Grey Matter

Love is a mysterious thing. People stay in love for the funniest reasons. I mean who would have thought that after helping her discover her inner mascara, Rihanna would still crave Chris brown? It’s a wonder…Today, we examine one such scenario.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The coolest story teller this side of the world…

@TheGreyGenesis

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I watched as though locked in an unfortunate trance as Mummy Nkem charged towards me with the ferocity of a raging bull. In record time, she had wrapped both her porky arms around my waist, simultaneously putting her head under my left armpit. In the same swift motion, she lifted me off the beloved ground and left me in the air…

“Pride goes before a fall.” If this is true, then for what seemed like an eternity, I had become the most humble, down to earth man alive by the saving Grace of My Lord and personal savior; Jesus Christ. In this time of ascending to familiarize myself with my ceiling, the past 3 years of my marriage flashed through my mind…

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The first time my wife beat me? It was on our honeymoon. Yes, that night. The night I had been waiting for all my teenage years; That night. The night I had planned to reveal how much of a man I was; That night. The night when I believed she would ask me to spank her hard and I would gladly oblige while asking her “who’s her daddy?”THAT FUCKING NIGHT! You see, she said she was feeling sleepy as soon as we entered the plush N652,050 per night Suite of the Hilton which I had proudly booked and paid for. Ah! I had every reason to be appropriately ‘thanked’ by my new bride and men, was I fully ready to receive the ‘thanks.’

Sleepy kwa? I thought.

Hehe…Sleep ke?

Surely she must be joking. I thought.

Until my beautiful Obiageli -whose body harvestation thoughts and plans had caused me plenty sleepless nights and subsequent confused days- went into the bathroom and returned with her face covered in something that looked alarmingly like Nixoderm and the FUGLIEST hair net imaginable. This Impostor net thing was flattening and covering and compressing and merging her hair into and with her small skull. And she was tying an Ankara wrapper too. No. not the expensive Ankara types, The Enugu Umu- Ada Rotary club types with the face of some lady you can barely recognize emblazoned on it. Dear God! She then climbed in beside me on the large water bed and I cringed inwardly.

Then. She. Fucking. Started. To. Snore.

She wasn’t joking ?

This went on for quite sometime while my mind kept switching between emotions of pain, disbelief, anger, grief, then acceptance, then doubt, then I started to shake. I started to remember all the features of the suite we were lodged in: “Desk, WLAN, Micro wave, Safe, Coffee maker, Terrace, Smoke detectors, Kitchen, Kitchenette, Alarm clock”… I’d believed that by the breaking of dawn the next day, I would have formed new sex styles using the name of each of the room’s features. I mean, Can you imagine how much I’d been trying to imagine a style with my Obi called ‘the smoke detector’? Can you???

And this was how everything was going to end? On the night of its beginning? No, No, No. My ancestors would toss in their rest.

I started taking deep breaths and pretended to be asleep beside my new bride who was lying on my right side with her back turned towards me and her head facing away, stealthily reaching out with my left hand, I casually dropped it on the bumbum of my own wife. Ladies and Gentlemen, that was how things started to happen almost too quickly for my belief and mental capacity for documentation.

I noticed the IMMEDIATE cessation of Obiageli’s snoring and in that same EXACT instant she did a quick rotating flip from her side of the bed and landed beside me with her hand smack on my face- fingers splayed over my right eye.

The room went white.

Then it went pitch black.

Then multi colors started to appear.

Then I noticed the pain of the slap.

Then I screamed.

She wasn’t finished though. Obiageli climbed atop me – wrapper and all- and straddled me. Lord Jesus, this was not how I pictured this straddling session. This was not the reason why you said woman should leave her mother and father. With one hand holding my neck she proceeded to interrupt my thoughts, punctuating her next sentence with hard slaps into the side of my face with her other hand.

“DO” KPAOW!

“YOU” KPAOW!

“KNOW” KPAOW!

“HOW” KPAOW!

“MUCH I HATE BEING TOUCHED WHILE SLEEPING??”

“I- I’m sorry dear” I whimpered as she let go of my now swollen neck and climbed to her side of the bed….And went back to sleep. Just like that. And somehow, through the entire humiliating incident; even though my face felt like newly peeled Yam, I somehow still managed to feel aroused.

That was 3 years ago.

We now have a daughter named Nkem and Obiageli has only beaten me 4 times since that fateful night; once in front of my friends, twice with a pestle and once along with my best friend Chike. Apparently, we were shouting too much while watching football in my parlour. Our favorite team had just scored and Chike and I were bouncing on either end of the couch screaming “GOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLL!!!!” In the midst of the excitement, I had forgotten how Obi’m had warned me never to raise my voice talkless of shouting “goal” seeing as she hated football. I had also forgotten that she was at home. Chike had tried to intervene when she rushed in from the bedroom, pounced on me, dragged me off the couch and started to flog me with what I later realised was my own belt. I had managed to whimper “Chike nooooo” but the testosterone in his system was blocking his ear drums it seemed.

She flogged Chike as well and that one has never come to visit my house again since that day.

See I’m no coward okay? And I’ve decided severally to speak firmly with/to the mother of my child about this beating issue. I am the man that wears the pants in this house. I am the one who paid her bride price and dowry. I am the man who believes that “blessed are the peacemakers…” However, you must understand that the proper opportunity has not presented itself as I generally become weak in the knees whenever I try to talk to her and she replies with “EHN?”

“Ah din’t say anyteen”

Secondly, I’m a small man; barely 6 inches above 5 feet tall and my wife is 6 ft 2 inches tall; Part of how we met and got married in the first place. A private joke about how opposites attract and all. *sigh* You see, while some people’s marriages are clearly outlined in Black and white with some partial shades of grey areas, Mine is a complete grey area with no white or black whatsoever. Call me a glutton for punishment but I know in spite of the occasional beatings, my wife loves me. And I genuinely believe that the last time she beat me would be the last time she’d ever do a thing like that ever again.

But of course it wasn’t :’)

Whoever I was offered as sacrifice to in the air must have rejected me as I came crashing down to earth with a heavy thud. With that landing, It suddenly occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea what I’d done to warrant this ongoing session of Obiageli’s wrath. My mind told me to play dead and so I lay perfectly still on the floor.

“Nnamdi!”  “Nnam!” “Baba Nkem!”

Maybe she would go easy if she realizes she almost lost me to death from beating. I said nothing.

Her footsteps drifted away in frenzy and I felt a sense of victory. “I’m sure she’s gone to call the neighbors for help” I thought.

From the corner of my eye, I miraculously saw her approaching again. This sight would have risen Lazarus from the dead too. Dear God! Not the Pestle again!!!

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