Ruth Vicissitudes - Episode 17

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Ruth continued to flourish under her aunt’s watch, even after giving birth to her child. She had put the misery of her marriage behind her to bed. Her days so far had been smooth and her aunty has always been supportive of her. However, her aunty told her after she gives birth, she would work full time and move her shift from morning to night so that she could aid her in doing other things that weren’t definite in the restaurant. She was more than glad to help out her aunt, she was willing to work for her in any where possible.

Her working in the night wasn’t easy especially with the inflow of customers, mostly men in the night who drove in flashy cars . She didn’t have to contend with them before probably because she worked in the day, most people prefer to hangout at night than the former amounting to nearly double of the number that came during the day. Her first day was the most tedious of all but she noticed something quite fascinating about the workers and the customers that trooped in, majority of them didn’t come for just the food as she fundamentally thought. Most times, they hung around their cars like they were waiting for someone after making some payments. The workers, mostly girls in the rooms at the back where they resided and changed their clothes for work hung around too and did nothing except for chit-chatting, fixing make-ups and doing their hairs like they were out on a date

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. She was curious to ask one of them but she couldn’t, she was meant to do her job of helping out an instruction given to her by her aunty.

After few days of working, she never stopped looking answers especially when she discovered after or before meals, some of the men left with those girls, two or three of them and never returns them till the next morning before they taking a timeout and return in the evening when she dug deep. From that day, her suspicion of her aunty running a brothel obliquely, using the restaurant as its fore front began to mature. It was finally confirmed when a cook who worked in the same shift as her and a witness opened up to her while turning the food to the plates;

“Those guys take us out to lay with after paying madam. We ensure that we satisfy their desire or they will report to her in which she will decide what to do with the person” she referred Aunty Mabel as madam.

“It has been going on for years, at least since I began working here six years ago and she gets really paid” she confessed in whispers. Ruth imagined what she must have gone through all those six years of pr*stituting. She wondered why she didn’t leave after finding out and she responded that it wasn’t easy because madam wouldn’t let any of them leave even though she paid them fairly. That’s where Ruth knew that she might not be safe either even though she was her aunt. She obliterated the fact that everyone thought she ran a big successful restaurant, oblivious of the other that she ran a pr*stitution hub. It never crossed her mind that she could get herself involved in such obnoxious business as this. She always thought of her as a decent person but with all she had gathered, she no longer had any atom of respect for her, not even for everything she had done for her.

Ruth was doing her normal duty of serving and collecting used plates when a man called out to her. she initially thought it wasn’t her but the customer kept calling out till he described what she was wearing. She realized it was her, she approached him courteously, the latter was licking and smacking his lips as he screened the shape of her body and dress from top to bottom with his eyes.

“Hey sweetie, I have been calling you the whole time. New here?”

“Am sorry, I was too busy attending to others. Do you want me to serve you an order?” she brushed answering him his question.

“Don’t you know the rules here? I must admit that you don’t, that accounts for your new face here. I want to be the first to smash you” she ignored his statement and focused her eyes elsewhere while the man continued to screen her body. It would be rude for her to walk out on him.

“Anyways, you are coming over to my apartment this night and we are going to enjoy ourselves” he gave her a wink.

“Excuse me please, I don’t go out to a stranger’s apartment and I have other things to do” she excused herself and threatened to leave.

“Come on beautiful, ladies like you don’t refuse me. I can give you anything you want, money, cars”

“Am not interested” she finally left. Several men made big money offers for her but she declined and her aunty didn’t take it nicely with her when she found out through one of her female employees and some of the men who complained of her non-compliance.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you so obstinate and trying to ruin my hard earned business. Do you know the caliber of men that is trudging at your feet now? That is almost triple of any amount paid for any other lady here”

“Aunty, I’m not good at this. I can’t be sleeping men like you want me to”

“Shut up! Do you know that its from this that I paid your father’s hospital bills? From this, I pay your younger siblings boarding fees and take care of you and your child? Don’t try to complicate matters for me, I don’t want to lose any client because of your arrogance and ill attitude. Cooperate or lose everything I have been doing for you and your family” she threatened her in a way she didn’t believe. She had never seen her aunty get angry and vicious like that, she couldn’t imagine leaving without the support of her aunty, her family too. She couldn’t risk her personal interest at the expense of others.

