LOVING IN BONDAGE.

Rebecca stares hard at the mirror, dressed in her milk colored nightgown; she has been like this for the past two hours that her black, swollen right eye was beginning to bring forth tears. Her cheeks are sunken, eyes red and sore from crying, upper lip swollen like she had visited Mike Tyson at the wrong time; she finds it hard to believe she is looking at her very self in this mirror. She tries to smile in spite of herself only to let out a sob.

“It all ends tonight” she assures herself.

Several times, she has thought of reasons to leave; not that she even need stress herself for them; they are glaringly clear. But each time, she ends up with a reason to stay. Tony did not use to be this way; he was an angel, her love, her life. He was someone she could give the world for...and still will. Yes, he is a little bit of an addict; heroin addict. At least that is what she tells herself. I cannot but wonder how one can use the word “little” to qualify heroin addiction. Had it been he could afford the drugs and pay from his own pocket, it would have been a lot different.

“Baby, I’m out of stuffs”. He would say with the most innocent of faces ever seen; hands hugging his body and head tilted to an angle you wouldn’t bother to measure.

“Oh! Tony! You promised to cut down on your intake. You promised to give it all up”.

“Yes I know, I know. Just this once, I just can’t help it my love”.

“Baby, you are running us down with this. We cannot afford...”

Now, the once former cool and innocent face of a handsome young man scrawls into a mean, snarling monster’s.

“Are you giving me the money or not?” he would ask grabbing her by the neck violently. Rebecca as usual would want to play it all down with the hope that her “coolness” will snap him out of his temporal insanity; it has never worked.

“You are hurting me, Tony. You are choking me”, She wimped.

“You are going to give me that money, Rebecca. I don’t need to beg for it. Where the fuck is the money?”

She would point to her wallet or go get the money from wherever it is hidden; you cannot trust Tony with your money or jewelries. Not that he would deny taking them, but fact is; you will never get them back. In cases where she refuses or delays beyond his patience, he would beat her black and blue. Taking the money, he would leave, only to come back twenty to thirty minutes later, a humbled and caring lover.

Rebecca had her life built around Tony; she has lost all of her friends, turned down lots of suitors and kept no male friend, all because of Tony. She loved him even to the spittle he spits on the ground. Tony on the other hand, loved her to a fault, but he had a more superior love for his addiction and as such, places his “stuff” above her when the urge sets in.
Tony would boil water to massage her aching joints or swollen body parts, depending on the level of injury he had inflicted on her till they are no more. He would take her out, buy her expensive gifts and treat her to surprises whenever he could.

At thirty-five, she was still unmarried, Rebecca believed and looked forward to a future with her love.

“What is the use staying with a man who is loving and caring in the day and a monster at night?” her colleagues would ask.

“Tony is handsome and caring and loving. He is everything you say, but he loves his drugs more. He is addicted, Rebecca, why can’t you accept that. You have tried changing him and failed. Why hold on to what will never be?” I.J, the secretary would add. “He will do anything to have his shot of heroin, even if it means throwing you down a sky scraper. Isn’t that proof enough that you are nothing but his second love?”

Rebecca shakes her head slowly as she looks at the shadow of her old self in the mirror; tears run down her cheeks. She has made up her mind; she is leaving tony tonight. She wouldn’t mind leaving her apartment for him and going to squat with I.J as planned.
“I am too good to be treated this way. I am tired of wearing scarf to office everyday just to hide my blacked eye and punctured lips” she declared in her mind.

The door creaks as it pushes open; she hears footsteps approaching the bedroom, her heartbeat doubles; she can feel it thumping against her chest, the adrenalin rush is unexplainable. There is no way she is going to remain with this man. Her mind has been made up.

“Becca? Where is my angel?” rings Tony’s voice from the sitting room. He walks into the bedroom and stops at the doorstep at the sight of his love. Rebecca turns around slowly, ready to drop the bombshell on Tony no matter how it hurts him; there in the bedroom is her man; he bears three hampers. He is so sober and sad at what he had done to Rebecca that he couldn’t even look her in the eyes. He walks slowly towards her and empties the hampers on the bed quickly. “I know I cannot make up for the way I treat you, I know I do not deserve you, angel. I have my faults, and that is what makes me human. Forgive me my angel.” He takes out a container of soothing balm, opens it and starts to apply them on her joints and legs as a whole. In a matter of minutes, she is lying on the bed, naked, her back to the ceiling while he massages her bare back; moans escapes her lips at interval; she has forgotten her initial plan to break things up.
How can she give up such a handsome and loving man who has completely taken over her mind?
I do not know whether to judge or sympathize with her for her decision five years ago when she could have changed things.

I walk out of the compound; Aunty Rebecca had asked me to help get something at the supermarket. She is forty now, blind in one eye, with a deep black scar on her forehead; an injury inflicted on her by Tony four years ago when he had pushed her down so hard that she smashed her face hard against the edge of the bed.
Just like you guess, she never got married after Tony died from overdose.

Walk away from anything that doesn't make you a happy person.

CHIDERA REGINALD.