No More Tears

by Atieno Mzuri

  And then he turned over and went straight to sleep.

  The next morning I woke up early. Feeling a little sore from the rapid pumping but remembering that for the first time, Matt had been able to get it up and get it in. Never mind that it was terrible. I noticed that I was bleeding slightly and I walked into the bathroom and started to wash off the previous night's disappointment. And I was crying and the warm tears mingled with the water and I cried more and scrubbed myself vigorously and cried some more.

  It had been done and from here it could only get better...

  Chapter Eight (Life with Matt) I was a stay at home girlfriend. Matt was also a stay at home boyfriend. I don't know if i mentioned this before but he was drawing unemployment welfare of about $1200 every month and we had to make ends meet somehow after paying rent of $600. Our weed needs had to be catered for, our food, gas for the car etc. So basically we were on a shoestring budget. Matt had been working when I met him. At least that's what he told me. But when i moved in, he said he quit his job to be with me because he couldn't bear to spend time away from me. I was his best friend and he mine.

  Matt had two laptops in the apartment. And throughout our affair, which had now lasted slightly over three months, I had only been allowed to touch one of the laptops.

  “Don't touch the black laptop.” he insisted. “It's a business laptop and I don't want any links to appear on it that would reflect badly on me.”

  “I only want to go on Facebook.” I had told him. “Especially Facebook.” he insisted. “You can't do Facebook on that black laptop. Use the gray one for any of your internet needs.”

  And I tried to respect his wishes as much as he demanded. I never ever opened that laptop which he kept in a corner of the living room and which he logged onto once a day and stayed on for a few minutes and then quietly logged off and used the gray one the rest of the day.

  To be fair, I had ignored all the red signs. When there were red flags that demanded questions, I quickly talked myself into hushing.

  Earlier that week, we had been to see his brother Jack, who owned a big jewelry store, in the middle of a posh suburb. I wanted to sell one of the many pairs of earrings that I had collected on my journey across the country. We walked into the jewelry store, Matt and I on a cold July morning.

  “So did you start your new job?” asked Jack of Matt.

  There was silence. Ominous silence as I suddenly perked my ears and listened. What was this about Matt starting a new job? He hadn't mentioned it. I knew he had been on paid leave for the last two months but that didn't seem to have any fiscal impact as he was able to buy our food and pay the rent.

  “No” he said uneasily. I could sense the cold wind flowing through the room. “They did a background check and found there are some things I failed to disclose.”

  A little side note here for you to follow the story. In America before you're offered a job they do a background check. Anything you have done wrong will turn up. These guys are very good at keeping paperwork. Big brother knows everything. Did you steal a pen from a store when you were a teenager? Did you cause an accident? Everything is on your records and disclosure when you apply for a job is very important. You can be hired and fired when information turns up.

  “Why didn't you disclose?” His brother asked. “You know they will always find out.”

  “I just took a chance.” Matt replied. ”Well, they found out and rescinded the offer.”

  “So you are out of a job again?” his brother asked.

  “Well, I have got prospects. There is a different job I have been offered.” Matt replied.

  I didn't say anything. It wasn't my place to interrupt a family discussion. At least that was what I considered it. Even though Matt and I were engaged to be married I still wasn't part of the family and I had to keep my place. A step behind.

  “What was Jack talking about?” I asked Matt later as he turned over the steaks on the barbeque stove at the park where we had gone to spend the afternoon.

  “Oh, nothing important.” he answered. “I was offered a job and then it didn't pan out. But don't worry your sweet self about it. I am getting another job in a month's time. And anyway, I am glad that they took away their offer because the new job I am expecting is better. I will be paid more. In fact you don't have to work. You can stay home and be a sweet little housewife. Wouldn't you like that?”

  “Yeah I would.” I said. “I do like a man that can provide.”

  “Well, then this is a godsend.” he said. “In fact I see it as a sign that we should be together. I am going to earn more and be able to take care of you and your child. So don't worry. And please let's not talk about it anymore because it's stressing me out.”

  I let it go. I had a man that looked out for me. He had been offered a job which he was going to take in a month's time. Never mind that he hadn't told me about the rescinded job offer. Which I later came to find out was a made-up story to hoodwink me and his family.

  We ate the steaks. And drank the wine. And spent an altogether pleasant afternoon and evening at the park. Then slowly walked home and sat down to watch TV. A pleasant evening. Relaxed. Undemanding.

  Much later on, he moved onto his usual activity of wanking. By this time I was used to it and didn't even notice when he began and stopped. It had become part of the landscape in the room. He would wank away on the armchair while I stared at the TV.

  Once in a while he would ask me to look at him and I turned my eyes slightly as I looked past him and concentrated on ‘The Housewives of Atlanta’. Nene was being a bitch to the other wives and giving them hell with her loud mouth and loud attitude. When he finished, which didn't happen often, we would drift into bed. Some days he would try to get it up for me. But too often he failed and it was a disappointment for me. He didn't seem bothered by our lack of love-making.

