A Walk of Shame (Short Fiction)
EDITH JUMPED OUT OF THE HOTEL BED and hastily wriggled into her pant, then her skirt. She found her bra lying on the floor; she retrieved it and began to strap it to arrest her heavy dangling breasts.
The naked man on the bed was seemingly exhausted. He watched her keenly and gently rubbed his hairy chest down to his pot-belly that floated like a ball in a pool. His phone rang. Picking his call, he began to talk sweetly to the caller and lied about his whereabouts. She second-guessed him to be talking to his wife or one of his lovers.
Now, she was fully dressed. She still swept the whole floor with her eyes; making sure nothing of hers was forgotten. Littering the floor were a pack of cigarettes, an empty bottle of codeine syrup and the man’s clothing. Then she swung around to face him on the bed. His image was a menace to her eyes. She silently cussed herself for sleeping with a pig. Nothing was attractive about him. He was fat and his body was densely hairy, worse still, he had a diagonal face like a mouse. She waited for him to end the call.
"I-have-to go now...Please, pay me"
He was uglier when he smiled. And when he did, he unveiled a set of tobacco-damaged teeth; the frontal ones looked like the metal blade of a hoe about to till a stubborn ground. His lips were calloused, so was the banana-size finger he wagged at her to get back into the bed.
"I need more sauce from your pot, dear", he gently patted the bed for her to hop back, still revealing the sinister teeth.
She shot him an incredulous look as a current of rage flowed through her whole body. However, she smouldered raging emotion.
"I am tired and feeling sore. I must go now", she said with a trembling voice," I have little children waiting for me at home"
The man sat up on the bed, shrugging in resignation and propping himself against the wall.
"I hope we hook up some other time then”
She gave him the best answer for the fool he was, silence.
He kindly grabbed his wallet and counted some naira bills out of it. He handed her. She collected it swiftly, recounted it and then stowed it away into her bra. She quickly slipped into her worn-out brown suede loafers and headed out of the room.
"Please, call me...", he shouted after her.
She descended through the staircase to the ground floor. She paused at the hotel’s exit and carefully scanned the street. She couldn’t risk being seen by anyone who knew her coming out of a hotel, or worse still, by her jobless bastard-for-a-husband, who now roamed the streets like a stray mongrel. Regardless, her conscience began to flog her inwardly for her deed. She was officially a prostitute.
"Times are hard. My children have to eat" A voice mentioned in her head.
“You are a damn married whore! ” Another voice countered.
Still taking gander at the street, she saw no passer-by who knew her. Then she dashed into the street and hurried along, never looking back. She mulled about her children as she strode on. They would be famished by now and her youngest child would be crying. It’d been over four hours since she’d left home, it was already past 1pm now and they hadn’t eaten all morning. She didn’t expect her husband, Benny, to be home. The vagabond would normally be loitering the lotto kiosk down the street, like he did everyday from 7am to 7pm, betting his life away and drinking cocktails of spirits with herbs in the company of other idle men of kind. Then later in the night, he would return home; and try to make love to her. Most times, he forcefully had his way.
He was once a police officer until his sack for getting drunk and beating a man nearly to a pulp in a beer parlour. Since losing his job, Edith had become the champion for her children, making ends meet, shouldering the load alone while he drank his life away.
However, her recharge card business had now crashed. Hence, every attempt to raise capital to restart the business had been to no avail. Her children had been driven from school for unpaid fees which had now accumulated over three terms. Now for the first time, out of many times to come, she had to prostitute.
Her friend, Veronica had acquainted her to her first client. Veronica owned a beer parlour and had a clientele of debauched men. She had slept with a number of men herself before becoming a beer-parlour business owner, and she still slept with a few of them.
On her way home, Edith bought some food stuff, some snacks for her children and contraceptives. She wouldn’t want another man’s baby start growing in her womb. The mouse-face man had insisted on skin-to-skin sex.
Anita, her first child did wonderfully well looking after her younger siblings in her absence. They were all very hungry though. Her youngest son had already cried himself to sleep.
Upon hearing their mother's voice, he had suddenly awakened, picking up the cry from where he had left off and began to do it profusely all over.
