Spiritual Wife: Ngozi
By Val Chatindo
I own him.
I own every fragment of his damn soul. Every thought, every want, every desire. I know the inner sanctum of his temple. Every room in his entire being, even the ones with those skeletons. Like a mother, I have known all, and I have loved. I have accepted. His spirit belongs to me. I have not possessed this man, I am not a stranger who has invasively occupied him like a colonizer. Unaware and ignorant to his ways and the manner in which he moves. If he is a culture, I have mastered him. A religion? His most devout convert. I am no foreign entity. How can I be when we are one? When our energies have been bound together at the altar. Yes, the altar where we have exchanged our vows before all the spiritual beings of the Other world? And consummated our union over and over and over again. And boy, has he not ravished every inch of this body. Greedily and hungrily, drinking from my cup which indeed runneth over. I have given, and I have given myself generously. I have loved unconditionally. I have accepted him and his flaws without judgment. Submitted to his whims without protest. Why then should I be labelled as evil? Demonized. Goodness and Goddess shall follow him all the days of his life. I am here to stay, baby. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, but I am the gift that keeps on giving. I am the perfect wife.
From the time he was a young lad, Tony Thanda has always had dreams. The ambitious kind, obviously yes, but another kind too. Since the day he discovered his arousal, as a young boy, he found at the other end of the spectrum of his dreams a young woman. Waiting for him. He, she said, was what she had been waiting for the last 80 years. Her promised one. So, when she reached for his hand and gave him a smile, lips painted in dark crimson lipstick and jasmine-scented infusions wafting from her voluptuous cleavage, he allowed himself to be led, like a lamb, to the promised land of pleasure.
He's thirty-four now and has since forgotten that encounter, but each night he sees a woman in his dreams. A beautiful woman who lures him into her arms and bathes his body with innumerable kisses. Even dreaming he can feel his body moving back and forth, thrusting and gyrating as he administers his passions. Only when he wakes, shaking and wet, does he realise that indeed it had only been a dream. Hm! Or so he believes. That the lips that had softly met his, and hands that had directed his along the contours of an intricately shaped body, are nothing more than a fabrication of his psyche. He will laugh at himself at such times, feel slightly embarrassed even. He will even wonder if these nightly routines are what keep him from finding a mate or forming a lasting relationship with a woman. Those thoughts plague him at times, and he often wonders if there's anything wrong with him. He's not a religious man, but he goes to church, and there he hears of ‘spiritual wives.’ Avenging and marine spirits that bind themselves to men, preventing them from forming any viable relationship with a woman. He considers visiting a pastor. Having someone pray over him. I dare him to try it. I really do.
You see, Tony was given to me a long time ago. I was married to his great-grandfather. His first wife. in fact, but I died young. Young and mysteriously. You see, most people assumed that I had been bewitched by a stranger, died from a curse. I was the cause of much envy after all, because of my beauty. The daughter of a Samanyikan chief, descending from the beautiful, mountained paradise of the Eastern Highlands, married off to a man from a far-off village. Most of the women in that small village practiced witchcraft out of boredom and mostly envy. Leaving their bodies at night, next to their slumbering husbands, before entering the houses of their enemies to sit on them and induce a kind of sleep paralysis one could not wake from. It made sense for people to believe that I had fallen prey to these vile and jealous bitches. But that is not what killed me. Though what killed me was vile, indeed. I woke up cold that morning because my husband had choked me to death, simply because he wanted to marry another woman. I was murdered violently.
I remember trying to call for help, feeling the weight of his hand pressing me down. I still feel that pain on my windpipe, even now. He thought he had gotten away with it. Married his new wife and had the sons he blamed me for not bearing. Well, he was wrong. Some spirits forgive and move on, but others like me stick around and create hell on earth. I am not God, after all. I am not in the business of administering forgiveness. His violent delight he would meet its violent end. I made sure he paid for my death. That evil bastard! Within a year of his marriage, all his livestock died. Some were ravaged by wild predators whilst others simply fell to their death like flies! His crops were next. I made sure to bring in a plague of locusts that fed upon every cob of maize he had planted. Unlike Abel, my blood would not be shed in vain. And yet, the idiot still didn't catch on. He blamed neighbors, family, and even the devil.
The devil? Ha! If only he knew that the devil retired a long time ago. The world isn't suffering because of Lucifer. They're suffering because of their actions. They are the evil they dread. Anyway, after his house caught fire, he finally caught on, and a visit to a witch doctor set him on the right path. The only way I could be pacified, he was told, was to dedicate his firstborn son to me. But of course, that devil incarnate did everything to keep me at bay, using strong magic spells to keep me from his sons. To keep me in that cold grave where I lay each night, relieving the horror and pain of the night I died. The secrets to this magic, he passed on to his children with the hope that they would do the same. But with the loss of my people's culture and this new religion, they soon forgot and turned to their Bibles. I became a story and for a time I allowed them to relax. If I acted too quickly, I would risk losing it all.
When Tony was born, I knew that my time had come. That I had waited long enough and exercised due diligence. That my prayers had finally been answered. You may wonder why having a husband is so important to me. Why a dead spirit seeks conjugal union with a living being? It's simple. I cannot rest until I feel that I have been avenged, and what better way to do that than to make sure that one of his sons never finds happiness? In the physical world that is. In this world. I can assure you that Tony is a very happy and satisfied man. And when he looks at a woman or man, what does it matter, I will be there to make sure he doesn't feel even a hint of attraction. He will never find a mate!
That's not me being evil by the way. That's just me being a wife. Should I allow my husband to cheat on me whilst I look on? Permit him to commit adultery? Hell no. This is no open marriage. We are bound to each other till death....no, not even death will separate us. Even then, I will still be his. On that fateful day that his spirit leaves his avatar, I will be waiting. Until then, each night that he closes his eyes, I will enter his world through my spilled blood which covers his hands, and I will fulfill my marital obligations. He may think I am a figment of his imagination. A conjuring of the subconscious. A dream. What do I care? What he doesn't see is the shadow that hangs over his bed every night and the cold, crimson-painted lips that touch his. The hands that run over his body are real, and those chills he gets at night, a product of my cold hands. For as long as I lay in the ground, I will always feel the cold. Until this man washes my blood from his hands, I cannot rest. I will feel the claustrophobia of that grave and scream to be let out. Vindication is my salvation.
In the future, he may be tempted to pray me away. Haha! I will be there praying alongside him. God is no fool. Those well-meaning but ignorant ministers may cast me out all they want, screaming, 'Out Out Out!', but this young lady is going nowhere. I am a woman more sinned against than sinning, and even the Lord has presided over my case. Call me a demon, an evil spirit, an avenging spirit, whatever you want. It doesn't change anything. I am this man's spiritual wife, Ngozi yake, and I am here to stay.
This boy is mine. This doggone boy is mine. Amen.
BIO: Valerie Tendai Chatindo is a biochemistry graduate from the University of Zimbabwe, writer and sexual health&awareness educator. Her work has appeared in The Kalahari Review, Enthuse Magazine, PinkDisco Magazine, Creepy Pod, Agbowo and Literary Yard. Her short story 'Sheba', was shortlisted for the African Cradle, 'African Heroines', literary prize and her work published in Povo Africa's Nehanda Reimagined anthology. The twenty eight year old resides in Harare, Zimbabwe with her cat, Muffins, where she runs her own Literary Platform, Shumba Literary Magazine, as well as blogs on her personal platform.