On arrival from the market, she peeped into the bedroom to find the idiot that calls himself her husband sprawled atop the huge mattress they had simply laid on the floor.

He must've closed early from work for some reason best known to him. She could never tell when it is that he closes early, as it is norm for him to stay behind (he claims) to allow for traffic situation from the Island to the mainland to improve before deciding to head home from work. She suspects that the chic he intended to have for dinner disappointed and he simply headed home.

Though she'd been married to him for four years now, she's had cause to believe that it is virtually over between them, as the sparks that once existed has all but become extinguished. She had walked in on him just last weekend, as he was telling his best friend how a chic he'd known in the past had an accident while she was on her way from Abuja (North-Central Nigeria) to their rendezvous in Lagos (South-West Nigeria), and had been unconscious at the General Hospital in Gwagwalada for a week. She felt it was her prayer on those he has sexcapades with that was beginning to yield fruit.

She shocked him last year during his postgraduate graduation when she piqued in on the conversation he was having with this same best friend of his, that she knows his girlfriend works in the University to his chagrin, besides the many times she had left him heckled by dreams she'd had that appeared to describe his activities or those he intended with any of his girlfriends. Sometimes, he spoke their names while sleeping, or mouthed them while making love to her. His attempts to hide his whatsapp conversations with his numerous dalliances hadn't worked any bit, because once he falls asleep with phone in hand, the one at the other end continues to send IM's even with nudes, many of which she had read, seen and subsequently deleted, without raising it or throwing up dust about what she had seen with him.

She believed him once, when in the week after their wedding, he slept with an office colleague from out of town in their matrimonial home, while she was in another part of the apartment, and sadly not even once. His apologies to her, which seemed sincere then was enough to convince her to shelve her desire to call it quits, as well as the fear of what family, friends and acquaintances would think, seeing that she was just days into her marriage. She was so heartbroken, she miscarried and since then hadn't been able to replicate the feat of conception, especially after tests a year later showed that her husband is oligozoospermic.

The idiot didn't even seem worried by his condition, always harping on Faith and how it was that Abraham and Sarah had Isaac in their old age, but even if that was so, he wasn't even the prayerful type, yet he claims he is a spiritual person, not necessarily a religious fellow, but she knows him to the core, beyond how he puts himself out to the public, as a philandering buffoon. Once, he'd had these maculopapular rashes all over his genitals for weeks after he came back from Kano (North-Western Nigeria), and had it not been for a doctor friend of his who prescribed some antibiotics for him, maybe he would have still had those rashes over his manhood.

When she told him, she'd be going for the fifth of the nights of the seven day vigil at the church a neighbour had introduced her to, he was unflinching. The first day she was to go, he was with his best friend, and after she left the living room with his permission to attend, she heard him tell his friend that he was allowing her to go, because there might be nights he might need for her to be out of the house so he can go about his philandering activity for the night. He has become very incorrigible, and besides girls less than eighteen, there seem to be nothing else that he finds as hindrance when it comes to his criteria for females with which he can have sex.

Interestingly, the last thing on her mind now is leaving him. There was once a time she could give her life for him, but not anymore, but still not enough to abandon him as she feels it is her responsibility to protect him, from none other than himself. He'd become obsessed with sex, and she sees it in his dealings with her, and can only imagine what he gets up to with the strumpets he has in different area codes of Nigeria.

She decided not to let those bother her tonight, the pastor last night had warned that anyone desirous of having his/her prayers answered at the vigils, must drop behind them all anger, pain and the likes, and approach the altar with an open heart and see challenges vanish. She has faith, she believes that one day she will have a child to call her own, what she isn't sure about is whether she could ever pray him out of his pitiable condition.

She doesn't even know how he does it without feeling guilt, she tried it once with an ex-flame in her first attempt at revenge a few months back, after she fell upon several evidences of his infidelity, but found that midway into it, she asked him to stand up off her, and being the gentleman he is, he simply came off her, while she watched semen drip off his phallus as it tended to flaccidity. She never summoned the courage to do it again, and interestingly when she told the fool that is her husband, expecting that he will throw a tantrum, he disbelievingly shrugged it off with one of his crazy laughter, and appeared to not give a second thought to what he had just heard.

She picked up her bible and was about to bid him farewell, only to discover that he was fast asleep. When the going was good, this would've been an opportunity to give him a peck before leaving, but times have changed.

'kovich

PHOTO CREDIT:
- http://english.stackexchange.com

L’ÉPOUSE FIDÈLE | madukovich's cogitations https://madukovich./2015/05/08/lepouse-fidele/