"I'm so sorry...” ,she said as her eyes glistened, welcoming them all into one emotional embrace.
"Forgive me; you will all eat very soon"
She shared the snacks among them. Then she hurried to the kitchen she shared with six other tenants to prepare a proper meal. Anita went with her.
"Daddy almost won two hundred thousand naira today", Anita said almost proudly as she nibbled at her biscuit like a bunny at carrot, remembering her father had mentioned it when he'd surprisingly showed up at home to pick God-knows-what from one of his pockets.
"Almost doesn't count, my dear", she replied, but seemingly rattled "Did your father come home?"
She nodded, “He came home, this afternoon"
"Did he stay long? Did he ask of me?"
The girl responded by nodding again.
"What did you tell him?”
"I told him I didn't know?"
"Was he upset?"
"Yes", she nodded again, now sensing her mother's edginess "He was very upset that he didn't win the money"
Edith sighed, then she began to process everything inwardly. He was definitely going to probe her whereabouts when he returned regardless.
By 3pm, she had fed her children with a double portion of rice and stew. They were in good spirits now, happy and playing around in their one room apartment. Later in the evening, by 7pm, she went to the bathroom for her evening bath. She sponged her body painstakingly, like she could wipe the mouse-face man out of her memory through her skin. However, the air around her still exuded the man's body odour and also the reek of cigarettes from the hotel room. Worse still, the motion pictures of the man’s crotch jamming metronomically into her thighs kept playing in her head like it was programmed for a continuous play.
She wrapped her torso with her towel and headed back into the room. When she got there, her husband was already sitting on the bed patiently. The stare he fired at her was hard enough to make a hole through her.
"Where did you go today?” he began the grill.
She felt both spite and fear for him. She didn't want to start stuttering so she didn't answer. In that stead, she perched on the only chair in the cramped room opposite him. Without revealing her nakedness, she carefully unfurled the towel to dry her body.
"I'm talking to you", he said, his tone hitting an octave, "where did you get the money in your bag? I bet you had more than that, because you've cooked some food. I can see"
"You have no right to go through my bag!” she snapped, her chest heaving like the tide of the sea suddenly.
"Guess what else I found in your bag?” he pointed a finger at her bag poised beside her on the chair.
"Postinor pills. They aren't for us, are they?"
"You know what?” she said, "you are too drunk to have a conversation with me. When you are sober and sane, I will talk to you"
"How dare you?” he roared thunderously, “tell me I am wrong when I say you are prostituting to feed my children!"
"Your children you say?” she sneered and then seethed, "I won't have this conversation with you in front of them".
He torpedoed a look at Anita who sat on the floor, huddling up to her knees beside her younger brothers in fright . The children were all trembling. They knew their father was violent when he was drunk, hence, this could only end in one way. Violence.
"Anita, take your brothers outside now!"
The kids hurried out of the room. Edith wanted to stop them but she knew he would only hit them if she made them disobey him, Anita especially.
"You slept with another man today, admit it!"
"I will admit to nothing. We should talk about how irresponsible you are as a father instead. Your children have been barred from school for weeks now because of unpaid school fees. They starve everyday and it's been on me, only me! I have been the one on her limb here, catering for every of their needs. You stand there and judge me for feeding my children?”, she hesitated, "all you do is play lotto, get drunk, and rape me every now and then!"
Suddenly, he launched at her and slapped her hard across the face. She reeled and nearly hit the floor from the sitting position.
"Harlot!”
He hit her the second time and then the third time. All she saw now was pitch darkness. Her towel had fallen to the floor, revealing her unbelievably youthful firm body.
"Because I no longer give you money, you now go out and sleep with men at random for money, you floozy!"
He hit her more, again and again until she hit the floor with a thud. Then sitting on her stomach, he put his hands around her neck and began to squeeze tightly, choking her as he sat on her stomach. He was persistent with cutting off her air. His eyes were burning like inferno and there was no saving her. She tried to beg for her life but she could only manage a gag.
Suddenly, he released her. While she panted and heaved for air, he was quickly removing his trousers and then underwear. He was going to rape her again. She knew what he was about to do. She tried to muster some strength from unknown places to fend him off. Unfortunately, those places didn't exist and he was just too strong for her.
