Battered Wife

1

"So what happened after?" I asked as I walked to my car with my colleague with whom I'd come to the popular 'Della's Restaurant' to eat lunch.

"Well, you know our supervisor now, she no dey take nonsense. She called for security and they took her away instantly. We didn't see her after that. It was someone from the Security department that came to pack her things for her."

"Did they ask her who she was working for?" I asked, as I shifted my purse to my left hand causing my car keys to make a little jingle noise.

"Probably. Anyway, I heard she's now banned from all companies related to CCTV and security in the country." My colleague, Adaku, said.

I nodded in agreement. "Well..."

Before I could say anything, however, I was interrupted by a familiar voice that almost made me groan in frustration, "Omolola?"

Trying to take full control over my facial features while praying to God that the woman who had apprehended me would not be in the mood to make fun of me, I turned around slowly.

Unfortunately, when I saw not just one but four high society women whose husbands belonged to the same circles as my husband, I knew that I may never be able to look Adaku eye-to-eye again.

Many high society women were catty, vindictive and jobless women who usually went out of their way to take out their frustrations with their lives on other people. As a woman who had joined their group because of my marriage to my husband and was seen as a golddigger by this group, I was basically their favorite victim of choice.

"Keji, how are you doing?" I said, forcing a smile onto my face.

"Of course, I'm fine. The person we should be asking about is you, Omolola. How are you doing? Your husband went to Dubai with Busayo again. I heard all kinds of things about what they did? Are you okay?" Keji always had this high-sounding tone that made it look like she was genuinely worried for you even when she was mocking me.

I smirked. "I think you should stop worrying about me and worry about your own husband. After all, if you know about my husband going to Dubai, then yours must have also gone to Dubai. Rather than one woman, he must have had time to deal with as many women as he wants. I think we should all be asking you if you're okay."

If Keji was a little bit lighter skinned, I knew that her face would have become as red as a tomato at my words.

These high-society women liked to dig at me because I'd married a man in their circle but the truth was that we were all in the same situation, whether we married into the circle or we married in the circle, we all had powerful husbands who saw nothing wrong with sleeping with all sorts of women.

Even if their husbands were not chronic humanizers, they would be alcoholics or worse, drug addicts.

As someone who'd mistakenly married into their circle and had come to greatly regret it, I'd quickly realized that there was truly nothing joyful about being one of them. Their society seemed to have the singular rule: 'Bully whom you can bully and respect those you can't bully."

Even among themselves, they dug holes for each other and buried whoever they could bury.

I didn't come from a wealthy family but in my tiny village, there had never been such dog-eat-dog behavior. Even though food was not in excess amount, we shared food with our neighbors and they shared their food with us.

A woman snorted from behind Keji. "This is why I said we shouldn't talk to a village girl, Keji. Look, you were showing her concern and now she's coming at you like a shrew without manners as if you're the one who asked her husband to cheat on her."