There’s a traditional law in the city where I reside, and it says that if a married woman goes out to have fun with any other person aside from her husband, it’s either the husband will be visited with a chronic sickness, or the children and the family will go down. From what I’ve seen, nothing happens to the woman who went out; the repercussion only strikes the home either by scattering the marriage with sickness, death, or any other form of misfortune. Maybe this same law existed in the city of Potiphar in the Bible — just maybe. If you don’t know the story, please ask your partner to brief you.
So, sometime back in my compound, I had this lady with Potiphar’s wife’s character as a neighbour, and to make it worse, She had a son, and the family (including the husband) lived in the same compound. She was perfectly endowed to the extent that we always wondered how the husband, a wheelbarrow pusher, got the braveness to have her as a wife. To make it both entertaining and at the same time tempting, she wore skimpy dresses to sell her ‘market,’ including the ‘fries’ (food) she sold. It was very obvious that it wasn’t just the food she was selling; the other ‘market’ or let me say ‘service’ was what enchanted people, especially men, to patronize her food business, which she usually did at night because of the lounge close to us.
One day, I got really angry at how her customers were always sitting and blocking my door while eating their food, and I told her politely to find a way to keep them off my door area. She nodded, and the next day, she came and started thanking me for not being harsh on her.
“If there was a girlfriend in this house, she wouldn’t have allowed me to make use of your door area this long the way you’ve allowed. Thank you so much. Don’t worry, I’ll make you feel special one of these nights.”
Mehn, the idea of mocking me for not having a girlfriend got into my head, but seeing what she was offering, my anger diffused instantly. She was in her nighty because it was early in the morning and my innocent eyes couldn't resist the devil's meal at my front. We laughed it out as she swept the littered space and left.
As she left, my brain regained its senses, and the law of the town which I already knew began to flash through my mind. But another thought clashed with it — I began thinking that maybe she and her husband were not legally married even though they had a son together, and that was why she was having her way and the law of no “fun” outside marriage wasn’t affecting their home. But then, my clean lifestyle didn’t allow me to proceed with the plan.
She continued using my space for her business in the evenings. I would tell her to adjust her chairs, and she would do that with smiles and naughty flashes at me.
Doesn’t her husband know?
Mehn, the man hardly stayed at home. She hustled during the day and came home at night. To make the matter worse, he even helped her to attend to her customers — both the ones who came for the food and those who came for the other thing.
They didn’t stay up to two years before the wife travelled and refused to return. That was what I heard, because I never saw them quarrel or fight before the wife went away with the son.
Thanks for reading.
This is my entry to Com contest