Tales Of A Couple (2)

THE HUSBAND

When you’ve been married six years and counting, there are some things you learn. Like the appropriate time to pretend you’re asleep.
She thinks I don’t know that she is avoiding our bed, she tries to be polite about it; pretending to have other things to attend to in other parts of the house just to avoid my touch.
What she doesn’t know is that whenever she enters our bedroom, tiptoeing across the carpeted ground; I’m not usually asleep. I only pretend to be, so she can have the peace of mind she so desires.
She doesn’t want me touching her but she’s too sophisticated to play the kind of games other women play;
I’m too tired.
I’m on my period.
I’m this, I’m that.

She does hers in a way she can easily get away with. And I let her think she does.
A part of me admires her for sharing my bed these past years. For bearing my kisses, for letting me inside her. I remember our wedding night; dark and devoid of passion. In the years when we were still friends, I had often pictured her arched on her back beneath me, her head thrown back and lips parted in ecstasy. I often fantasized about those lips of hers, full and taunting, crushed under mine. It wasn’t hard getting a mental photo of her in her unguarded moments, those times when she asked me over just to vent.
She’d be clad in modest shorts that showed off a generous amount of thighs; thighs I’d often envisioned would fit my head so perfectly.
I’m not sure what she thought as she hung around me dressed that way, that I wouldn’t look? That I was so fond of her that I wouldn’t get a hard-on?
Sad as it may sound those moments were some of my most cherished, times when we could actually talk and be comfortable around each other even though I was pining for her.
I would give anything to go back in time. To have her beckon to me just to hold her. To have her let down her guard and let me in again.
To have her not look at me with such faintly disguised hate.
I would give anything to have Ema my friend back. Was friendship worth giving up for this? I had always wanted her and I didn’t hide it from her in our four years of friendship.

Every time I proclaimed my love for her, she would dash my hopes. She would tell me in that condescending voice ;
I love you very much John. But as a friend.

It was those four words that killed me.

But as a friend.

Why spoil everything by adding that?

I promised myself I would leave her. I would stop asking. I would move on and love someone else that didn’t hurt this much.

Boy did I try!

I met Lara, Susan and Deborah. Girls that I dated for a little over one month each.

And then I stopped when I noticed they all had something in common: Ema.
It dawned on me that no matter where I went, no matter how far I ran, Ema was my curse.
Two weeks after she turned thirty-seven, she came to my house; drunk.
I was surprised. Ema never drank, she was the calm, composed woman. The steady ship in the midst of the billowing storm.
Does your proposal still stand Johnny boy? She slurred, swaying on her feet.
By that time I had asked her to marry me ten times, at least.

What proposal? My heart was racing and even though I tried to calm it, to tell it to stop being silly; it didn’t.

Yes I will marry you, Johnny.

I knew I should have sent her away or at least put her to sleep because she was obviously drunk but I didn’t. My heart pounded against my chest and it didn’t matter that she was saying yes to me in such a state, what mattered was that she said it.

Yes, yes, yes. Let’s get married! She sang again before throwing up on my living room floor.

I didn’t sleep that night. I sat and watched over her, wishing the night never to end.

I thought by the time she woke up the next day, she would have changed her mind. I dreaded that she wouldn’t remember what she had said.

When she opened her eyes the next day, the first thing she said was:
You will still marry me, right?

I hugged her then, like my life depended on it. I was a forty year old man who was like a child that’d just been told that Santa Claus was real.

I knew that if I married her, if she was eventually mine, I would never give her up. Nothing in this world would make me walk away from her. I was confident that I could get her to love me. And not just as a friend.

Six years and a few sad orgasms later, I am losing my confidence. This woman is no longer the one I fell in love with. She is now a gloomy, reserved workaholic. The only thing I know puts a smile on her face is our baby. Steph.
I watched her with our daughter one day and saw her smile the way she used to before, before she married me. And I wished I was Steph.

Sometimes I wonder if talking would help our situation but I know this runs deeper than just communication. She is unhappy. She hates me. She plays dutiful wife when need be, around friends and family. But that’s it.
Her scorn is baring it’s teeth in more ways than one these days and perhaps that’s why I seek comfort in Philomena.

Philomena who is the same height as my wife and is also light-skinned like Ema, let’s me call her darling. Philomena who agrees to wear the perfume that’s Ema’s favorite just to excite me. Philomena who doesn’t get mad or ask questions when I call out Ema’s name as we embark on our journey of pleasure. Philomena who I pretend is Ema as we make love; is the reason why I don’t bother with the games my wife is playing these days.
I won’t leave her. I can’t leave Ema. I know that’s what she wants but I’m in too deep to let her go.
Ema is my curse, my cross I will bear.