The pressure continued to mount on her and one day, she succumbed to it. A man picked her up and they went to a three star hotel where she had the most brutal s*x any woman could ever have. After about few rounds, they stopped and she couldn’t wait to leave. She walked to the middle of a path and imagined how her life would be from henceforth, a s*x tool in the hands of men. She would be like an iron in the hands of a blacksmith, controlled and bent anyhow he wishes under the fire. The last s*x was as horrible as itself, she endured it all because she didn’t want to disappoint her aunt. She had to look for a way out by all means. From time to time, her mother calls her to find out how she were, each time she was tempted to expound her misery to her but she couldn’t when she remembers her sacrifice is prerequisite for their survival.

She moved from one man to another, spending her nights in guest houses of hotels, sometimes in the car and their residential houses almost every day depending on the amount paid by clients for the time they want with her. She became clients favourite and some of them started booking for her service, exhausted she would be after a day, then the next day another comes, picks her up and returns her that day or the next. She no longer had enough time for her little baby, who needed breastfeeding and motherly care. She was never freed, always occupied at one time or the other, her baby didn’t grow up with a father, now she had started to grow up without her mother too. Ruth started to feel depressed and felt like jumping over the bridge, all her sorrows, all her problems would all end instantly.

Dolapo reached for two glass cups and a bottle of cognac from his bar in a way as to celebrate something with his newlywed wife Tonkey who was heavily pregnant. He filled each glass cups half way and handed one of them to her;

“What are we celebrating again?” she asked surprisingly. Dolapo had one reason or the other to celebrate even when there was nothing to celebrate.

“We are always celebrating dear. Sometimes, I just feel we should. Lets make a toast to us, the unborn baby right there” he rubbed his palms over her protruded stomach.

“Come on baby, that’s like the third time we are doing this today. You know I can’t drink much of these because of the baby”

“Just a sip baby, it won’t kill the baby”

During their celebration and smooching, they were interrupted by the sound of a bell. An unfamiliar masked figure appeared on the door when it was opened, pointing a gun at Dolapo’s forehead. He became speechless, Tonkey freaked out too at the sight and was equally speechless.

“Do you know who I am?” the voice asked. Dolapo shook his head in place of speaking.

“Please, don’t kill us”

“Shut up woman” he turned to Dolapo and asked him to speak up.

“Do you know who I am?”

“No, I don’t. how can I know when you are wearing a mask” the stranger took off his mask, revealing his face.

“Do you know who I am now?” Dolapo tried to decipher but he couldn’t place the face and familiar voice, therefore saying no.

“This is the voice of the one you offended, the one that you always took what its his”

“Please, whatever I have done to you don’t kill me. I will pay you whatever”

“Shut up. I don’t need your money or whatever, I want your life, want to take that which is special to you. My name is Charles Johnson” he pulled the trigger and two shots was fired into his skull, two into Tonkey’s baby and left.

While Ruth was returning from one of her trips to the restaurant, she met a man who sat lonely. He bought just drinks and unlike the men that wowed at the buttocks of women while they walked, wondering how they will dance to their thrust, he left with more drinks. With the way he walked, Ruth thought he must be going through a difficult time, for he wasn’t a regular and just came to drink away his sorrow and pain. She knows what it means to be troubled and affected by a precarious situation. She noticed that other days at night, he does the same thing he does every time, buys drinks and leaves with bottles staggering. She felt so sorry for him but there was nothing absolutely she could do to help him.

She was on her way to a hotel with her client when she was driven past a popular bar. She saw a man forced out of it and beaten by the bouncers for causing a nuisance, abandoned by the road side leading to the hotel. She thought of helping him but remembered she was with a client. When she walked past him, she recognized the same face that she saw at her restaurant, the strange man that spoke to no one and bought just drinks and drunk himself to intoxication. 

After her time with the client was over, she proceeded towards the road to board a cab and saw the same strange man still laid by the road side. Dead or not, she didn’t know until she came closer and saw that he was alive but too weak to move or talk. She concluded she would help him, she boarded a taxi and the drive aided her in moving the man to the back seat. She didn’t know where to take him and provided no answer when the driver asked her for destination immediately. She told the driver where to take them, a nearby inn not her aunty’s home. 

