On this episode of our online short story series titled ‘They’re Not Vulnerable’ by Victor Oroyi, we bring you another story ‘A Sister’s Love. The short story highlights the offence of frustrating investigation on Section 7 of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition, VAPP Act 2015.
Please, as you read, share the story with your relatives and friends.
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‘You must travel back to England, I reschedule your return ticket with the travel agency right away. Thank God, your holidays are over, I only wanted you to stay another 2 weeks but now… You must go back,’ she bluntly told him as she paces round the living room. He was lost in thoughts that his trip has been caught short by his erotic actions. She turns in one breath as though ministered to by a strange spirit ‘where is my husband’, not knowing what to say, he just opened his two hands towards her.
‘Get your things, we leave for the airport now,’ he looks at her. ‘Yes, no word from you.’
Augusta is her name while he bears Austin.
For one days, she had prevented the police from arresting him. Always coming for his defence with insubstantial excuses but not without a brown envelop for transport for the initial investigating officer. Her last bet is to send him back to where he was coming from. The cock-and-bull story of being sick and presenting a doctor’s report is not helping matters as a new investigating officer has been assigned to the case.
Angela has spent a week in the police clinic and the case is generating more public attention.
Watch the virtual of Section 7 of the VAPP Act 2015 here.
Augusta is a woman whose love for her family cannot be compromised. Since her parents died leaving her to become a father, mother and big sister to her siblings, she had protected them as mother hen jealously keep her chicks away from preys. She is now happily married to an ICT guru. She met him on his first visit to his fatherland.
The ever busy Hospital Road or junction houses strategic offices in the downside of Yenagoa. The Federal Medical Centre, FMC is at end of the road and adjacent is the popular Creek Motel managed by foreigners for the state government. His approach was causal but he meant every word, he said to her in the cozy Restaurant section of the motel during their first lunch. The hotness of the sun outside is unbearable. Her first gaze was on him as he had his intercontinental dish. They sighted each other with a chemistry that bonded their hearts instantly but pretended nothing happened.
She got herself a plate of KKF and fish head pepper soup. For a moment, she lost her mind for where to sit as the tables were occupied with white guests especially construction workers. His table had only him.
Her curvy hips gave her away; a sight that cannot be missed by luring eyes of lustful men. Her figure is intimidating and inviting as she wore that black gown on her creamy fair complexion. Augusta high heels gave her an imposing height as a photo or fashion model, however, modelling is never her thing.
So, he thought, she was a model who just visited town for a show. Augusta is deliberate on keeping fit.
‘Gosh… I am not wearing my ring’, she thought for a second ‘No option… let him not think, I want to market myself’, she muted the words to herself as she makes her way to the vacant seat on his table. She has always wore a ring on her fourth finger on the left hand as a wedding band. With this she feels safe from female hustlers in town.
Dropping her tray on the table, she asked ‘Please, can I share…’ while looking around for the third time for a vacant table.
‘With all pleasure, Miss Gorgeous’
‘What’s you say…’
‘Never mind’, leading her on to the seat with his hand.
She is ready seated before the words ‘Thank you’ came out from her mouth.
‘Are you a model’, he inquired but she gave a cold a shoulder for a response.
Six months after they signed the dotted lines at the registry to formalize their relationship as man and wife. The relationship brought succor to her and her siblings have relocated to Dubai except for Austin who went to Queen’s country, England.
Austin is visiting for the holidays to help his sister; she is having third child. Augusta needs a member of her immediate family to be around and Austin is available at the moment. He is the last amongst seven children of Augusta’s parents. Austin was a 18-month old baby when their parents died in a boat mishap on their way for a burial.
So, she took Austin as her first child. They were born same month with 24 hours difference in date. She always give him a preferential treatment and protected him unlike other siblings who sees him as a bad omen in the family. She holds him dear to heart and can do anything to ensure his happiness around the clock.
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Angela is the head maid of Augusta’s household since she had her first baby. Austin is meeting her for the first time. Despite a maid, Angela’s sexuality is sensitive and attractive on first sight. Her boobs and bumbum comes with extra succulent flesh; she is dutiful and focused. For six years, she had a clash with her madam only once unlike the other girls.
‘O boy, that girl Arsenal and Manchester is the perfect league anybody should play oo’, Austin’s dramatic description of Angela’s bodily features to his childhood friend, Andy. Andy saw him last seven years ago before he proceed to England for his graduate and post graduate studies in Geology. His love for the oil industries comes from the prestige displayed by oil workers with huge pay in Shell Quarters in Port Harcourt.
‘Abeg o, leave that girl o, no be your type’, Andy cautioned him for the umpteenth time.
But Austin’s cravings for her grow daily especially when his eldest sister leaves for the office mid-day. Her baby is only five months old and had resumed work. When the baby takes a nap, Angela tries to catch a little rest in the room. Austin’s naughty ideas take hold of him as he forces himself on her. She manages to escape with a loud scream that will attract Agnes and Annabel to the scene.
