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Biodun staggered into his house; drunk as always…..

His wife, accustomed to hearing his uneven drunk steps prepared herself for a terrible night ahead; Biodun was usually such a wonderful man, but alcohol brought out the devil in him.

She steeled her jaw for the blows that were sure to come; in an alternate reality, she was sure Biodun would have become a successful boxer. She could have succeeded in the boxing heavyweight division; such was the force of his blows; and she had withstood this hell for 8years. Many professional boxers’ careers didn’t even span that long.

The bang on the door shook her out of her reverie; she mechanically put a smile on her face and hoped against hope that tonight would be different.

As soon as she unlocked the door, Biodun staggered in. She imagined that this was what the production factory of Nigerian Breweries would smell like; the scent of his expensive perfume was long gone.

She gently steered Biodun to the dining table where she had laid out dinner, and gingerly took a seat beside him; Biodun seemed to come to life at the sight of food.

She was about to crack a smile when Biodun suddenly pushed the plates aside, the glassware shattering to earth with a loud report.

Before she could ask what was wrong, the first blow came and sent her flying out of her chair in one clean sweep; from then on, there was no respite as her husband rained continuous blows to every part of her body.

As his energy waned, Biodun slowed down and eventually stopped, he staggered to the parlour where he slumped onto the sofa.

Pray, who was this monster? This wife beater?

Biodun Omodokun was a pillar of his community; a man’s man; successful, handsome and charming. Every woman’s dream and his wife’s nightmare, Biodun started his wealth management company at the age of twenty one. Such was his entrepreneurial drive.

It took Biodun three years to put his company at the forefront of asset management companies in Nigeria. Respected by his contemporaries, held in awe even by competitors, Biodun had the world at his feet at twenty four.

He was by far one of the most eligible bachelors in Abuja; Biodun was no debutante, he had his pick of girls. He was always a consummate gentleman and he was quite the socialite, he easily charmed and worked his way through the Abuja social circle.

Trust Abuja girls, they had exhausted all schemes to get Biodun to tie the knot but he was as slippery as an eel, this was one horse that had no plans of seeing a stable.

For his twenty fifth birthday, Biodun decided to be extravagant; he purchased the 2012 Range Rover sport, Limited edition. It set him back to the tune of N25million, but for a man of his stature and social standing, nothing less would have sufficed.

Despite his wealth and entrepreneurial drive, Biodun was rather clueless about automobiles; he was barely adept at driving and his constant refusal to hire a driver made him a danger to himself and other motorists.
In barely a month, his state of the art Range Rover sport had lost its gleam and the poor automobile was barely a shadow of itself.

He might have been clueless but he sure wasn’t stupid so he decided to take his car to an automobile shop to restore it to its once pristine state. Not a roadside mechanic, but one of those pricy automobile repair shops that dotted the landscape of Abuja was where he decided to patronise.

He had barely parked his car before a valet promptly appeared and drove the car into the main working area and he was directed towards the reception.

Had he known what was ahead, Biodun would probably have done a few things differently; but isn’t that what the benefit of hindsight does to us all?

As he sat in the reception nursing a cold bottle of beer, his attention alternated between the pages of the newspaper he was holding and the lanky boy who was working on his Range Rover.

From where he was seated, the boy looked a little too young to have any major experience on that kind of job but from the way he carried himself, he looked like he knew what he was doing.

Two hours flew by before the boy was done working on his car, not that Biodun complained, three bottles of big stout put him at the top of his game and he already got a number and a date from one of those insanely wealthy Abuja women – whose only problem was how to spend money – who was also at the reception.

His wealthy friend took her leave and Biodun was bored stiff with the newspaper, his eyes roamed his surroundings restlessly. Something caught his eye, he was sure he was dreaming or dead drunk because what he saw marked a turning point in his life.

Biodun stood still; mouth wide agape and hands in his pocket, momentarily frozen as he unconsciously reached for his phone.

“The lanky boy” at work on his car was actually a girl; prettier than the word ‘pretty’ had ever described. She stood there in her oversize overall, grease stains all over her body, creating a perfect contrast to the sparkles in her spotless white teeth.

