When he is asleep, what he knows best is to snore. I feel he never dreams of being a breadwinner. Maybe his dreams are just as cold as snow.

I do everything for him: caretaking him, feeding him, supporting him. In short, I attend all his needs. I call myself a hybrid of his love which I refer to as myself being his wife, housegirl, babysitter and breadwinner – all in one.

“Cake, I’m going to work” is mere a song I sing to him every day when I’m about to go to work by a taxi motorbike at 7 am. I’m always punctual. My boss (Mandala) is a fat black arab, smart ass, who pretends to be perfect, and never takes any blame. And he is my present emotional challenge.

I little salary (k85000) I get from his restaurant, covers huge expenses out of my mini budget. I can spend hours listing them but the expense I care about most is; feeding my husband, which also means affording his beer. Aside; rent, utility bills, groceries and my transport to work.

I love my husband more than himself knows. We took each other without any arrangement from either side of our families. My parents in Nkhatabay know nothing about this. What they know is, I went to work in the commercial city of Blantyre. They don’t know I stay in Manja ghetto either.

I insist he is my husband yet we didn’t wed. You would say he is just my casual boyfriend, yet I hate anyone saying that. I just love everything about this guy. He satisfies me emotionally, physically, and mentally. I treat him like my king, that’s why nobody can tell me the opposite.

The six months we’ve spent together here feel like six years to me. I spent all those months sweating for him, while he stayed in this bedsitter expecting me to meet all his needs. I love a man who doesn’t do anything for a living.

‘Eating, drinking, betting, loving, sleeping’ – that’s his normal daily routine.

I don’t mind though, I was the one that called him in. I even cut off my two important friends because of him.

“You’re wasting your time with that useless man,” my friends chorused. Girls.

With my short temper, I told them: “Get away from my life. You don’t know the meaning of love.”

That split happened two days after my 20th birthday. I told myself I was really matured for love and independent.

So here I’m, stuck with one person in my life. The person I call my beloved husband. “Cake” I nicknamed him.