Mkopeshaji
"Father died owing the village moneylender. The debt transfers to the son. But the thick moneylender doesn't want money—she wants him. Weekly payments. In her bedroom. Until the debt is 'satisfied.'"
My father died owing money.
A lot of money. To the village moneylender, Bi Mariamu, who funded half the businesses in our coastal town. He borrowed to expand his fishing boat. Then the boat sank. Then his heart gave out.
The debt didn't die with him.
It came to me.
Bi Mariamu summons me three days after the funeral.
Her house is the largest in the village—built on decades of lending, of interest, of owning everyone's secrets. She sits behind a massive desk, ledgers open, my father's debts itemized.
"Two hundred thousand shillings," she says. "Plus interest. Plus penalties for delayed payment."
"I don't have—"
"I know what you don't have." She stands, moves around the desk. "The question is what you do have."
She's fifty-five years old. Thick in ways that wealth creates—heavy breasts, wide hips, a belly that speaks of never going hungry. She's been running this village for thirty years.
Now she's running me.
"Your father was a good man," she says. "Honest. Hardworking. He would have repaid me eventually."
"I'll find a way—"
"You'll find nothing." She stops in front of me. "You're a fisherman's son with no boat. No skills. No prospects. The only thing of value you have..."
Her hand finds my chest.
"...is this."
"I don't understand—"
"Yes, you do." She's unbuttoning my shirt. "I've been watching you since you were a boy. Waiting for you to become a man. Now you're a man with a debt."
"You want me to—"
"I want you to pay." She pulls my shirt open. "Weekly. Every Friday. You come to this house, you come to my bedroom, and you work off what your father owed."
"For how long?"
"Until I'm satisfied." She smiles. "That could take years."
Her bedroom is above the office.
Large, luxurious, the bed where she's slept alone since her husband died fifteen years ago. She undresses without shame—her body is her power, and she knows how to wield it.
"Your father came to me desperate," she says. "I gave him what he needed. Now you'll give me what I need."
"And the debt?"
"Decreases with every visit." She lies back on the bed. "But interest keeps accumulating. You'll have to work very hard to get ahead."
I take the moneylender for the first time.
Her thick body beneath mine, her commands constant. She knows what she wants—has been imagining this for years, apparently.
"Deeper—your father could never have paid this way—but you—"
I thrust deeper.
"Yes—this is the interest I really wanted—"
She comes screaming, her thick thighs crushing my waist.
"First payment received."
Every Friday for the next year.
I come to Bi Mariamu's house. I climb to her bedroom. I pay my father's debt with my body.
"How much do I still owe?" I ask one night.
"More than when you started."
"That's impossible—"
"Interest compounds." She mounts me. "Every day you're not here, the debt grows. You'll never pay it off with weekly visits."
"Then what—"
"Move in." She starts riding. "Daily payments. Full-time employment. You work for me, live with me, service me. Then maybe—maybe—you'll break even."
I move into the moneylender's house.
The village whispers. The son of the dead fisherman, living with the woman who owns everyone. Some think I'm her servant. Some think I'm her prisoner.
They're not entirely wrong.
Daily payments are exhausting.
Morning before she starts work. Evening when she finishes. Sometimes midday if she's had a difficult debtor. I'm on call, always available, always ready to reduce my balance.
"You're down to one hundred fifty thousand," she tells me after six months.
"Progress."
"Slow progress." She pushes me onto her bed. "But I'm a patient creditor."
She expands my duties.
Collecting payments from other debtors. Managing her ledgers. Becoming her business partner in everything but name. The village starts seeing me differently—not as her captive, but as her heir.
"You're good at this," she admits.
"I learned from the best."
"You learned from necessity." She traces my chest. "But you've become more than a debtor. You've become... useful."
"Does that reduce what I owe?"
"It adds other debts." She straddles me. "Loyalty. Gratitude. The things money can't measure."
"The original debt is cleared," she announces on my third anniversary in her house.
I stare at her. "Cleared?"
"Principal and interest. Paid in full." She sets down her ledger. "You're free to go."
"Go where?"
"Wherever you want. You're not my debtor anymore."
I look at this woman who's owned me for three years. Who taught me business, who gave me purpose, who took my body nightly and made me stronger for it.
"What if I don't want to go?"
She looks up from her desk.
"Then stay."
"As what?"
"As mine." She stands, moves toward me. "Not as a debtor. As a partner. As the man who'll inherit everything when I'm gone."
"You're proposing—"
"I'm demanding." She pulls me close. "I've spent three years training you. You're worth more than any loan I've ever made. I'm not letting that investment walk away."
We marry quietly.
The village is shocked—the moneylender taking a husband half her age, the fisherman's son becoming the wealthiest man in the region. But Bi Mariamu doesn't care about opinions.
"You're mine now," she says on our wedding night. "Legally. Officially. Forever."
"I was always yours."
"Because of debt."
"Because of everything." I pull her onto our bed. "The debt just gave us an excuse."
Bi Mariamu is sixty-three now.
I run most of the business. The lending. The collections. But every night, I still make payments.
"You'll never be fully paid," she tells me.
"I don't want to be."
"Good." She opens her arms. "Because I'm still charging interest. And I intend to collect until the day I die."
I climb onto her thick body.
Some debts are worth inheriting.
Some payments are worth making forever.
And some moneylenders are worth everything you owe.