She just smiled at him, creating dimples, each big enough to hold a shot of liquor.

Biodun knew girls enough to believe that she was NOT smiling because she liked him.

The smile resulted from a combination of satisfaction from the work she had done and mockery of Biodun’s cluelessness in car maintenance.

Biodun stared at her lips while it listed all the things she did and then concluding at the sum total of his bill.

That was the first time Biodun was speechless in front of a girl since primary school.
Biodun left the auto repair shop with one resolve: to get the girl at whatever cost…..

The cost was his freedom.

Never had a man wooed a woman so earnestly; Biodun put Romeo to shame in his gestures of love; but his “Juliet” wasn’t going to be won easily.

Having heard of his conquests through the capital city, she was determined never to become one of his countless mistresses.

Her continued refusal fuelled Biodun’s lust, he was such a successful man, he was always used to having his way, women hardly refused his advances for more than a couple of weeks.

This was proving to be difficult; it took Biodun two years to win her over and convince her that a life with him was better than anything the auto repair shop could ever give her.
When he finally got her, he thought he had gotten the perfect trophy. He knows better now.

His dream come true is now a recurring nightmare.

What used to be paradise is now purgatory. The angel who came into his life was actually a demon sent from hell’s deepest and hottest spot to steal his joy.

She tricked him with everything in the book. She refused him sex, building his hunger for it to dizzying oxygen-void crescendo only for him to find out she wasn’t even a virgin on her wedding night.

She presented herself as the woman who was going to give him everything a man could ever dream of – beautiful children, delicious meals and bragging rights of virginity. It’s been eight years now, she hasn’t even missed her period.

She can dismantle a car in two minutes but she can’t even boil water right. She’s so rigid during sex.

Is this what he left the market for?

With rage, he flew back up from the sofa he had slumped on and kicked his wife with all the rage of pure hate, he kicked till he had the satisfaction of seeing blood spill from her, then staggered back to the sofa and gave into alcohol induced slumber.
**

Dorcas was a battered soul….

Her parents died when she was just ten and she was forced to stay with an uncle. After years of abuse, she ran from her uncle’s house and stayed with another uncle who was a mechanic.

This uncle made her stay with him at his shed always after he noticed how her beauty attracted customers.

Dorcas made the most of this situation and became a master of all thing things about a wide range of cars.

All these made it difficult for her to give in to Biodun, but she did and they have been married for eight years now, only one of those years was happy.

The beauty that defined Dorcas was long gone; overshadowed by the big dark shades she always wore around to cover her permanently purple face.

A coup had been carried out in her heart, happiness had been overthrown, now it’s just gloom and fantasies of death, first for her husband and then for herself.

She had purchased a gun from one of those bad street boys from around her uncle’s workshop who worshipped her back in the days.

She could easily have told them to kill her husband at absolutely no cost. But if she ever decided she wanted him dead, she wanted to do it herself.
But she couldn’t.

She still held on to memories of that boy she fell in love with; that pompous overconfident guy who stopped at nothing to get her; that boy who worshiped the air that came out of her nostrils.

She still held on to memories of that night when he slept overnight in his car in front of her house just to convince her to go out with him.

She held on to memories of his vows on their wedding day.

It was all tricks from his book, after all. She had married the devil.

He didn’t live in hell or under the ground; he lived in Abuja – with her.

Memories were not the only thing that stopped her from killing him, she also blamed herself.

If only she could give him a child. If only she had stayed at home more with her uncle’s wife to learn how to cook.
She employed someone to teach her to cook three years ago but by that time Biodun had stopped eating her food.

She still served him though, knowing it was just going to end up on the floor, because failure to do so could just end in more beating.

How was she supposed to explain to her husband that he was the only guy she willingly gave herself to? That she preferred the impersonal hum of engines to the complications of human interaction.

This was her world, this was her hell…..this is Dorcas….living with the devil within.

@ Moscomoet, this is a wonderful appetizer. Oya come and quench the taste!