PART 1: CHAPTER 3

I woke up on the couch and was surprise to see that I wasn't carried to the room by my husband.

I didn't think Cletus could actually have the heart to leave me to sleep in the parlour with all the mosquitoes he knew were in it, but I was proven wrong again. It's like I never knew him. He was not the man I married.

Luckily for me I didn't wake up too late to prepare breakfast.

I looked up at the wall clock to see that it was just five o'clock in the morning meaning that there was enough time for me to make rice and stew for breakfast so that my husband could eat before going to work and possibly take some with him.

There was also enough time to get my daughter ready for school.

First of all, I had to start with a prayer for the day. Now every morning when I wake up I made sure to thank God for another day and every night before my daughter sleeps I pray with her.

Funny enough when I was much younger in my twenties, I didn't really pray much. I had it all so I saw no reason to constantly keep in touch with God but after marriage, my relationship with God grew stronger and stronger.

I had to hope on something, something that could help me change my husband that I loved so much from being the monster he had turned into.

I had given up too much to be with him. My name, my identity, family, my medical career, I had given up all of ir. I didn't want to fail. I couldn't go back to my parents, I was too ashamed to see their faces again. I had failed them. I wished I had more friends but I wasn't allowed to leave the house.

I remembered that my bible was upstairs so I had to go to my room to get it. I didn't want to wake Cletus up so early, I didn't want trouble or fights, but I needed my bible.

When I got to my room I shut the door behind me gently and walked to the bed side table with feathery footsteps. My bible was just where I left it the previous morning but it was not what my eyes first caught sight of.

My eyes locked on the bed and refused to look anywhere else. Cletus slept with the lights on meaning that he was too tired when he got up. Tired from fucking other women.

He was clad in just a boxer and his morning wood was sticking out of it. His dick was heavenly, completely heavenly. Long, thick and veiny and they could do things to a woman. Very many things, as they had done to me.

I felt jealousy sear through me like a wave of water drowning me in worldly feelings. To think that his dick had been in multiple other women other than I was too painful to bear, but I still couldn't look away from them. I remembered the times when we were so happy and I would wake him up with my lips on his cock but now I couldn't.

If only his past wasn't so daunting maybe I could have had a better chance at making him love me forever. He was like this because of his past, I knew it and I had to save him. He is mine to save. 

Maybe God decided that for the purposes of equity that I deserved a little bit of suffering in my life considering how free of sufferings I had been all through my childhood and youth, thanks to my Dad who loved me more than life itself.

Thinking about him made my heart ache so bad that I couldn't stop the tears that fell down my eyes.

I inhaled deeply and picked up my bible.

Looking at the room once again I decided to clean it after Cletus leaves.

His clothes were on the tiled floor and the arm chair by his work table. The bed side table was scattered, even the wardrobe by the side. I exhaled.

Today again I would stay at home cleaning, like a domestic house help when I had a degree in medicine from one of the best medical schools in the world. When I had parents who could employ a thousand workers.

It was all for Cletus. My love for him was unconditionally and limitless. It was all for him. I was his wife now and the most important thing to me was doing right by him.

I ran downstairs scared of what I might do if I kept staring at his morning wood the way I was. Last week I had touched him because I was so horny and he had almost broken my hand. I couldn't take my chances today again. It was not just because I was afraid of him physically manhandling me but his words, his words were what I was afraid of.

The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt him by reminding him of his past.

I picked up my rosary from the small altar on the wall of our parlor and started to sing praise and worship songs. I knelt down as tears started to fall down my cheeks. I was drowning in pain, in fear, in abuse.

When we were still dating Cletus would join me every morning to pray. But immediately we got married he stopped totally. The last time I woke him up for prayers he beat me so bad I definitely learnt my lesson.

Fear. That was all I felt these days.

After saying the rosary, I Read the missal. The reading for the day and then psalm 1.

After praying I hurriedly went to prepare breakfast for the family, then I cleaned the whole house except my bedroom. I did it all before 6:30am.

It wasn't an easy task to do all alone especially since we stayed in a duplex but Cletus forbade me from getting a maid and I could possibly not go against his wishes. He was my husband after all.

Doing all the cooking and cleaning didn't feel as stressful as it did at first. I soon became used to the task, after all I wasn't working and I was going no where. I barely had any friends. I learnt to embrace my fate.

I was no longer the rich senators daughter who could have it all at a snap of her fingers I was now Cletus's wife. His wife. I thought as I served breakfast in a melancholy state.

When I was satisfied with how neat the house was I went upstairs to my daughters room in other to get her ready for school.

Cletus could wake himself up.

On getting to her room I pushed the door open hoping that the noise would wake her up but it didn't. She was still sound asleep when I walked in even with all the rays of sunshine hitting her eyes from the window.

Not knowing how else to wake her up without hitting her or stressing myself more than I was already stressed, I carried her up and took her to the bathroom, then I took off her night gown. All this while she was still sound asleep. It was not until I poured a cup of water on her shoulder that she immediately woke up with a shudder.

She blinked her eyes continuously trying to clear her sight. When she saw me standing there by the bathtub she smiled.

"Mummy good morning." She greeted.

"Good morning my princess." I answered. I bent down to peck her cheeks then I tickled her. Her laughter echoed in the bathroom, a bubbly and happy laughter. I could not help but laugh too.

I was lucky that Cletus didn't hit me on my face yesterday so that at least my daughter won't see me bruised and be sad. Although my hands were sore I was putting on a long sleeve shirt so it was covered.

I wanted so much to hide the abusive nature of Cletus from our daughter but he wasn't helping matters at all. It hurts that he still beats me when our daughter was watching. I knew that this affected her psychologically or was likely to affect her in some other way and it scared me so bad.

I didn't want her growing up to think that all men were evil and I have warned Cletus about this, but he never listens to me.

"Mummy I didn't see daddy come back yesterday," Ezinne suddenly said

My heart skipped a million beats.