Chapter 3 Canvas, Chaos, and Conflict

Art is dangerous. That's what Zainab had always believed.

Not because of what it shows, but what it reveals.

A week after the exhibition, she and Adaeze began working on a private collaboration - a multimedia piece titled "Desire Unframed." A mix of sculpture, portraiture, film, and found objects. It was wild. Unfiltered. Queer in form and spirit.

Zainab hadn't touched her own work in months. She curated others, guided vision, shaped galleries. But this? This was different. Adaeze challenged her.

"No," Adaeze would say, frowning. "You're painting from safety again. You're telling a story Lagos wants to hear."

Zainab would scowl. "I'm telling my truth."

"Then why are your brushstrokes so polite?"

They fought like lovers before love was even named.

Nights bled into mornings. They argued over textures, over metaphors, over whether a woman kissing another woman should be silhouetted or in full light.

"People will talk," Zainab said.

Adaeze looked her dead in the eye. "Let them. I'm tired of whispering in a screaming world."

Something broke inside Zainab then - and something else was born.

One night, after a brutal creative session that ended in silence and spilled paint, they sat on the floor of Adaeze's studio, sweat glistening on their skin, their knees touching.

"I hate how you do that," Zainab whispered.

"Do what?" Adaeze asked softly.

"Pull truth out of me like I owe it."

Adaeze leaned closer. "Because you do."

They didn't kiss.

But the air between them crackled with everything unsaid.

---

Meanwhile, Lagos noticed.

People whispered.

Someone posted a blurred video of them at Terra Kulture - hands grazing, faces too close. The caption read:

> "Zainab Bakare caught with mystery woman. New muse or new scandal?"

Blogs ran with it. Her inbox filled with questions from sponsors. Invitations stopped coming. One radio host, masked as "progressive," made thinly veiled jabs during an art culture segment.

But the loudest voice came from inside her own circle.

Ngozi.

Zainab hadn't heard from her since the exhibition. One morning, she received a terse voice note:

> "This isn't you. You're spiraling. That girl - she's not your world, Zee. She's your distraction. Come back before this city swallows you."

Zainab sat on the edge of her bed, phone in hand, fury rising.

Why did people assume desire meant confusion?

Why did they think you couldn't fall for a woman unless something in you was broken?

She typed back:

> "Maybe I was already swallowed. And she's the one pulling me out."

She never sent it.

---

That weekend, they unveiled the first concept frame for Desire Unframed. A single image of two women's hands - rough, soft, brown, holding a cracked mirror between them. In the reflection: only their eyes. Watching each other.

It was anonymous.

But the whispers grew louder.

Zainab received a call from her mother that evening. The conversation was short.

> "You've been on the blogs again."

"They always talk."

"Are the things they're saying true?"

"Which things, Mummy?"

"Don't play dumb. Is that woman your... lover?"

"She's my collaborator."

"Zainab!"

"I'm tired of pretending."

"You are embarrassing this family."

"I've been embarrassed by this family for years."

click

Silence again.

But this time, Zainab didn't cry.

She returned to the studio.

And painted a woman on fire - not burning, but blazing. Not consumed, but commanding.

Adaeze saw it and said nothing. Just stared.

"You okay?" she asked finally.

"No," Zainab replied. "But I'm finally real."