*******
It’s midday, Austin’s cousin was sleeping in his mother’s room. Austin asked, Agnes to bring fresh fruits to his room. He has been on a film on his smartphone, tieing only a white towel.
‘Angela’, he shouts out from his room.
‘My Adorable Angelic Angela… where are you?’ he sighs and tries to take control of himself while lying on his 12-inch well-furnished bed in the guest room, ‘why won’t she understand; the benefit of having me as her guardian angel…’
In a monologue ‘Me, Angel… She Angela…,’ he laughs out.
He turns aggressive but quickly switch to a true lover boy as he talks to himself looking at the mirror. ‘It’s a pay rise, more attention, more gifts… It means preferential treatment. It means more nice clothes and Sunday coded outing with me…’ He is still admiring himself at the table stand mirror in his room. A sudden feeling of misery on his face as he looks away from the mirror unto his beddings.
‘She is so dumb. Look at her, somebody, I am trying to help to become better. She don’t know I can change her status from a maid to madam in the UK’. He hisses and sits on the bed. ‘She is not seeing the future but comfortable as maid with those dry bone fishes – Agnes and Annabel’.
There is a knock on his door. He quickly adjusts himself and lies on the bed with his legs spread out. He turns on the volume of an Ijaw song, he collected it from Andy. It’s a popular song by B2S.
Angela opens after waiting for a while. She enters, and made her way to reading table to drop the plate of fruits. Augsuta rushes to her and grasps her by the waist with his hands not able to go through. He manage to swing her on the bed.
She struggled with him as the towel on his waist drops to the ground. She felt a cold sheave around her. She goes on his knees to beg. Austin stand erect with his bare body before her.
‘Why can you enjoy this cucumber with me’, he tries to tease her, as he holds her hand that were wide hold. She has through to quickly drop the plate of fruits and leave. She left the door open as a precautionary measure but for a moment, she realized that it didn’t deter him from his plot that afternoon.
‘Is this cucumber too small that your mouth is too wide to swallow it? His hands were on her neck, rubbing it seductively. At this time, she thought of an option but not too sure of what to do. Something tells her to hit him and run but she remembers a story her madam told when she had first baby who is five years now.
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Angela has forcefully fed Augusta’s baby using foul language. Augusta who overheard what was said rebuked her sharply using a frying pan on her head. ‘Don’t try it or you will go back to that your village without road, idiot’ with another dirty slap on her face. She collects the baby from Angela.
‘See, let me tell you, I don’t joke with my blood. I broke somebody’s head and legs, when the man tried to mess with my first son, A-Boy’, she sometimes calls Austin by a pet name whenever she wants him to be happy. ‘After breaking his head and legs, I made sure he was arrested. He came back for settlement after sleeping in police dark room for three nights.’
After a deep breath with smirk on her face ‘I don’t mind sending you to jail, if you hurt my baby or anybody related to me by blood’, she barked at Angela.
It was a flashback that gave her another option. She told herself to run and pretend that nothing happened. His loving face turned to a hateful look as she rejected his pleads.
‘Please, I can’t do it’, she manage to find words to reply him. Her words provoked a rage inside him like a wounded lion ready to tear his prey. He pounced on her and tears the cotton flowing gown she is wearing. Like a bird in a cage, she ran out of the room throwing him on the bed.
As she screwing out, Agnes was already at the door post.
She held her to a corner, ‘what happened’, she tries to inquire from Angela, who looked straight into her eyes confused on what to tell her. She adjusts her dress to cover her breast. Agnes, already knows what has been going and wondered why she is readily available but cannot be noticed by Austin. She makes a suspicious facial expression elongating her lips away from Angela.
Angela careless; she is thankful that she came out of the lion’s den with nobody injured. Agnes looking back to Austin’s room, stands at the door in wishful moment. The incident kept Angela on her toes with an awareness of Austin’s desire towards her.
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Two weeks gone, Austin couldn’t get it off his chest but he kept plotting his graph to make the x and y axis meet. Within these 14 days, he felt an assurance of getting her. On the verandah, he saw her and said ‘no matter the size of an animal in the forest, the lion is the king of the jungle’.
‘Nobody dares a wounded lion’, as he reminisce on the incidence. ‘She wounds me, and the sour is too deep to bear without a revenge’, with a heavy face, he looks at her as she served dinner that evening. I must see the body behind that cloth, he said to himself. In a deep mood of fury he left the dinner table that kept his sister worried.
‘Where are going’, Augusta asked him.
‘To my room’, he didn’t care about her when he rushed out.
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The next morning, barely, an hour Augusta left for work, Angela had put his cousin to sleep. He brought a tasteful juice and met her in the kitchen. He turns it in four glasses in her presence. Austin called out the other girls and gave them a glass each. In their presence, he kneeled down and apologized for his unruly behaviour towards her. She accepted and they all drank.
