Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

Samson was a little dazed by the turn of events. The reality of what was happening seemed to paralyse him. This time round
they
almost got nabbed. He did not like how he was being forced to do some things, bad things – really bad things – by the circumstances, like the killing of that reporter.

He thought of his life. To many who knew him he was the most successful businessman ever whose wealth was nothing but God’s blessings. Being a devout Catholic and a prudently devote member and propagator of justice in the Catholic office of Justice and Reconciliation Commissioners, a movement founded by one Bishop Joel Kamau the chairman of the Episcopal Conference of Kenya, to voice out the need for justice and reconciliation in the society had earned him unprecedented votes of confidence and trust. On top of that, his position in the Ministry of Gender and Culture as the Assistant PS granted him the necessary publicity. He was a well-known man of God and civil servant.

I hate what I am,
he said to himself.

What am I? Nothing worth. He asked and answered his own question. He was nothing but scum, a terrible sinner, and a daredevil – a terrible excuse of a human being, Samson concluded for himself.

He checked his wrist watch. It was almost time.

For him life was a game. Cat and Mouse. Hide and Seek. Win-lose or lose-win. The problem would be when he would be the mouse, the loser, the one to hide.

This day there was a meeting he was attending.

Ten minutes later the meeting was called to order by the chairman and they were reviewing their previous meeting’s minutes. There were no matters arising from the previous meeting’s minutes. They did not waste time.

Agenda one was discussed, two, and then three. It was two hours later when the meeting was adjourned. They had come to the conclusion that they needed to be more careful in what they were doing. The PS for the Ministry of Finance and the Assistant Minister for the Ministry of Industry, both members, were to take the necessary steps to ensure that everything was according to plan.

Once the meeting was over they entertained themselves, danced to the tune of samba and rumba played nonchalantly from the Chairman’s 300G Sony home theatre. They drained everything from his refrigerator, drank all the wine from his cellar, talked, laughed, others giggled naively as though they were coquettish school girls as the alcohol took toll on them, and cracked expensive jokes.

The ancestors, the spirits of those who had gone before them, had accepted their sacrifice. The spirits were appeased and thus those living were to continue having bountiful harvests, happier lives.

It was late in the night when their
meeting
ended, actually their
flirt and dart
party.

When the meeting ended they went straight home. That’s what they were taught by their mothers – wives should be like that. They had been brought up well – with a sense of belonging and respect for the vocation of marriage and great honour and veneration for the housewife career.

Dusk was approaching. A big yellow plate that, for the most part of the day, had been the scorching sun was sinking lackadaisically at the western horizon giving the silver azure of the sky an eerie view. Nobody could fail to watch the sun set this particular day even if they were not fans of nature or were not tourists. Simply, the view was so beautiful to be overlooked.

The two women puffed and huffed ahead discussing the day’s Bible discussion topic back to their homes, their matrimonial homes, the vocational jails they willingly put themselves in.

As the light of the equatorial day drifted back to its cocoon for the night, the heavenly chitchat of these women drifted to their lives. They started talking about their personal lives and family. Their desultory talk shifted to children when one of them grunted something to the effect that though children are God’s blessings sometimes the kids don’t seem to be what is expected of God to bless somebody with.

“God cannot give you a scorpion if you ask for fish. I wonder why our kids are so uncultured.”

“It is written that time shall come when children would beat their own parents. I’m not surprised.” The other answered.

It went on like this until it was time for them to part. Each had to go her own way, to her own home.

The women had been friends even before they met their husbands, and after their encounter with the men who were to be their partners for the rest of their lives they ended up being neighbours. They were good neighbours – Shannon Njeri and Kate’s mother, Elizabeth.

I was pleased with how I was doing academically. Hard work pays or so they say. I have no idea who the hell ‘they’ are, but whoever ‘they’ are wouldn’t have been further from the truth. I was the bright student of the seminary again. I was on the road of being awarded first class honours.

The first thing that I did with the benefits from Mavis was to enrol online for a degree in private investigation from a USA Penn Foster School. A criminology professor was pleased with my decision and he volunteered to be my tutor despite his busy schedule.

Professor Solomon Muema had a master’s degree in criminology from the same University where he was due to do his PhD. On top of that he was a behavioural psychologist working part time with the Kenya Police’s Criminal Investigation Department on criminal profiling and behavioural analysis. When I approached him to be my tutor he did not show any reluctance or ask to be paid anything.

I had heard about the Penn Foster School through Terry when she was still in the campus. She wanted to do her masters and PhD from there. Before graduation her application had gone through and she was due to report a fortnight after her graduation. She was now doing her master’s degree in America.

My bank account was frozen, but I had an idea who was behind it. The bank account that I gave Urbanas was a Barclays bank one but I had two other accounts with the Co-operative and Standard Chartered banks. No one else knew I had other accounts that I used to split my monies to. Barclays catered for all the orgies, jamborees, and the whole of hedonism that could be afforded by the large salary of a coffin-cum-highway incorrigible die hard robber. When I found that it had been frozen I did not bother myself. The war with Mavis had begun.

I was sure that Urbanas was waiting for me day in day out to go back to him in the dark of the night like Nicodemus and tell him I wanted back in. It never happened. It never came to that. It was never to come to that.

2005;

The much awaited day finally came.

All those graduating were seated
en masse
garbed in pall black graduation robes and hats. Unprecedented masses from all over the country flocked to witness the graduation of their kinsmen.

The sun was fierce and scorching. It was more than an inferno to be inside those black funny looking garments. It was a day of immense joy for many, others it was a day of great sorrow, others, like me, were just there to just be seen, fill the gaps; just be there because I ought to.

