of the planet earth are fond of failure. With the fall and repentance of Adam, their father, they've always fallen, but what pains my heart is their gut to repent."

"This will never repent!" One interrupted.

"Who?" Asked the one in Saudah

"Saudah, your own!" Answered the one that had spoken earlier.

"Saudah must never repent!"

"Saudah must not be free! I'm in total control and she's under my grip!" Said the one in Saudah.

Another one that shuttled between a deep forest and the ocean quickly added "Human beings are stupid, and I've lost my pleasure in working for them. Some don't even believe we exist; and those who do, call us various names. They call us oracles, nymphs, fairies, household hods, lemurs, jinn, larve, lamias, maiads, incubi..."

"Some might even call us shades, manes, specters and phantoms" interrupted the one whose feet didn't touch the ground.

"And when you tell them the truth about yourself, they wouldn't believe. They say we are liars" said the one in shadow form.

They kept talking about their experience with humans and lastly, they decided to call it a day.

One of them in the vapor shape told the one in Saudah to take him along next time so he can play snake games with Saudah.

*

She lay unconscious on her bed. She looked like a dead body, the only difference was she was breathing very slowly. She opened her eyes slowly, welcoming the harsh light penetrating her eyes. She closed them quickly but opened them again after some minutes later.

She had survived this time around. But what will happen the next time he visited?