THE AGONY OF MARRIAGE
EPISODE 2
That day, I packed what I could and dashed to my parents house. When they saw me, my father’s countenance alre-ady showed that he was not plea-sed, having noticed the bag. He asked me to sit in the living room then asked me what had s£nt me running back or if I had offended my husband and he had angrily kicked me out. From the way he sounded, he was re-ady to accompany me back to seek his forgiveness.
“What did you do?” He asked me. “Did he throw you out?”
“No.” I mumbled.
“Does he starve you?”
“No, papa.” I answered.
“Does he beat you?”
I hesitated and my mother suddenly cut in. “Beating kwa, what’s ordinary beating? Papa Victoria, plea-se some men only beat a woman to show just how much in love with her they are.”
I stared at my mother in disbelieve but I was not re-ady to go down an argument lane with her, her wrong perception of how love was shown by a man to a woman was the very least of my worries now. My father simply gr-unted and continued. “So what did he do?” He asked again.
“He…h…” I stuttered, too ashamed to say the word.
“Don’t you have mouth?” My mother suddenly snapped at me. “Can’t you talk? You left your husband and c@m£ down here not minding that he’s all alone and a woman nee-ds to take care of him. Has he even eaten?”
“Mama, Daniel urinated on me this morning.” I mused.
My father sat up now. “Urinated how? Does he be-d-we-t?”
“No papa, he urinated on me just like that when he should have used the toilet.”
My parents exchanged puzzled glances and my mother asked this time, gesticulating with her hands. “You mean Daniel brou-ght out his John Thomas and re-leased urine on you?”
“Yes Mama.” I could s-en-se their agitation and I just couldn’t wait to see their anger against my husband.
Instead, my father sighed and leaned back into his chair. He looked pensive for a moment and when he finally spoke, he did without looking at me. “Go back to him.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Papa?!”
“Yes, you heard your father!” My mother cut in harshly. “Go back to your husband!”
I was panicking now. “Mama, didn’t you hear what I said, I said Daniel urinated on me.” I said each word carefully so that it sunk in just in case they didn’t un-derstand me the first time.
“And so? What’s the big deal? When you married that good man, you said for better for worse! Are you the first woman whom her husband would urinate on? Why are you trying to disgrace this family? Why Adanna? Better take your bags and go back to your husband’s house because there’s no room for you here! That man is a blessing to our family, anything he does to you, take it that way after all, he has the money to pacify you afterwards.”
I was shocked and I didn’t know when I blurted. “But papa, he wants to have an-alS-x with me!”
“Victoria.” My father called calmly.
“Yes papa.” I mumbled.
“Victoria.”
“Papa.”
“Victoria.” He called a third time.
“Yes papa.” I said, frowning de-eply.
“How many times did I call you?”
“Three times papa.”
“I don’t know what an-alS-x is supposed to be and I really don’t care. All I know is the Bible said a good wife must be submissive to her husband and if you want to be a good wife, then you must do anything and everything your husband wants you to. After all he’s your husband and he’s entitled to do anything with your b©dy. If he doesn’t uses it, who else will? My in-law has promised me a car this December and I’ll not be plea-sed with you if he should change his mind about that car simply because of your stubbornness. Victoria, all I can say is that you take your bag back to your husband’s house because as far as I’m concerned, there’s no room for you here.” Without another word, he rose and left.
When he was gone, my mother quic-kly moved to the seat he had just vacated. “Have you missed your period?” She asked me.
I frowned at her. “What kind of question is that?”
She gave me a disgr-untled look and mimicked me. “Don’t you know that all your mates are alre-ady pregnant by now? What are you waiting for? Don’t you know that to secure your place in a man’s house, you have to get pregnant? Do you want him to as-sume that you are barren and throw you out?”
Honestly, I had been secretly taking pills to prevent my taking in for my husband. The last thing I wanted to do was raising a child for that monster. “Mama, plea-se, I’m not in the mood.” I said dismissively and turned away.
“You are not in the mood? Are you mad? Why do you take everything with such levity? Do you realized that Daniel is the best in-law yet? He’s Gods£nt! Don’t jeopardize this good opportunity for us or I myself will make sure I bury you with my own hands. By next month, you must get pregnant! In fact, you must conceive twins! If you have any doubts, don’t worry, all I’ve to do is go down to the village and visit the dibia.”
