Nyuma ya Duka | NEON LIT

The old spice market in Stone Town hasn't changed in centuries.

Narrow alleys, wooden doors, the smell of cardamom and cloves soaking into everything. I deliver wholesale spices to a dozen shops every Tuesday—fifty-kilo bags of cinnamon, saffron, vanilla.

Mzee Hamidi's shop is always my last stop.

Not because of the location.

Because of his wife.

Bi Safiya runs the back room.

Mzee Hamidi is seventy-three, half-blind, content to sit in front and haggle with tourists. His wife—forty-eight, his second marriage—handles inventory, storage, everything behind the curtain.

She's been handling me for six months.

"The delivery," she says when I arrive.

Mzee Hamidi waves me through without looking. He never looks. He trusts his wife to manage the back room.

He shouldn't.

I follow Safiya through the curtain, into the maze of storage rooms behind the shop. Shelves of spices rise to the ceiling. The smell is overwhelming—cinnamon, pepper, ginger, and something else.

Her.

Safiya is thick in ways that spice has nourished.

Heavy breasts that strain her kanga wrap. Wide hips that brush the narrow shelves. A belly soft from years of good living, good cooking, good everything except a husband who can no longer touch her.

"Lock the door," she says.

I lock the door.

"The delivery can wait." She's already unwrapping her kanga. "I can't."

She undresses among the spices.

Saffron falling from disturbed bags, cinnamon dust rising as she moves. Her body emerges—brown skin, dark nipples, curves that could crush a man.

"My husband is deaf in one ear," she says. "Blind in both eyes, practically. He can't hear what happens back here. He can't see what I need."

"And what do you need?"

"What he can't give me anymore." She pulls me close. "What you've been giving me every Tuesday for six months."

I take her against the shelves.

Bags of cardamom cushioning her back, vanilla beans scattering as she wraps her thick thighs around me. I enter her in one thrust—she's already wet, already ready, has been waiting since my truck pulled up.

"Finally—I've been thinking about this all week—"

I pound into her while spices fall around us.

She's loud in the back room.

Moaning, crying out, saying things no wife should say while her husband sits twenty feet away. But Mzee Hamidi hears nothing—just the tourists, just the haggling, just the life he's built on spices he can barely see.

"Harder—please—make me forget him—"

I make her forget.

Thrust into her thick body while cinnamon sticks crunch beneath our feet, while the smell of cloves fills the air, while somewhere beyond the curtain her husband counts coins.

"I'm going to—oh God—"

She comes on me.

Screams into my shoulder while her body shakes, while spice bags topple, while the back room becomes chaos.

I don't stop.

The second round is on the inventory table.

She sweeps aside ledgers and samples, lies back on the wooden surface. I climb on top of her, her thick legs in the air, and enter her again.

"My husband thinks inventory takes hours—"

"Doesn't it?"

"It does now." She pulls me deeper. "Every Tuesday. Hours and hours."

I fuck the spice merchant's wife while her husband works.

On the table. Against the wall. Bent over bags of peppercorn, her thick ass in the air, my hands gripping her hips. She comes four times before I finally explode inside her.

"Yes—fill me—give me what he can't—"

I fill her among the spices.

Collapse onto her soft body while the smell of cinnamon and sex mingles in the air.

"The delivery," she says afterward, adjusting her kanga.

We're both covered in spice dust. Her hair is tangled, her wrap is stained, but she's smiling.

"I should probably unload the truck."

"Probably." She kisses me softly. "But first, I need to check the basement storage."

"Basement?"

"We have a basement." Her eyes glitter. "It's very private. Very dark. My husband doesn't even know it exists."

"He doesn't?"

"The stairs are too steep for him." She takes my hand. "Come. I'll show you inventory he's never seen."

The basement is everything she promised.

Stone walls, cool air, complete privacy. She spreads a blanket on the floor—she's done this before—and pulls me down onto her.

"Round three," she says. "We have time."

"How much time?"

"Until sunset prayers. Four hours." She wraps her legs around me. "Think you can handle four hours?"

"With you?"

"With me." She pulls me inside her. "All of me. Every inch. Every pound. Every hour."

I spend four hours in the basement.

Taking her in positions that require the dark, doing things that require the privacy. By the time sunset prayers echo through Stone Town, we're both exhausted.

"Same time next Tuesday," she says as I finally load the actual delivery.

"The spices—"

"Will keep." She straightens her kanga, becomes a respectable merchant's wife again. "My husband will ask why the delivery took so long."

"What will you tell him?"

"Inventory discrepancy." She winks. "Very thorough inspection required. Multiple hours. You understand."

"I understand."

"Good." She squeezes my hand as I pass through the curtain. "See you next Tuesday. Bring extra stamina. I have more basement to show you."

Every Tuesday for three years now.

I deliver spices to Mzee Hamidi's shop. He thanks me, pays me, goes back to his tourists. His wife takes me to the back room, then the basement, then sometimes the roof.

"He's getting older," she tells me one day. "He won't live forever."

"And then?"

"And then I inherit the shop." She pulls me close. "And I'll need a new business partner. Someone who understands... inventory."

"Are you asking—"

"I'm planning." She kisses me. "For now, we have this. Every Tuesday. Every delivery. Everything he can't see or hear or understand."

The old spice market in Stone Town hasn't changed in centuries.

But behind one curtain, in one back room, a thick wife takes what her husband can't give.

And a delivery man gives it.

Every Tuesday.

Every hour.

Until the spices run out or the old man finally closes his eyes.

Either way, I'll be there.

Delivering exactly what she needs.