I should have stopped. I knew I ought to have stopped, but I was like a car without brakes. I needed something to impede my motion. And gratitude was not strong enough to hold me back. My husband's threat was not strong enough to make me stop. I needed something else. Like an abiku deriving perverse joy from taunting its parent I wanted to get caught without wanting to.

My lover was young and carefree and uninhibited. We made love in the car, at the beach, at fast food joints. We were junkies and sex was our drug of choice. We tried to be discreet. We kept away from my house. I went by public transport when we had to meet. But it wasn't enough. Somewhere, somehow, we left a hot trail.

He did not love me, I was clear on that, but he understood my need. He knew I cherished the time we spent and graciously made out time for us to be together. But stolen moments are never enough, like quick bites that never satisfy they leave you with a mad craving for more. I craved for more.

He lived at the back of his father's house. Once we drove in and stepped into his room, passion would take over. Our lust spent, we would listen in silence to R&B or rap. Sade and Anita Baker were favourites. So were Notorious BIG, Tupac and DMX.

Most times when there was a power outage, we would lie naked in bed and his fingers tracing circles around the dark aureoles of my breasts he would tell me stories of his childhood, his family and his girlfriends in school. There had been quite a lot. He was the kind of man who drew women to him like moth to naked flame. He didn't boast and I didn't feel jealous. We were like two strangers yoked together by a shared need and no more.

He spoke of his dreams of going abroad. The cab driving was a means of raising funds and making his dreams real. His parents didn't know. They wanted him to find a job and settle down. He was their only son. But he had other plans.

"This country is killing me. The soldiers have messed everything up. I need to get out."

He didn't drink but I could tell he smoked marijuana. His kisses were sometimes flavoured by the acrid smell. As time passed and we got used to each other, I would walk with him to a football pitch two streets away and sit with him while he rolled and smoked a joint, his eyes staring into the distance as if contemplating his trip across the seas.

One evening, as we sat there, the tip of his joint glowing in the gathering dusk, something happened. It was so sudden but not so unexpected. He was smoking, his cheeks sucked in, his eyes tracing the horizon while I lay my head on his lap and looked up at him. His left hand was lazily stroking my nipple through the thin fabric of my silk blouse when the sharp voice pierced the night air and jumping up I bumped my nose against his chin.

"Hold it!"It was the police and as they asked us to stand with our hands up, I felt a trickle of blood escape from my nostril.We got off by emptying our pockets of all the money we had on us.

I cried through it all as I thought of what my husband would do and say if I ended up in jail with a strange young man on a drug possession charge. Would he suspect? He was trusting but I knew he wasn't foolish.

That incident should have scared me off, brought me back to my senses. But I was a junkie. I needed my fix.

But I almost beat my addiction. Almost. Once I had called at his place without warning. It was a Sunday and my husband had been called off to the hospital for an emergency. Alone at home, I was suddenly overcome by an urge to see him, to hold him, to feel him deep inside me.

When I got there,I met a girl in his room. He introduced me as a friend and leaving the girl in the room drove me back home. He took me in the sitting room, wordlessly, violently. Then when he was done he pulled on his clothes and left without a word.

I didn't see him for a month and just when I was thinking it was all over, I received a DHL package from him asking me to meet him the next day. I wish it had all ended then.

***********

I sit here in the darkness, swatting at the mosquitoes that buzz all around me as the spool of my life unwinds before my eyes. I picture my husband at home, sitting in his rocking chair and listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

I see myself walk in and wonder whether he will look up and call me his angel.

But I know better. I am a fallen angel and above my head, the glow from the shopping complex is nothing but a halo of shame.