Indebted! 2

For some seconds, I was confused, trying to find the right response for him, then I told him softly,
' Babe, but you have been washing your shirts with the machine and you have not complained since,

So...
I was cut off..
'So I can’t ask you to do anything for me now, abi? Just to help me wash them is now a big deal? If not that I’m tired, I’d have done it myself, naw'
I didn’t say anything; I just went to wash the clothes.

'Throughout the time he was talking, he didn’t even say please,’ I thought. But I later forgot about it when he started talking to me normally, like nothing happened after I finished washing the clothes. Another day, we had planned to order food for dinner later that night; in fact, he was the one who came up with the idea. Not until he said,

'Aren’t we going to eat this night?' Again, I was surprised.
‘But you said we were going to order food tonight’
‘When did I say that? I never did. Can’t you even pity me for the money for ordering and delivery, and moreover, is it every day we will be ordering food?’
 I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t even wrap my head around what to say. And what’s more funny is that he will talk in a very calm tone, like he meant no harm but the words themselves were harmful. That night, late at night, I had to go and cook. I couldn’t even eat. I just served him and went to sleep.
 
Gradually, from the freedom I thought I had, I thought he gave me, to being in his bondage. After school, I would come back home to cook for him. We would have ordered food knowing I had a busy day at school. I started cleaning up the dogs, packing their poo. Can you imagine? I was more like his housemaid. If his friends are coming over, he will just be telling me that morning that they’re coming. I now have to rush to prepare before they come. He won’t even say I should prepare easy food like rice; it would be food like pounded yam or amala for like 10 people.

Me?? Is it a canival ni?

I feel like crying, as I am remembering now. From saving me to digging up holes for me.
Anytime he is in the mood for sex and I deny him access, he always manipulates me by saying
‘Have I ever asked you for anything? You don’t even give me anything in return for all I do for you, not even this one. Isn’t that unfair?’
and more words like that. Sometimes he even rapes me. I have stopped sleeping in the same bedroom with him, but he will still come over to have his way with me. He gaslights me, talks down at me, and manipulates me so much that I start questioning my sanity. We can’t be having a conversation, and he won’t say
Shut up jare, What are you saying?
Or if I’m making a joke, he would have switched it and looked at me with a kind of disappointed look and shaken his head, or he would hiss and walk out on me. And anytime he makes his own jokes, they are always so boring, but he will think he has made it in life already. From his lame pick-up line, he said to me that the first day we met was when I was supposed to know that he wasn’t well in the head. He no longer tells his friends about me, or rather, he has changed the things he now says about me because they now speak to me anyhow.

Isn’t this see-finish? Big one, for that matter.
When the forceful sex kept going on, it was now like an every-day thing, and I couldn’t hold it any longer. I stopped him one day when he was trying to force his way on me. I stood up from the bed and started talking. With my shaking voice, almost close to tears, I said,
Ryan, what have I done to you to deserve this treatment?
What treatment?, Come to the bed and let me do what I want to do.
No, you won’t have your way tonight.
 Why?
Not until you tell me what I have done. You promised you would treat me better; you showed me love and made me extremely comfortable with you. You saved me and made me turn to my savior, someone I look up to. But suddenly, a change of heart? Why?, Please tell me why.
Laughing, he just shook his head and said,
You don’t know anything. You never see anything.
I was confused. Where is this coming from?
He was about to leave the room when I blocked his way and demanded an answer.
Demi, leave my way
No, not until you answer me.
Demi, leave my way; I’m telling you
N.,

and the next thing I was on the floor
Ryan slapped me. He didn’t even stop at that; he started beating me up and calling me names. Among the things he said, there was one that I couldn’t stop thinking about. He said
I stopped loving you and caring about you when my eyes opened to the fact that you couldn’t be useful to me.
I couldn’t believe my ears when he said that. E be like a dream for my eyes.
 He continued
See you, Idiot; you don’t want to be indebted to me; you started buying cheap gifts; for whom? When I said you should stop the gift-buying, you thought I cared? I just wanted you to buckle up your game and meet my standards. But no, you thought I cared. Do you care? So, you stopped. After all the money I spent on you, you just want to enjoy them without a re-payment and with interest on top? Big lie. You can’t escape here because I know you have nowhere to go. You also have no money with you. The money you think you are saving, I have withdrew them all. Shey, you don’t want to be indebted; you won’t be by using your body to serve me. Stand up there and come and make me noodles.
Ahh, aye mi o.

I just started crying; I couldn’t even cry enough. I wanted to cry more, but the tears were tired already. I went to the kitchen and prepared the noodles; they remained small enough for them to burn, but I couldn’t afford them. I served him, and as I was about to go inside, he said to me
Where are you going to? Come on, sit here until I am done eating.
I dare not talk back; I just obeyed him and started thinking...
Is this how I will continue to live this miserable life?

A word of advice for her, please?