A Rodent Situation
Guilt is a furry old friend, a deranged animal that munches on its prey while leaving the best for the last. I am that best.
My life has always been easy; an only child, science wiz with a first class in Industrial Chemistry, and husband to a beautiful wife. As an undergrad, I carried an ambiance of fulfilment and pride. How could I not? Funmi would have given anything to be with a sweet melanin-toned Yoruba boy endowed with the physique of a god. But today, guilt forced my shaky legs onto the streets of Yaba, eyes rummaging on every passerby, wondering if perhaps they could read me or bear witness to my sin.
I jumped at the buzz from my phone. It was the perfect wife.
“Yes? Hello? What is it?”
“Bayo? My darling, you’ve not been home for days now, where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you…” I could tell she had been crying, her voice breaking as she lamented timidly, just as she would whenever I discipline her. I had stuck with Funmi for a semester, then a session, before I realised that indeed, she had come to stay.
Funmi had stayed back after my graduation to make up for a year she had lost due to several failed exams. I had felt guilt for the first time and knew that if I hadn’t demanded so much from her, she might have aced her papers. Two years later, I asked her to marry me, but five years down the road, with two kids and an increasing work demand, a part of me I never knew unfurled. It began the day Funmi came home late.
“Where have you been?!” I thundered, not minding if I woke the neighbours. Her first words came out with a stammer and before I could stop myself, two hot slaps had layered a blush the shade of purple on her face. She stumbled, mouth agape, whimpering as she quickly covered the spot with both hands. There was an awkward silence, the type that exposes your heavy heartbeats. Again, I felt guilt.
“I’ll be home soon,” I said now, my response cutting short her ramblings as I turned off my phone, having caught sight of a pharmacy down the road not so far from the motel I had spent the last six agonising hours in. The thing with Cynthia was supposed to be just extra classes but some raunchy texts here and there had escalated it to steamy escapades at run-down motels around the university.
Today’s sex was different. With reckless abandon, I pulled, slapped, and choked until she crumpled heavily beneath me. As a respected staff member, I had no reason to be seen in such a dingy environment. Pleasure had directed me, but now guilt guided me across the road as I walked into the store.
“Well done! Please can I get two bottles of sodium hydroxide? I have a dead rodent I need to dispose of.”
#Flash-Fiction-Monday
