Just One Slap Women Empowerment

On guest blogging, KPOBARI PEACEFUL brings you a sizzling story written in a typical Nigerian style making it stand out; I assure you’ll enjoy reading

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Wole and I have been married for three years now. Since last year’s June, I’ve noticed some changes in my husband. He came back from work one Thursday evening, running to our room and sweating profusely like a goat, set to be slaughtered on a Christmas eve.

Following him, I entered the room. “Heart! What is going on?” I asked my husband, with tension in my voice and tears almost dropping from my eyes, seeing the state of my husband. Silence filled the room after my first question. The only sound that increased in volume were the documents Wole kept flipping and throwing on the floor. I looked at him with pity, swallowed hard and let another word. “Heart, you’re not talking to me. What is happening?”

Again, the room was silent. I could only see a red-eye cobra about to change its skin in the eyes of my husband.

“You better start talking woman!”

 

I’m sure he was referring to me, but the word “woman”, coming out of my husband’s buccal cavity, played a drum of thunderous sound in my head.

 

I ignored!

 

“Heart?, I’m not understan…” “Stop calling me your heart!”. He interrupted, shouting and walking up to me.

For a few years, I’ve been married, my neighbors have never heard the quarrel of I and my husband. It’s either we’re arguing in the bathroom with the shower on, and doing the needful in the ‘other room’ after settling, or we’re at it in the middle of the night interceding in prayer.

 

I paid no attention to what my neighbors will have to say at the moment and focused on my ravaging husband, whose slow movement like an ‘Aloe-vera’ has gotten to my face. With echoes from an empty room, I heard Wole’s voice repeatedly  saying…”stop called me your heart!”

 

“If this was the work of the devil on my fourth year in marriage, I’ll definitely defeat him this time,”, I said to myself.

 

As usual, when I and my husband are having a heat in the air, I’d always go close to him, making sure he smells my breathe. Damn! That trick has been working for ages, as it melts my husband’s heart. But not this time! Because it was accompanied by a push, that landed me back on the cupboard.

 

“Where did you keep it?” He asked again, following me back to back. Confused as I was, words seized to come out of my mouth as I allowed the tears to flow from my eyes like the waves from river Jordan.

 

“Wo…wo..Wole you’re hurting me!”, I managed to stammer with a low tone. I don’t want to trigger his anger by calling him “My Heart”, even though calling his name was heavy on my lips.

 

“My mum said you stole her business documents with international investors,”. “Where did you keep it? You better start talking,”. He barked! This time, holding my neck.

 

His words sounded like the beat from Yoruba traditional talking drum with constant rhythm playing “gbas-gbos, gbas-gbos”. Did he say “His mother”? Is Wole calling me a thief? When last did I come in contact with his mum?

I mean! She has practically refused to step her foot in my home after my third miscarriage, tagging me a “witch!” (You know some of these Yoruba ‘tribalistic’ women na)

 

Several thoughts began to run through my head as the spirit of a lioness began to emerge gradually. With his hands still on my neck, and face directly on mine. I gave my husband a hard slap on his cheek. The type that produces three stars, with a struck of lightning from the thunderstorm, and rushing sounds of wind.

 

He released my neck immediately, holding his cheek in disbelief, with his mouth wide open, practicing the ‘holiness gap’ between a brother and a sister. I’m sure he was hearing the siren of 911 in his head because the pains I felt in my palm can be compared to a woman in travail.

 

I fell immediately to the ground, covering my mouth with my hands and crying uncontrollably. I was expecting my husband to bounce on me, but the slap actually reawakened his reasoning.

 

“So mother-in-law was the cause of all the changes in my husband?” I thought within me.

 

Wole stood up, kneeled in front of me. “Heart? Please forgive me!” He said weeping. … Hmm, ‘Heart’ huh?.

 

I stood up, pushed him aside, and ran to the guest room while he followed after. But I locked the door before he could get there.

 

For days I’ve been in this room. Don’t ask me how I feed, it’s my house remember?. My husband has been apologizing since on Monday, with tears and flowers. It’s been a while I saw him this romantic, I think I’m enjoying it. Lol! And hey! Don’t tell me I’m overdoing it. Biko! It’s my husband, not yours.

 

I’m beginning to miss him sha. I’ll come out after typing this story.