  “You have to find ways of satisfying yourself.” he said to me often. “If you have to depend on me to satisfy you then I am going to start feeling cornered and it's going to be too much for me and I could easily have a nervous breakdown. I have had some breakdowns in the past.”

  And because I didn't want my man to have a nervous breakdown I kept my desires to myself. I couldn't unleash them in case my man had a nervous breakdown.

  The next afternoon Matt left me in the apartment. As he left, he appeared nervous and kept looking at his watch and pacing up and down the little apartment.

  “I am a little nervous.” he confirmed. “I am meeting with a future business partner and I don't know what he is going to say, whether he will take me into partnership for his new product, you see.”

  And I agreed that it was normal to be nervous before a big business meeting. And I comforted him and told him that I believed in him and that he was going to do good and be the best and that I knew he would have the breakthrough that he was expecting.

  “Remember not to touch the black laptop.” he emphasized as he stepped out the door.

  As soon as Matt left, I got down to cleaning the apartment. Matt was meticulous on the cleanliness of the apartment and things had to be just right. Each place had its specific nook and he expected me to wipe off any dust that he didn't. He folded his shirts in a particular way and just couldn't stand it if they were folded in a different way.

  Now y'all know if you tell a child not to touch something, obviously they will. On his way out to his "big meeting” Matt had stressed the importance of not touching the laptop.

  The black laptop. I kept thinking of it. I would go into the bedroom back to the living room squat on the toilet bowl and all I was thinking about was the laptop.

  Finally I gave in...

  Having done the dishes and mopped the floor, I turned on the black laptop, which I was NOT allowed to use.

  The first page that came up as I opened Opera was his Yahoo email. Evidently he had forgotten to log out. I popped over to the tab wanting to log out so I could sign into my account.

  But, the first email that I sa
w froze me in my tracks. It was from his ex-girlfriend the Nigerian girl, Tsitsi, she who had caused him so much wahala and whom he had sworn he was no longer communicating with because even the thought or mention of her name caused him severe depression...

  The email was short, direct and knocked the wind out of me...

  Chapter Nine (The Emails) As I said, the email was short. I read it within half a minute and then re-read it again and again just to be sure that I had got the right message. I looked at the address line to confirm that it was addressed to my new fiancé Matt, whom I was set to marry in two months' time.

  Matt,

  this is the last time I am telling you not to contact me again. You perverted son of a bitch. I don't owe you any money. You are the one that stole my money and that's why I had to get away from you. I have no intention of continuing to deal with a known sexual offender and you better keep your distance if you know what's good for you. Who do you think you are, you bloody rapist? Your own brother's child? Perverted son of a bitch, if you contact me again, I shall report you to your probation officer. Tsitsi

  And then as the message sank, the fear began at the pit of my tummy and spread slowly to the rest of my body and then I was feeling cold and balmy and sweating all at the same time and my tongue was dry and I was gasping for breath and even though I was seated, I felt dizzy and faint and my heart was beating fast and then I was warm again and my head was throbbing and the veins were jutting out and once more I couldn't breathe.

  I finally got hold of myself, calmed down and decided there must have been a mistake. This girl Tsitsi, Matt had been so good to her and loaned her college fees and even put her on the plane to Tennessee and this is the way she was repaying him. The ungrateful bitch. How could she do this to my man? Putting him through so much pain and then treating him with so much disdain like he didn't have any feelings.

  I wasn't going to stand for it. I made up my mind I would confront Matt as soon as he returned from his business appointment and we would put this bitch in her place once and for all. If it meant calling her sister who lived about ten miles from us, I would do it and tell them to stop harassing my man. Obviously these emails were the sign of a demented tortured soul who had just realized that Matt had moved on and was now about to get married. I knew something about women's psychology after all. As soon as a man showed that he had moved on, then the woman would come storming back into his life trying to disrupt it so that he would take her back. I would certainly put this woman in her place.

  Those were my first thoughts. My first reaction was to defend my man from this unscrupulous filth of a scumbag woman. That wahala was trying to disrupt our beautiful life once again.

  As I just said, those were my first thoughts. I got up and cleaned the house, dusted everywhere, poured disinfectant liberally on every surface and washed away the presence of this wahala who had occupied this little apartment before me. In a fit of rage, I stripped bare the bed of its entire bedding, the mattress covers, the sheets, the duvet and laundered them. I sprayed disinfectant on the mattress and crawled under the bed and furiously scrubbed away the wahala from our apartment. Matt wouldn't have to deal with the wahala alone. I would protect him. He had suffered too much. It seemed everybody was on his case accusing him of one thing or the other.

  Everyone seemed to have a grudge against Matt. Just last week, we had gone to his estranged daughter's birthday party and I had helped him put together some gifts and we had purchased the most beautiful birthday cake and we had gone to the birthday party. On our way back her mother had telephoned Matt and his face had gone pale and when I asked him what was wrong he had said that there was a diamond ring missing from the house and they were sure either he or I had taken it even though he had not gone near the bedroom and that they wanted to report us to the police and that reluctantly he had agreed to pay them 500 dollars so that they wouldn't do this even though he knew we were both innocent

  “I just hate to deal with the cops.” he explained. “The last time I had to deal with them, they were just a pain in the butt. I had to go bail Mike after he was hauled in on a DUI, a Driving Under Influence charge. Sons of bitches.”