He penetrated her easily, ramming his crotch violently against hers. All she felt were excruciating pains from hell. She made gagging sounds as he was simultaneously strangling her again. Her terrified eyes dripped water to her temples. Meanwhile, Anita was crying outside. She sat on a long bench with her siblings, looking up to heaven and searching for the face of God. All she saw was the uninterested stars and a crescent moon. The neighbours had no inkling of what was going on in their room and went on about their lives.
"He's going to kill her", she sobbed.
Suddenly, her younger brother, Efe got up from the bench, hurriedly hauled a big stone from the ground. Since sitting on the bench, he had fixated his eyes upon the stone and now he was hurrying into the house with it.
"What are you going to do, you stupid boy?!”
Anita chided him between sobbing, but he was gone in a flash. He slipped back into the room, seeing what his father was doing to his mother on the floor. He stole a march on him from behind, raising the stone with his hand and tilting it backwards behind his head to muster all the strength he could gather, and then he crashed it into the back of his father's head, ravaging his skull with the single blow.
Gbiisssh!
The man slumped to the floor, face up. His eyes were suddenly panicky, bulging from the sockets as his whole body shuddered with seizure. He helplessly jerked on the floor, continuously. Suddenly, his nostrils began to ooze blood out and then it soon filled his mouth inwardly . A moment later, he’d stopped moving. He was dead.
Efe looked at him indifferently without a shred of pity. The monster in him had been awakened; only a monster could kill another. Suddenly, he realized that his mother wasn't moving either. Fright struck him.
"Anita!"
He knelt beside her and began to joggle her. Anita rushed into the room, alongside with their little brother.
"What happened?” she wailed.
"Mummy is dead"
She hurried to her side and began to joggle her. Her siblings joined in rallying their mother, continuously joggling her. Their eyes streamed with tears in the dreadful moment.
"Mummy! mummy! mummy!"
Suddenly, their mother's right foot twitched and then, her fingers too. Even so, her eyelids twitched, and then she slowly opened her eyes as her brain began to slowly re-boot. She looked around, slightly disoriented and then seconds later, became aware.
"I'm okay", she coughed softly, “I’m okay".
The naked man on the bed was seemingly exhausted. He watched her keenly and gently rubbed his hairy chest down to his pot-belly that floated like a ball in a pool. His phone rang. Picking his call, he began to talk sweetly to the caller and lied about his whereabouts. She second-guessed him to be talking to his wife or one of his lovers.
Now, she was fully dressed. She still swept the whole floor with her eyes; making sure nothing of hers was forgotten. Littering the floor were a pack of cigarettes, an empty bottle of codeine syrup and the man’s clothing. Then she swung around to face him on the bed. His image was a menace to her eyes. She silently cussed herself for sleeping with a pig. Nothing was attractive about him. He was fat and his body was densely hairy, worse still, he had a diagonal face like a mouse. She waited for him to end the call.
"I-have-to go now...Please, pay me"
He was uglier when he smiled. And when he did, he unveiled a set of tobacco-damaged teeth; the frontal ones looked like the metal blade of a hoe about to till a stubborn ground. His lips were calloused, so was the banana-size finger he wagged at her to get back into the bed.
"I need more sauce from your pot, dear", he gently patted the bed for her to hop back, still revealing the sinister teeth.
She shot him an incredulous look as a current of rage flowed through her whole body. However, she smouldered raging emotion.
"I am tired and feeling sore. I must go now", she said with a trembling voice," I have little children waiting for me at home"
The man sat up on the bed, shrugging in resignation and propping himself against the wall.
"I hope we hook up some other time then”
She gave him the best answer for the fool he was, silence.
He kindly grabbed his wallet and counted some naira bills out of it. He handed her. She collected it swiftly, recounted it and then stowed it away into her bra. She quickly slipped into her worn-out brown suede loafers and headed out of the room.
"Please, call me...", he shouted after her.
