Extreme

[ilynem]

She could hear the heavy laughter from outside and she could tell which was her husband's. It was deep and coerce like her father’s just after he had taken shots of his dry gin with his friends. But her husband didn’t drink, instead he smoked that grass-like thing wrapped in paper and sniffed some brown powder into his nose.
“Taking alcohol is a sin,” he once told her. “God has prepared a bath of alcohol in heaven for all of us. So we have to avoid it on earth so we can enjoy it in heaven,” he once told her.
Enjoy? She had tasted her father's dry gin when she was still with him and she hated the taste! It burned her tongue like food straight out of the fire and she spat it out of her mouth faster than it went it. It was at that point she understood why her father and his friends frowned like they had tasted vinegar whenever the glass of gin touched their lips. That was not Enjoyment! You can’t frown that way if you were enjoying what you were drinking. She wished her husband knew that was what God had in a bath for him in heaven? She was not sure he had tasted alcohol before, because if he had, he wouldn’t be so excited about it.
She lay on her back staring at the roof of their hut, waiting for what was to come. It was inevitable as it happened every single night. The only nights she was free was when it was his turn to leave the camp. Only that time was she able to go out and see her friends but under the supervision of armed men who patrolled the entire place. Many times, Hawa and Zaria had told her they were planning to run away but she thought it was too much of a risk.
“Favour, we can escape,” Zaria said the last time she saw her. Her dark skin could not hide the black spot on her left eye and the bruises on her upper lip. Her hands vibrated as she spoke and Favour could see she was in so much pain.
“We could die,” Favour had replied holding her friend and classmate by her thin shoulders.
“It's better than living here,” the usually more cautious Zaria said. “You don’t know what he does to us every night,” she said.
Hawa and Zaria were married to the same man. They called him The Bazooka and apart from the leader, he was the most feared soldier in the camp. Bazooka was a big brute with very dark lips and eyes. One could pee on herself just by looking at him. He never smiled. And he was known for wearing the clothes of people he had killed. That period, he was dressed as a catholic priest! Many times, Favour wondered where he killed this priest but she dared not ask. She used to know a Catholic priest in her village catholic church. Same one her step mother attended and he was always nice to her whenever he came to the house. She hoped he wasn’t the one.
Favour wasn’t keen on the escape plan of her friends. Her husband had a wife before she got married to him. They called her Ashare and she was from down south. She had tried to escape and Bazooka had caught her. She was raped by virtually all the top officers in the camp as her husband watched and finally, he shot her in the head. Was that what Zaria and Hawa wanted? They both complained to her that Bazooka used to beat them up at night and she knew this. During the night, all one could hear were female screams as the camp became a den of rapists. Almost like they were in a competition to see whose wife could scream the most. Bazooka on the other hand added a bit of flavour to his as he beat his two wives during the process.
As favour lay down on her back, she could feel the hardness of the floor on her spine. The bed had been stripped bare of it's clothing and it had become just foam. It had also become flatter than a razor blade and felt even as cold as the bare floor. The room was dark and was only saved by the dancing flame from the candle close to the door. Her cotton gown could not stop the ice cold hands of the forest wind gripping her skin and she shivered whenever it did. She was patiently waiting for the discussions and occasional laughter to stop and then she knew it would be time for the scream fest. She wondered how hard Hawa and Zaria prayed for that time not to come.
And like her father's radio that was suddenly turned off, they went silent and she knew her husband will be in the house soon. Like she predicted, he staggered into the hut with his gun in his left hand and she sat up immediately as her heart started to pound on her chest. The dark hole from his missing left eye visible and his smile at the sight of her exposed his crooked teeth that had been stained from the grass like substance he smoked.
“Remove your clothes,” he ordered. His voice vibrating through the cold air and like the obedient wife she was, she took off her gown immediately exposing her skin to the harshness of the wind. As she sat in her birthday suit, she watched her husband as he dropped his gun by the corner of the hut and started to remove his black jacket as slowly as he could. That was dejavu. It happened the same way every single night.
She could remember when they were brought into the camp, 251 girls from Chibok. It was the worst day of her life as she cried non stop. They had been offloaded under a tree in the forest and the soldiers had ordered the older women there to dress them up in proper clothing. Proper clothing was a gown and a hijab and a woman with a burnt face had attended to her. They called her Marian and Favour had gotten even more scared of her than she was of the soldiers that kidnapped them.
“You are beautiful,” Marian said as she dressed Favour up. “As beautiful as I was some few years ago,” she said placing the hijab on Favour's head. “But beauty is a curse in this place. You get raped the most and when I was tired of getting raped, I soaked my face with oil and set fire on it,” she smiled exposing teeth from a hole that was supposed to be her mouth. “Now no one finds me desirable.”
But unlike Marian, Favour was lucky to have caught the attention of the leader. No one touched the property of the leader and she was one. They had married her to him the very next day and that night, he had come into the hut to rape her. But first he read from the Qur’an to her and made her rehearse it exactly like her pastor made her rehearse the Bible when she was at home. But this was more difficult because it was in a language she didn’t understand. Her pastor used to tell her Christianity was the one true religion but here they thought different as they made all of them pray a different way and read the Qur’an. She wondered what her pastor would think of her situation at that moment.
“Do you know why I married you?” He had asked her that first night after making her recite the Qur’an. “Because it is a sin to make love to one you are not married except for punishment,” he answered his own question. “And it is the duty of the woman to satisfy her husband in anyway he wants. The prophet once saw a vision of hell fire and there were mostly women in it. He asked God why and God said these are women who allowed their husbands go to bed angry,” he shifted his face closer to hers and she could feel the stench from is breath. “Do you want to go to hell fire?” He asked her as she shook her head. “Then please me.”
That was the first night and every night after that, he had made her please him in different ways. That night was no different as he got naked and staggered towards her. She could see his manhood, bigger than the one she was used to seeing back in Chibok and she wondered how it went into her easily.
“Turn,” he said and she lay on her stomach as fast as she could. Her husband only beat her when she disobeyed and so she tried not to.
She felt his rough hands on her waist and the tip of his manhood on her thighs. His style wasn’t the same as what she was used to in Chibok. She was used to being kissed and caressed. Used to having hands on her tiny breasts and in between her legs but her husband didn’t have any time for that. He went straight to the point and that night was no different as he plugged his manhood inside her. The pain made her scream but he didn’t stop. His movement was rhythmic as his thighs bounced against her buttocks. Her scream got louder as he went on and on and tears started to flow from her eyes. Then he got faster! He was always faster when he was about to end and with one big heavy stroke she heard her husband give a huge groan and he pulled out and lay on his side.
She sobbed quietly as she felt her husband’s liquid flow to her thigh and she wiped another kind of liquid from her face and then she gave a thin smile. She wondered why Hawa and Zaria wanted to runaway when this was absolutely pleasurable. This was way better than what she was used to in Chibok. Better than how her Pastor used to do it.