  And I had agreed that obviously it wasn't worth it, having to deal with the police. Besides it was his daughter that was accusing him of theft. Perhaps she was trying in a strange way to get his attention and make him pay for all the father-daughter games and dances that he had missed out on. Teenagers have been known to lash out. Strangely, I was the one who was finally urging him to send the money and get it over with.

  “I just hate it when people take advantage of me.” he moaned.

  “Honey, it is your daughter. Let it go. Perhaps this incident will show her how good a man you are and hey who knows she might even invite you to her prom in September.” I consoled him, as he shook his head and looked like the entire world was hating on him and trying to beat him down.

  My poor man. I recalled all these events that had taken place as I furiously scrubbed the apartment. I wanted to wash away the smell of wahala.

  By this time I was done cleaning with the bedroom. It was spectacular. I moved to clean the bathroom and as I scrubbed away the body-wash that had splashed on the walls, the feeling of fear returned to the pit of my stomach. A great uneasiness began to settle on me and like a cold blanket I couldn't shake it off. I felt dizzy again so I sat down on the toilet bowl. Then with a struggle, I got up and went and turned on the laptop and read the message in the inbox once more.

  Then out of curiosity, and feeling the need to settle this once and for all, I looked through the other mail folders and found one named “naija” and I opened it and literally collapsed as I read the tens of email exchanges between Matt and wahala and each email was like a slap on my face as I saw Matt pleading with her to come back as he missed her so much and telling her he couldn't get over her and that she was wrong to have run away because he would never harm her and that he liked her too much for that and he just didn't understand why she was scared of him and didn't she know that he absolutely adored her and he would do anything for her.

  And in the return emails she laughed at him and told him she would never see him again since she didn't think the probation officer would let him cross the state border and she said how lucky she was that she had discovered in good time what a scumbag he was and how dangerous he was and she pitied any girl that he would deceive as he had deceived her and she mentioned that she was lucky she had stumbled on his secret and asked him how long he had hoped to keep it from her and once more she threatened to report him to his probation officer and she confirmed that she had his name and number and gave it to him.

  And in the next email Matt was pleading with wahala and telling her that he would keep off and he wouldn't contact her again and that even though she had extracted this promise she ought to realize how hurt he was that she was scared of him and that he would never hurt her and that he had explained how he came to be charged with rape and she ought to understand because in her heart she knew how gentle he was and he would never rape anybody.

  And in the next email she was laughing at him and reminding him of the time that they had tried to visit his brother and as soon as they stepped through the door, his brother's wife had told her young daughters that the “monster” was here and that they should run and hide before he devoured them. And wahala asked him if that was the life he really wanted her to lead.

  A life where she would be embarrassed to be seen with him and anyway he couldn't help her and over and over she threatened to report his harassment and over and over Matt begged and begged for reconciliation. I looked at the dates of the emails and saw that some of them were as late as the last week and that the email prompting my sudden discovery of his other life was dated yesterday.

  After reading the emails I felt strangely detached as I began to put pieces together in my mind. Things that had seemed odd suddenly became crystal clear. Like why Matt had no friends and I was the only one constantly by
his side.

  Like why he had been turned down for the job for not disclosing “certain information” as he had said to me and explained that it was all an honest mistake, he had just marked the wrong boxes and that next time he would be more careful with his job applications and be sure to tick the right box.

  Like why his brother's eyes had watchfully followed us everywhere as we walked around in his jewelry store and why his other brothers never bothered to call him.

  Like why he didn't know where his sisters lived because nobody had invited him after they had changed houses.

  Like how he had had to ask his brother’s permission for us to drive across the state border when we had gone to Wisconsin to buy my dildo from the sex shop. How we were never invited anywhere.

  I shivered in the hot June weather as it dawned on me that I was living with a violent criminal. He couldn't be, could he? Not my gentle Matt who didn't even like sex. Weren't rapists supposed to be sex maniacs at the very least? As a basic qualification?

  My hands trembled as I closed the laptop shut and even though I hadn't eaten all day I had no appetite and I was feeling thirsty but didn't have the strength to get up and get a bottle of water from the fridge and my mind was racing as I thought of the information that had been thrust on me.

  How quickly life had changed in the last few hours. How devastating a few hours could turn the world upside down.

  Matt still hadn't come back by 6.00. But he had texted me and told me he would be home by 6.30 and he couldn't wait to see me since the business meeting hadn't gone so well and he needed some loving and some attention and couldn't wait to jump into the hot shower with me...

  I sat in the dark room and waited calmly...

  Chapter Ten (I confront Matt on Emails) I was determined to get to the bottom of the matter. I would do this over the next few days before we got married in two weeks’ time. I needed to start the marriage on a clean slate and right now my mind was on a roll.

  I sat in the dark room and waited. I knew I was going to confront Matt about the emails that I had read and more particularly about his ominous past that I had learnt of, courtesy of my snooping through his laptop which he had implored me not to touch.