“Mama, if the dibia was so good, why didn’t you go for a charm that will make papa rich instead of selling me off into a loveless marriage?!” I retorted.
“You are very stupid.” She told me. “You think if I was as educated as you at your age I would have settled for your father? See, Daniel has bought me all the good things of life which your father has been unable and will never be able to get for me. I have tasted riches because of Daniel and I’m not about to st©p any time soon, so if you know what is good for you, discard any useless thoughts about love and focus on ma-king your husband a happy man. I don’t know why God gave me such a dull daughter to be my first. You are just not sharp at all! You didn’t take after me in ways you were ssupposed to! I know that if it were your sister, Linda, she would have made me very proud!”
I glared at my mother. “If Linda was so good, why didn’t you make her marry Daniel then?”
“Simply because Daniel chose a dull one and we had no choice than to give him what he wanted. It still baffles me why you are yet to love this man. When there’s money, love should be easy and yet simply because he urinated on you, you c@m£ running back.”
Then and there, I had had enough of my mother. I rose, gr@bb£d my bag and walked away without another word. She called out to me but I ignored her. When I got home, my husband was waiting in the lower balcony. He was leaning forward with his elbows on the railings and he was busy with his phone, probably chatting up with one of his numerous girlfriends as usual. As I got down the car and started for the main door, pu-lling my bag behind me, he sm-irked and said:
“I knew you’d come back. Your hungry parents can’t ba-re to lose a wonderful and generous person like me. I know your father is still looking forward to the car. I pray he gets crippled from it and that your mother with her incessant demand for money so she could buy the latest clothes and jewelries for her women as-sociation meeting, I pray the next jewelry she’s expecting chokes her to death. Your family of stupid gold diggers!” He hurled at me.
Tears sprang to my eyes but I said nothing and simply walked into the house. I wondered if my parents were aware of the degrading words he used about them if they would still want me to remain married to him. But Daniel was right after all, my parents were gold diggers. I was in the kitchen preparing semovita and vegetable soup when I heard footsteps. I turned to look over my shoulder and saw him leaning against the door jam of the kitchen door completely n-ked and his eyes were fixed down on the screen of his phone which was in his right hand while his other hand was stro-king himself.
I stiffened now and swallowed ha-rd and quic-kly pretended not to notice him as I stirred my steaming soup in the pot. I could hear a white female’s voice m0@n ing loud from his phone and I could tell he was watching a p©rnogra-phic video. He had a ton of them of different races and types.
“What are you doing?” He asked me without taking his eyes off the screen of his phone.
“Cooking.” I managed to say then began to move around doing a lot of unnecessary things to pretend that I was very busy.
“St©p whatever you are doing and undress.” He ordered. I pretended not to hear him and after a minute, he looked up and frowned. “Are you deaf?”
I st©pped now and slowly turned to look at him. “Daniel, plea-se this can wait, I’m almost done.”
“It’s like you are mad!” He said coldly and suddenly approached and turned off the g@s. “You are my wife! If you’ll not let me go up that wretched hole that you are so protective of, the least you can do is at least let me have my S-xual rights any time I want it! Undress!”
I slowly began to unZi-p my dress and soon I took it off and tossed it on the floor. “Can we at least be civil about this and go to the be-droom?” I suggested.
He snorted. “This girl here is having kitchen S-x and that’s what I want.” He stated and suddenly gr@bb£d my head and shoved me down to my knees. I was scared to have S-x with him. Besides, hating our S-xual life, I had contracted S-xually transmitted disease from him on three occasions and I had had to go for treatment but I still had yeast infection which c@m£ at intervals and then disappeared for a while.
Right there in the kitchen he f0rç£d me and did whatever he wanted to do with me to satisfy his selfish de-sires without considering the way I would feel. I felt broken and even hated myself for marrying him in the first place. There was nothing like thinking how he can make me happy or satisfy me. He even complained I was to dry after he did whatever he liked with me.
As he was doing it, all I felt all throu-gh was pain and I couldn’t wait for it to end. When he eventually did, I got up, hurried to the bathroom to take my birth control pill then dashed into the bathroom to vigorously wash my the affected p@rt which after I had a warm bath to wash his t©uçh off me.
Oh what a marriage full of pains and sadness!
What damages my parents has caused me!
To Be Continued……