She descended through the staircase to the ground floor. She paused at the hotel’s exit and carefully scanned the street. She couldn’t risk being seen by anyone who knew her coming out of a hotel, or worse still, by her jobless bastard-for-a-husband, who now roamed the streets like a stray mongrel. Regardless, her conscience began to flog her inwardly for her deed. She was officially a prostitute.
"Times are hard. My children have to eat" A voice mentioned in her head.
“You are a damn married whore! ” Another voice countered.
Still taking gander at the street, she saw no passer-by who knew her. Then she dashed into the street and hurried along, never looking back. She mulled about her children as she strode on. They would be famished by now and her youngest child would be crying. It’d been over four hours since she’d left home, it was already past 1pm now and they hadn’t eaten all morning. She didn’t expect her husband, Benny, to be home. The vagabond would normally be loitering the lotto kiosk down the street, like he did everyday from 7am to 7pm, betting his life away and drinking cocktails of spirits with herbs in the company of other idle men of kind. Then later in the night, he would return home; and try to make love to her. Most times, he forcefully had his way.
He was once a police officer until his sack for getting drunk and beating a man nearly to a pulp in a beer parlour. Since losing his job, Edith had become the champion for her children, making ends meet, shouldering the load alone while he drank his life away.
However, her recharge card business had now crashed. Hence, every attempt to raise capital to restart the business had been to no avail. Her children had been driven from school for unpaid fees which had now accumulated over three terms. Now for the first time, out of many times to come, she had to prostitute.
Her friend, Veronica had acquainted her to her first client. Veronica owned a beer parlour and had a clientele of debauched men. She had slept with a number of men herself before becoming a beer-parlour business owner, and she still slept with a few of them.
On her way home, Edith bought some food stuff, some snacks for her children and contraceptives. She wouldn’t want another man’s baby start growing in her womb. The mouse-face man had insisted on skin-to-skin sex.
Anita, her first child did wonderfully well looking after her younger siblings in her absence. They were all very hungry though. Her youngest son had already cried himself to sleep.
Upon hearing their mother's voice, he had suddenly awakened, picking up the cry from where he had left off and began to do it profusely all over.
"I'm so sorry...” ,she said as her eyes glistened, welcoming them all into one emotional embrace.
"Forgive me; you will all eat very soon"
"Daddy almost won two hundred thousand naira today", Anita said almost proudly as she nibbled at her biscuit like a bunny at carrot, remembering her father had mentioned it when he'd surprisingly showed up at home to pick God-knows-what from one of his pockets.
"Almost doesn't count, my dear", she replied, but seemingly rattled "Did your father come home?"
She nodded, “He came home, this afternoon"
"Did he stay long? Did he ask of me?"
The girl responded by nodding again.
"What did you tell him?”
"I told him I didn't know?"
"Was he upset?"
"Yes", she nodded again, now sensing her mother's edginess "He was very upset that he didn't win the money"
Edith sighed, then she began to process everything inwardly. He was definitely going to probe her whereabouts when he returned regardless.
By 3pm, she had fed her children with a double portion of rice and stew. They were in good spirits now, happy and playing around in their one room apartment. Later in the evening, by 7pm, she went to the bathroom for her evening bath. She sponged her body painstakingly, like she could wipe the mouse-face man out of her memory through her skin. However, the air around her still exuded the man's body odour and also the reek of cigarettes from the hotel room. Worse still, the motion pictures of the man’s crotch jamming metronomically into her thighs kept playing in her head like it was programmed for a continuous play.
She wrapped her torso with her towel and headed back into the room. When she got there, her husband was already sitting on the bed patiently. The stare he fired at her was hard enough to make a hole through her.
"Where did you go today?” he began the grill.
She felt both spite and fear for him. She didn't want to start stuttering so she didn't answer. In that stead, she perched on the only chair in the cramped room opposite him. Without revealing her nakedness, she carefully unfurled the towel to dry her body.
"I'm talking to you", he said, his tone hitting an octave, "where did you get the money in your bag? I bet you had more than that, because you've cooked some food. I can see"
"You have no right to go through my bag!” she snapped, her chest heaving like the tide of the sea suddenly.
"Guess what else I found in your bag?” he pointed a finger at her bag poised beside her on the chair.
