Victim

“Or, who would believe you? he sneered. He threw her clothes on her face and lay heavily on the bed.

“Nneka get up from there and get my food I don’t want to keep the choristers waiting… it’s not even like you are a virgin”

She kept sobbing lying in a foetus position.

“Or, do you want me to get my belt?” he sat up abruptly. She knew he wasn’t nice when he was with a belt. Her whole back being a testimony. She sat up and gathered her clothes her body still heaving with sobs. She made for the door feeling dirty.

“And look here”

She got to the locked door and hastily pulled the first bolt backwards.

“I said look here my friend!” her hand froze on the second. She didn’t hear him stand from the bed. She turned to face his huge and intimidating figure towering over her.  He held and pushed her jaw upwards forcing her to look into his face which was contorted the same way as when he had ripped off her gown. She felt dirtier.

“you threatened to report me to my wife right?” she couldn’t find her voice as more tears flowed freely

He laughed wildly and wore a frown immediately. “I thought so. Aunty town crier” his hand moved from her jaw to her neck. “If you as much as breathe this to anybody…” he tightened his hold around her neck, pushed her back to the wall and slapped her eyes with his free hand. His gaze fell on her naked full breast which swung with every futile move she made in a struggle to free herself from his grip. He stared at them for a while ignoring the choking sounds coming from her.

He looked away and left her neck. “you are such a beautiful girl Nneka…Just look at what you do to me” he pointed to the growing bulge beneath his briefs.  She was gasping for air and rubbing her assaulted neck. Besides, the tears in her eyes made her vision blurry so, she couldn’t see the organ for which the strive to satisfy its dark pleasure will become the beginning of her physical, sexual, emotional, psychological abuse and torture for a very long while which will leave a huge permanent scar in her life.

He picked her clothes which was scattered all over the floor and handed them over to her.

“I’m sorry I hurt you but, don’t worry you’ll start to enjoy it soon”. He pulled the second bolt and opened the door. She shied away from his stretched hand and left for her room as he stood there his eyes fixated on her naked swaying hips and buttocks only returning inside to prepare for the choir practice he had in less than an hour’s time when she entered her room.

She lay in her bathtub at night after unsuccessfully trying to scrub herself clean from several baths. The smell of his sweaty body over hers pinned to the floor couldn’t seem to leave her. With every bath, she felt dirtier. His facial expression when he climaxed made her skin crawl. She wanted to forget but, couldn’t.

She recalled the day exactly a week after the burial of her parents, she was escorting Ogonna her favourite cousin to her fiancé’s car parked outside her parent’s house as she was all set to return to Abuja having come home to pay her last respect. She was speaking of how she would storm her kitchen whenever she was opportune to come visiting.

“Ogo say something na… abi you don’t want me to come. Are you now stingy?” she teased when she noticed the serious and faraway look on her cousins face.

Ogonna opened the front passenger’s door and instead of her usual relaxing bear hugs, she merely wrapped her arms around her “Be careful of De Nnamdi” she whispered then withdrew her arms immediately. She dipped a hand into the pocket of her trouser and pressed the content into the palms of a confused Nneka who thought she saw tears forming in her eyes but she wasn’t sure as she entered the car and closed the door immediately. She didn’t wave goodbye too as the car sped away.  She opened her palm to see her a phone number written on a piece of paper and some amount of money. She didn’t have a phone yet but planned to use any of her friend’s phone to call her someday. Now, she couldn’t remember how it got missing. when the beatings started over frivolous things while his wife watched and did nothing to shield or defend her, she concluded it to be what Ogonna meant and wondered how she survived eight whole years living with him and his childless wife. Not until this afternoon did she get a clearer picture.

She wondered who she could possibly report to. Who would even believe her? After all, her uncle was the choirmaster of the church and an elder too who gave large donations both in church and the society. A well respected man admired by everyone. What would he be doing with his eighteen-year-old niece when he had a beautiful and educated wife? Many people had told her how lucky she was to be treated as their biological child and enrolled in one of the most expensive and standard schools by her guardians. Anyways, who wouldn’t be deceived? She was warned to only address them as Mum and Dad outside. She couldn’t reconcile the beast who flung his belt at home on her back. The one who was in between her legs hours ago with the Church elder who gives long sermons on morality and compassion. The one who gave gifts of stationery to children with a palm on their head and echoing “bless you” and monetary gifts to mostly widows who always had problems and came with long stories and tears every Sunday after service. Now won’t she be called ungrateful if she brought this information close to their ears? Nobody would dare believe her.

She wondered if she was actually a promiscuous prostitute just as her late mother had called her when her neighbour raped at fourteen. “if you had just given him his beer and come back, he wouldn’t have touched you…you sat down to watch television that you don’t have in your Father’s house okwaya… I said spread your legs let me see if you are saying the truth” she remembered her mother feeling her private part aggravating the pain. When she had found whatever she was looking for, she slapped her across the face calling her a disgrace, promiscuous, dirty and a prostitute then dramatically carrying her hands on her head and shouting how she won’t kill her because she didn’t kill her mother. “you went there to be shaking your bumbum in his front baa”

“shey you were enjoying it?” “why didn’t you tell me the first time he touched you” “why did you wear this cloth that is showing your armpit” “what did you expect when all you do is eat my food grow, and look twice your age...Isn’t he a man?”.

her mother woke her at night with some pills and a glass of water making sure she swallowed it and wasn’t hiding it under her tongue or in her pockets to discard later as she does when forced to take drugs. She didn’t know what broke her young spirits more if it was when her mother warned her never to tell anyone else even her father who she was really close to because, no man will want to marry a wayward girl and she didn’t want her to bring shame to them or, when he walked into her mother’s beer parlour the next day and bought some bottles of cold beer. Her mother only politely refused and suggested he makes the trip twice when he asked for Nneka’s help and till the death of her parents he always walked in freely to buy beer and she avoided him and every other male around like a plague.

  She wondered what it was wrong with her. Why guys leered at her when she walked past even in well covered clothes, why men in the bus stole touches pretending it was as a mistake when the bus plunged into potholes, why she was held by the arm when walking by men who sold by the roadside and were scouting for customers and even if she didn’t want to buy anything, she was expected to smile and say a polite thank you to their “hey you’re sexy Nne” before shrugging their hands off even when irritated. She couldn’t ask God for answers because if his servant who represents him could be like this then, how would God himself be?

  She managed to drag herself up and away from the tub to her room when she heard the knock. Ofcourse everything was wrong about her life but her ears were sound so, she got alert wondering who was awake by this time of the night. The knock came again not as soft as earlier.

“Nneka open this door you’re not asleep” That voice could only belong to her oppressor.
.
.
#Victim
#QueenLikeNono