END

Mimi. A 2014 (C)

Tales Of A Couple (1)

THE WIFE

When you’ve been married six years and counting; there are some things you learn, some things you become master of. Like the appropriate time to go to bed.
You would know that if you get to bed earlier than ten pm, your husband would still be awake. He might be reading the paper or using his laptop but as soon as you get to bed, he’d abandon it all and start groping.
He would coo his favorite words;
You’re irresistible my darling.
Words that you tire of hearing. You hate the way he calls you darling. Like he’s replaced your name with it. Sometimes you wish he’d call your name.
Ema.
Maybe if he called your name instead of that silly darling, then you would remember why you married him.
Recently, you have started retiring late. You’d find every excuse to get into bed later than ten pm.
You would hover over Stephanie, kiss her goodnight almost a dozen times. Only last week you asked if you could read her a story in bed. You hadn’t done that since she was four and Steph was too excited to notice.
And when she dozed off, you had crawled into bed with her and fallen asleep too.
You know you should be happy, content. You have the life some women would want to have. At least, you have a husband.
That’s what Chinwe told you when you complained about your marriage.
You have a husband. Some do not. You have a daughter. Do you know how lucky you are?
Yes, Chinwe had a point. Being married somehow completed everything about your life. During your years of singlehood; you walked around feeling like someone with a death wish. It wasn’t about what society wanted. You wanted to be married, have someone to have and hold, someone who you could go to at night and lay your head against his bosom. You craved it especially when you saw people like Mercy getting married; throwing her ring in your face.

You and Mercy who used to hangout until she got married and declared that her husband didn’t want her spending time with single women anymore.
They could corrupt you, he said.

And once again you felt that fist in your heart, that feeling of incompleteness. You were thirty-five, you had a good job and when you bought your car, your pastor said it would chase the men away.
Women with cars are threats to men, he said somberly, touching his bearded chin.
So I should be using public transport because I want a husband? You asked.
No, no. That’s not what I’m saying. Listen Sister Ema, sometimes we don’t understand the ways of God.

Or man for that matter, you wanted to retort.

When you clocked thirty-six you stopped going to the village to see your parents. You could no longer bear the way your cousins paraded their husbands around like some trophy.

Ehen Emmanuella this is Ikechukwu my husband. He works in NNPC. Cousin Josephine would say, her eyes glazed with pride like her husband was another point on her CV.
And then you would wonder if it was your envy and bitterness that made you think such nasty thoughts.

My sister, this is Nkem. He is the brother to the secretary of Defense. Cousin Chioma would take the cue.
Women who had transformed from wearing jeans and t-shirts to wearing intricately patterned Ankara dresses.
It was the unspoken rule about how married women should dress. Tie wrappers, wear traditional every day you possibly can; it is the trademark that you belong to somebody.

Even as you thought those rules were stupid; a part of you craved to have the opportunity to choose whether to be like those conceited shallow women. At least you could choose to be different.
A husband would make you equal in their eyes. It would make them stop whispering that you used your virtue to make money.
They would stop gossiping that the car you drove had been financed by a male friend.
They would stop saying that the apartment you lived was sponsored by your sugar daddy.
And then maybe you would stop caring what they thought or what they said. Just maybe.

And so when you said yes to John, you tried so hard to pretend to be happy.
You were finally going to tie the knot. Wasn’t that what you wanted?

Yes, that’s what you told yourself as you slid into your wedding gown. It was a dream come true; you, in white. And as you walked down the aisle, you convinced yourself that you were doing the right thing.

John was no new suitor. He had been around; a true friend like his name. John. So solid and constant.
He had been there while you dated other men, the friend you talked to when your other relationships went down the drain.
You knew he was head over heels for you but you had told him off over and over again.
It won’t work, John. You’re my friend and I love you. But as a friend.
You knew he’d cried over you. More than a dozen times you had rejected him saying to yourself that he wasn’t your ideal man. John wasn’t the exotic dude you wanted. Yes, he wasn’t bad looking and he absolutely adored you but no, that wasn’t enough.

You knew what you wanted in a man and John wasn’t it.

Which is why as you walked down the aisle that day and through your veil saw him grinning from ear to ear; you wanted to turn back and run far away because you knew the reason you had said yes to him wasn’t because you loved him.
It was because at thirty-seven you were afraid you would end up alone. No husband, no children. Nothing. You believed in biological clocks and you knew yours was ticking.

You may now kiss the bride.

Your first kiss with John was inside the chapel and as you felt his warm lips on yours; tears began to roll down your cheeks.

He loves me. Was all you sang to yourself as the years passed by. He adores me and that’s enough.

Even though your body didn’t tingle when he touched you, nor did your nipples spring to attention as his lips nuzzled them.
He loves me. You repeated like a mantra while his body melded with yours and he put Stephanie in you.

It was only when you held Stephanie in your arms for the first time that you knew that it wasn’t enough to be loved; you wanted to love too.
You wanted to love with a fervency that could make you go nuts. You wanted passion, to feel it. To hold it, if possible.
And Steph became your passion. She was the reason you lived, she was the reason you were glad you had endured those nights in bed with John.

But now, six years later, you are repulsed by your husband’s touch. By the suffocating way he loves you.
No matter how much you lash out and hurt him, John always forgives. He loves you even when you’ve given him every reason not to.
And the more he loves you, the more you hate him.
You want him to hate you and maybe if he does you can squeeze this guilt away that is eating you to death.
Maybe if he hates you, you can finally find the courage to leave him.

END.

MIMI A. (C)