"Postinor pills. They aren't for us, are they?"
"You know what?” she said, "you are too drunk to have a conversation with me. When you are sober and sane, I will talk to you"
"How dare you?” he roared thunderously, “tell me I am wrong when I say you are prostituting to feed my children!"
"Your children you say?” she sneered and then seethed, "I won't have this conversation with you in front of them".
He torpedoed a look at Anita who sat on the floor, huddling up to her knees beside her younger brothers in fright . The children were all trembling. They knew their father was violent when he was drunk, hence, this could only end in one way. Violence.
"Anita, take your brothers outside now!"
The kids hurried out of the room. Edith wanted to stop them but she knew he would only hit them if she made them disobey him, Anita especially.
"You slept with another man today, admit it!"
"I will admit to nothing. We should talk about how irresponsible you are as a father instead. Your children have been barred from school for weeks now because of unpaid school fees. They starve everyday and it's been on me, only me! I have been the one on her limb here, catering for every of their needs. You stand there and judge me for feeding my children?”, she hesitated, "all you do is play lotto, get drunk, and rape me every now and then!"
Suddenly, he launched at her and slapped her hard across the face. She reeled and nearly hit the floor from the sitting position.
"Harlot!”
He hit her the second time and then the third time. All she saw now was pitch darkness. Her towel had fallen to the floor, revealing her unbelievably youthful firm body.
"Because I no longer give you money, you now go out and sleep with men at random for money, you floozy!"
He hit her more, again and again until she hit the floor with a thud. Then sitting on her stomach, he put his hands around her neck and began to squeeze tightly, choking her as he sat on her stomach. He was persistent with cutting off her air. His eyes were burning like inferno and there was no saving her. She tried to beg for her life but she could only manage a gag.
Suddenly, he released her. While she panted and heaved for air, he was quickly removing his trousers and then underwear. He was going to rape her again. She knew what he was about to do. She tried to muster some strength from unknown places to fend him off. Unfortunately, those places didn't exist and he was just too strong for her.
He penetrated her easily, ramming his crotch violently against hers. All she felt were excruciating pains from hell. She made gagging sounds as he was simultaneously strangling her again. Her terrified eyes dripped water to her temples. Meanwhile, Anita was crying outside. She sat on a long bench with her siblings, looking up to heaven and searching for the face of God. All she saw was the uninterested stars and a crescent moon. The neighbours had no inkling of what was going on in their room and went on about their lives.
"He's going to kill her", she sobbed.
Suddenly, her younger brother, Efe got up from the bench, hurriedly hauled a big stone from the ground. Since sitting on the bench, he had fixated his eyes upon the stone and now he was hurrying into the house with it.
"What are you going to do, you stupid boy?!”
Anita chided him between sobbing, but he was gone in a flash. He slipped back into the room, seeing what his father was doing to his mother on the floor. He stole a march on him from behind, raising the stone with his hand and tilting it backwards behind his head to muster all the strength he could gather, and then he crashed it into the back of his father's head, ravaging his skull with the single blow.
Gbiisssh!
The man slumped to the floor, face up. His eyes were suddenly panicky, bulging from the sockets as his whole body shuddered with seizure. He helplessly jerked on the floor, continuously. Suddenly, his nostrils began to ooze blood out and then it soon filled his mouth inwardly . A moment later, he’d stopped moving. He was dead.
Efe looked at him indifferently without a shred of pity. The monster in him had been awakened; only a monster could kill another. Suddenly, he realized that his mother wasn't moving either. Fright struck him.
"Anita!"
He knelt beside her and began to joggle her. Anita rushed into the room, alongside with their little brother.
"What happened?” she wailed.
"Mummy is dead"
She hurried to her side and began to joggle her. Her siblings joined in rallying their mother, continuously joggling her. Their eyes streamed with tears in the dreadful moment.
"Mummy! mummy! mummy!"
Suddenly, their mother's right foot twitched and then, her fingers too. Even so, her eyelids twitched, and then she slowly opened her eyes as her brain began to slowly re-boot. She looked around, slightly disoriented and then seconds later, became aware.
"I'm okay", she coughed softly, “I’m okay".
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