He woke up the next day to the sunlight casted upon his face from the window. He grumbled when he switched sides to take a look at where he was. It was a very unfamiliar place and he thought he had been kidnapped till he saw a beautiful lady lying on the red rug. Ruth was awoken by his persistent attitude in leaving the room.

“No please, you are not too strong to alight and leave”

“Who are you? I don’t need anyone’s assistance. I can take care of myself”

“It didn’t seem so when I saw you abandoned by the road side to Clems Hotel” that’s when he remembered the last thing he saw were two men lifting him off the entrance of a bar after punching a man on his face that he thought had insulted his personality.

“Am sorry, thank you for helping a stranger”

“You are welcome. What happened? I have seen you at Mabel restaurant, getting drunk”

“You know me and have been following me, get out of my site. You are here to rob me”

“No, don’t be paranoid. If I wanted to, I would have done so already and wouldn’t have bothered bringing you here. You are safe young man, am not a thief” his temper was eased off after hearing those words of hers.

“Why did you help me? No one knows my whereabouts, not even my parents know where I have gone. I just want to live off my days drinking”

“No, you can’t. I can imagine what you must have gone through, life has two faces, every phase has a transition process. I can assure you that you will overcome whatever problems you have”

“What makes you think so? You don’t know me or who I am”

“I know because I know. I don’t need to know who the hell you are”. After a long silence, the two words that came from his lips was ‘thank you’. Ruth saw something in him that she hasn’t seen in a man in a long while, something of a gentlemanly character. From his personality, he was someone from a rich home but didn’t act like one. She inquired what his name was and he said Charles, while she introduced herself to him. 

In the morning, he went to the restaurant to meet up with Ruth but he was told she worked only night shifts. He was disappointed but he made sure he will come back for her. he tried again in the night and saw her right in the middle of some men. She returned his gaze and was surprised to see him come. She excused herself from the men and met him;

“Hello. I came here in the morning but was told you work in the night”

“Yes, I was told. What are you doing here by the way?”

“I came to thank you properly about the other night”

“That’s okay. am happy that I was of help to you”

“So, I want to take you out somewhere”

“Hmmm, it won’t be possible. I’m at work as you can see, I’m really sorry”

“No, I don’t mean today. I mean tomorrow, 8. Pm” she reluctantly accepted. She took the night thinking about how she would tell her aunt she was going out on a date while on her shift. How would she tell Charles that she wouldn’t when she had already accepted his proposal. She wouldn’t want him to have the impression that she was a sex worker and that accounted for her reason for her refusal. She thought all night but didn’t arrive at a definite answer, she was interested in Charles and wanted to know him, he seemed a nice guy to her, someone she would like to confide in. That’s what she felt but she didn’t want to give herself hope after everything that had happened for the past one year.

The following night came and Charles sat on one of the empty seats waiting, Ruth had already met him but she planned on the excuse to give her aunt. Her aunt would definitely ask for her whereabouts and the money paid by her clients. An answer arrived finally, she took some money from her savings and gave her aunt on the pretense that one of the clients had paid for her services for the night. Her aunt authorized her to go, she was relieved and left with Charles who was running out of patience and questioning if he had made the right choice by asking Ruth out.

From one date to the other, Ruth learned as much as Charles learnt from her. They related to each other how their lives had turned out but Ruth never told him about her recent clandestine job she did at her aunts, Charles thought she worked in the restaurant like every other person would. Ruth was starting to like him so much, but she was afraid to give all in. The fears of her past relationships and marriage still hunted her and when she told Charles, he perfectly understood and on the day they were out, while she contemplated whether to tell her past or not, it started to rain and they both proceeded to his car for shelter.

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  • Rating (4)
  • Ronke Adetula picture
    Ronke Adetula
    Nice story but don't like how Ruth became a prostitute and Dolapo's death. Well done
  • belladiva54@gmail.com picture
    [email protected]
    Am so happy that dolapo is dead&sad that charles killed.hope charles&ruth find happiness 2geda.reg,more grease 2 ur elbow.
  • Reginald Obette picture
    Reginald Obette
    Ronke, Ruth had no choice.
  • Reginald Obette picture
    Reginald Obette
    Thanks Bella. Dolapo deserved to die really and Charles killing him was perfect in putting his misery behind
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