Angela, didn’t feel anything at first as the other girls took more of the juice when Austin left them in the kitchen. They gist about the tastefulness of the juice and the various incidences that had happened. Angela felt sorry for herself while Agnes felt unlucky. Annabel cheers Angela up with a warm hug. Agnes dramatically painted how lucky came knocking on Angela’s door for madam’s brother to be attracted to her as ants are attracted to sugar.
‘I would jump on him, like a farmer desperately in need for rain to help his seeds germinate’, Agnes tell them. ‘A lifetime opportunity to better my life and my family. I will not think twice to allow him in anytime, anyhow and anywhere; not minding what my mother will say or think’.
Without paying much attention to them, Angela excused herself to lie down as she feels dizzy. The two girls watch her leave. Agnes full of admiration for her to take her place.
In her room, she lies down like a log of wood without knowing what was happening; within split seconds, she dozed off. Austin sneaked in and undressed her, he penetrated her with his mouth swinging from one nipple to another.
Augusta’s husband just drove into the compound after a two-month course in Dubai. Austin is seated in front of the boy’s quarter where the ladies stays with his boxer and bare body. Immediately the gate was open and Augusta’s husband drove, Austin tries to run into the main building but stopped when his in-law horned him back. The door of Angela was open.
His in-law became curious. He stepped out of the car and saw the door open. He wondered what has happened without a word to Austin, he made his way to the room and found Angela naked and bleeding and unmoved.
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Her husband steps out of Angela’s room when she drove in. He was holding his phone when she ran to welcome with a hug. He is furious, unwelcoming, but half-heartedly gave her the hug still holding his phone. ‘Darling what happened? What are you doing here?’ she asked him leaving his embrace.
‘Go, see for yourself’, pointing to Angela’s room. Augusta stepped into the room wondering what has happened in her absences. The sight horrified Augusta with deep shriek calls out the names of the other girls who were standing at the entrance of main building.
Austin is up in his room.
He is overwhelmed with sudden dew of regret, when he saw the happenings outside in confusion. Peeping through the window, he saw his elder sister collapse into the hands of her husband after the long scream. The expression on his brother in-law’s face makes him unsure of his fate. He thought, if Augusta’s husband could defend him just as his sister does. This feeling took him to a lonely world.
*******
Augusta’s husband had revived her while lying on the master’s bedroom. ‘I want to call in the police’, her eyes turned reddish and alarmed. The strain of hairs on her skin stood erect at the sound of those words from her husband. She was between smiling and sorrowing but he kept his face off her.
‘A farmer will not destroy his farm with his own hands’, he looks at her with a deep breath when the words came out from her weak lips. He took a breath of disbelief and disappointment; and breath out the reality of his wife’s statement based on his personal conviction to do the right thing.
‘Look, I mean it… Don’t think about it’, she said to him softly. ‘We can deal with it our way, whatever, it is… We are family’.
‘… and she is an outsider, an enemy. Okay’, a simple reply to her but brought a heaviness over her. He leaves her in the room.
‘Please, come back and tell me exactly, why you want to police to do’, she speaks into the air.
He hastily opens door but took deliberate slow steps towards her. She looks at him as she sits.
‘Why do you want to protect her? Protect your own, let’s settle her not protect her. I have destroyed all the evidence. I brought her the dress and can easily replace it. Remember, it is her words against his’, she said.
‘She is first human, than a woman like you. Put yourself in her shoes.’
‘I can’t, she is my maid and you are my husband. Did you marry a maid?’ he turns away from her as she gently talked and touched him. ‘You didn’t marry maid, so that’s why you need to protect your family and not stand against them, when they need you in distress.’
‘I don’t want you to bear the crime of your brother in the name of a sister’s love. Let him dance the music he has been practicing in my absences and yours. He choose to play it, allow him dance. Agne and Annabel has told us the full story, how it all started. For you, if you don’t allow the police do their job, you will be charged with the crime of frustrating investigation based on the Violence against Persons Prohibition Act 2015. I am ready to sacrifice the love of wife; for a woman who is ready to allow another woman suffer injustice.’
******
The flight is air bound and Austin is in that flight.
Augusta returned home to meet to three plain police officers waited for her. They rounded up as the car stopped for the gate to be opened. They introduced themselves and brought a charge sheet.
‘You wanted for felony; your intent to defraud and conceal an offence committed by one Austin Albert is against the VAPP Act. You advised to remain silent and any word you say will be used against in the court of law,’ one of the officers said to her.
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A Sister’s Love in this episode highlights the offence of frustrating investigation as contained in the Violence Against Persons Prohibition, VAPP Act 2015 Section 7. This is part of the online short stories series titled They’re Not Vulnerable by Victor Oroyi to popularize key provisions of the act passed in May 2015.
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