John could not understand why Benita would refuse him access to her body; how she, who had eagerly waited for this day, would suddenly grow unenthusiastic about everything and rebuff his amorous advances. For heaven’s sake, it was their special night, the night of their wedding, the first night they would spend together since they met each other several years ago.
For two long years both of them had longed for this special night, dreamt about it, and often fantasised about how it would be filled with roses and diamonds. How it had turned out to be off to a thorny start beat his imagination.
“What’s the meaning of this? Could it be that she’s tired out from the stress of the wedding activities? Or have I offended her in any way without knowing it?” he thought to himself as he watched her crouched at one end of the room, fear written boldly all over her face. It frightened him that she wasn’t even saying a word, just sobs.
“What’s the problem, My Love? We’ve waited patiently for this day to come; it should be our happiest day, please don’t let us spoil it now,” he pleaded.
The urge in him had reached fever pitch. For the two years that they courted, sexual intercourse was not part of the bargain. Not that he didn’t want it, but Benita had made her stance clear ab initio.
“I’m unsoiled and would wish to remain so until my wedding night. It’s a vow I made to my God. I want it to be a special gift for my husband on that special night. I hope you would be gracious enough to respect my wish,” she had told John on one of their initial outings.
Against all odds, John had acquiesced. He was a full-blooded man with strong urge, but they truly loved each other and had agreed to marry each other. For the sake of that love, he would willingly make the huge sacrifice that granting her wish entailed. He wouldn’t die if he didn’t have sex until their wedding night, he reasoned. Moreover, theirs wasn’t going to be a long courtship.
“Since it’s a vow you made unto God, I won’t be the one to make you break your vow. I can wait,” he had promised her.
“Thanks, my dear,” Benita had said, entangling herself to him in a passionate hug. “You are a rare breed. I knew it the day I met you. God will bless you for me.”
“Amen. And bless you too, my dear,” he had said.
From then on, John had literarily imprisoned his ‘big boy’, convincing himself that what was his was his, and it was worth waiting for.
Despite his best efforts, it had not been easy for him. Sometimes his veins charged up and his urge rushed right up into his brain, but he often managed to suppress it. On a few occasions, however, his feelings had got the better of him and had led him into involuntary reactions that often shocked Benita. A number of such times he had managed to extort a few kisses from her, but that was the closest he ever got to the Promised Land. She always found a subtle way to halt the flow without hurting his feelings. He endured it all.
He also had to endure the mockery of his three closest pals, Okey, Hassan and Bayo. The trio seized every available opportunity to taunt him for “falling cheaply for mere girlish pranks”, but he always dismissed their taunts with his strong argument that love demanded immense sacrifice which they had no heart for.
“You guys miss the point. You know who I used to be, what I used to do with girls, but love, true love, has changed me. You won’t understand now, but the day you find true love, perhaps that day you will understand,” he had told them on one occasion.
Sometimes they told him that while he was busy playing the good boy, some other guy could go behind him and steal Benita’s flower, either by hook or by crook, but he had dismissed their fears.
“Not my Benita,” he always said. But these taunts often made him regret ever telling them that his wife was a virgin and that they had agreed to wait until marriage.
Benita herself often complained that she sensed something fishy about his friends, particularly Okey and Hassan, but he always dismissed her fears with a wave of the hand.
“I’ve known these guys since our university days. They are nice. You’ll say the same thing when you get to know them better,” he would say.
So, having endured all this for all of two years, John could not understand why Benita would act the way she was acting on this very night that they had yearned for like a dry land without water, on this very night that should matter so much to them – indeed, to any couple.
Could it be coyness? If it was, that could be understood. Coyness was part of women’s character. In Benita’s own case, it was even more to be expected because it was her first time being with a man in such a mood. But then, coyness alone, even fatigue, could not explain the tears now welling up in her eyes.
“What’s the matter, Baby? Please talk to me,” he pleaded again, trying to wrap his hands around her. She gently pushed his hand away and burst into a scream.
“I’m sorry, Baby, but I can’t go on with this marriage,” she said. It was the first coherent thing she had said since they entered the room earlier that night.
“What did you say?”
“I can’t go on with this marriage. If only you had listened to me earlier! I tried to tell you this several times in the past week but you wouldn’t listen to me; you were so engrossed in the wedding preparations,” she said amid sobs.
What was she blabbing about? he thought. His head grew dizzy as he tried to figure it out. Yes, a number of times prior to the wedding she had mumbled things about postponing the wedding, which he couldn’t understand given everything that had gone into the preparation. Their wedding cards were already all over the place. And yes, he had hushed her every time she had raised the issue.
“It was all your fault!” she screamed again, tearing at her now scattered hair.
He lost it completely and charged at her like an angry bull. With her arms in his iron grip, she swooned, threw up, splattering her mess all over his body, then passed out into his arms.
John was shocked to the marrow when, the next day at the hospital, while he waited in the lounge for the test results, the female doctor on duty walked up to him, beaming with smiles.
“Congratulation, Mr John. You’re going to be a father. Your wife and the baby are doing very fine,” she said.
“What did you just say, doctor? Please stop this joke,” he said, trying to hide the shock on his face.
“Joke? Your wife is three weeks gone. You should be happy,” the doctor replied.
“No! No!! No!!! Impossible! Benita can’t be pregnant when I haven’t even touched her,” he screamed. He lost control and began to scatter everything around him. He was stark raving mad now. He would go into that ward where she lay and just strangle her.
As he leapt forward, the nurses rushed to hold him, but they were a little too slow. By the time they caught up with him in the ward, Benita was already bleeding heavily from a deep cut on her left arm.
In her statement at the police station, Benita narrated how barely a month to their wedding John’s friends Bayo, Hassan and Okey had lured her to a bar under the pretext that they wanted to discuss the wedding plans, drugged her and then raped her.
“I was too scared to talk about it. I became seriously worried when I missed my period. I tried to talk to John about it but I couldn’t find the courage, and he was too busy with the wedding arrangements to listen to me,” she told the police.