The customary graduation traditions were followed with the both literate and illiterate in the crowds of witnesses to this commissioning of intellectuals whistling and cheering once they heard a name they knew being mentioned. Ministers, dignitaries, and other influential men and women were awarded honorary degrees including a military general who had been the Chief of General Staff of the armed forces for seven years now.

When it was over different clusters of humanity could be seen congregated around their beloved with whatever they had come with from the village to congratulate the graduate, hugging and kissing, laughing and making merry. It was so real how life was good as one watched these people lose themselves to the overwhelming bouts of joy. Soon the clustered sat themselves at different spots in the compound to give
their
intellectuals presents and treat them to the delicacies of their community.

I found the same things being done to me. I had a truck load of graduation cards with me, flamboyantly gay ribbons around my neck, a cacophony of voices yelling at me congrats and other indiscernible things I never knew and never bothered to know.

It was the crown of academic heroism and adventure. That’s what
they
thought anyway. If only they knew that 99% of those whom
they
were congratulating and singing praises to for a job well done had done nothing worth those honours, praises and awards; that only 1% had worked for that.

I had a trolley-full of presents that I received. I had expected nothing from my father, but he gave me a pinstripe black suit, a matching tie, and black leather shoes. It was their present for me with mom. Susan gave me an original latest Chinese Nokia cell phone with Edge, GPS tracking device, TV, Radio and other sophisticated features of a phone in the early 21
st
Century. Terry had sent me an HP CQ60 Compaq Presario laptop from US. I felt as though I was just like the other magnate boys and girls who had been pampered with infrequent extravagance. The
little sister
, Claudia, now two years old, gave me a hanky that was written
I Love You.
I liked it; I needed it – love I mean – somebody to tell me so. And then somebody told me so.

Susan!

It was a night of pomp, carousing, partying, and orgies. Swarms of the just confirmed graduates blended with the all-the-time revellers. The customary parade of whores and pimps patrolled the almost but not deserted streets. Rich couples in their latest
state-of-the-art
coupes with vanity number-plates dominated the traffic alongside PSVs and police cars. College lovers and the infatuated held hands, joked, laughed, and played. Street urchins and their families huddled and cuddled on the promenades and around fires too small to be bonfires. Vanity parlours of pleasure and carousing were beginning to fill.

At a distance music could be heard playing characterised by low guttural sounds in syncopated discotheque rhythms. Susan and I were amongst these creatures who were feeling as though the world had just spun around.  

An eerie, fading after image of the life gone danced in front of me like a ghost. It was a life worth living, a night worth celebrating.

The joint that Susan and I had settled on after endless debating of where to go was the Carnivore. Of late I was not a connoisseur of roistering; but this day I made an exception.

It was long after midnight when Susan and I snuck out of the club to call it a night. In fact, we were not to call it a night. There was another business to attend to.

We entered the dimly lit reception of the Hotel Boulevard where we had rented a room for the night.
The home of the rich traipses,
I thought. I felt a strange debilitating wave of exhaustion sweep over me as we went upstairs to our room. Adrenalin started flowing weakly and slowly through my body. Maybe I was not sure of myself.

The room was in pristine condition. A medieval looking bed with gay duvets stood crisply at the centre, a night table positioned at the window with thick drapery overlooking the sleeping city below. As I was used to doing, I checked the room again before settling in for the night,
morning actually.

When I was done and I was sure that there was nothing left than to hit the sack I reached for Susan and began helping her undress. She flinched. I expected it. Her policy had been no ‘sex before marriage’ sermon; not that I disrespected it, actually I respected her decision to hold onto her goodies for as long as it took so long as I was the ultimate consumer, but I found it quite insane.

“It’s okay, Suzzie,” I said. Just but to be the gentleman I thought I was.

She knew better than to argue. She had the loveliest chocolate skin I had ever seen and I fancied devouring it as though it were the confectionery. Never mind it was the first time I was seeing her nude. She did not try to conceal her flinching. I knew why and I did not try to leer, fondle, or seduce her.

I just but wanted to tuck her safely in bed as though she were a kid. Lie number one for this night.

I touched her nubile body as I guided her to the bed and felt her tremble. I wondered if it was because of coldness or it was desire. Probably it was the cold. She had never experienced what desire for another human being of opposite sex could do to her. She was now tucked in between the sheets and staring up at me with the sexiest eyes ever.
She’s beautiful,
I said to myself.

As though she were waiting to get down with me I undressed and slid in beside her. She was as hot as though she were a furnace. I felt as though I was in a sauna. I feared to touch her lest she burn me.

“Are you really sure about this, Ken?” her voice was sweet, like music to the ears. It sounded as though she was singing
Gimme, gimme a man after midnight.

“What?” I feigned surprise.

“Many a time I wonder why we are a mystery. We do not even know ourselves,” she said.

“Meaning?”

“Few people make things happen, scores watch things happen but millions do not have an idea of what is happening. Let’s stop the pretence, Ken, please, for once.”

“I am not sure I get what you are saying.”

“You talk too much... let’s give your mouth something else to do.” And with that she sealed my mouth with hers. It was as though her saliva was boiling inside her mouth. Her thin, endearing, ecru-tanned lips caressed mine with fine satin softness.

At first I was not sure it was happening. She was
doing
what she had banned me from doing in the name of waiting until marriage. I gave her that what-do-you-think-you’re-doing look (lie number two) trying to put a what-happened-to-marriage-waiting-stuff-philosophy impression. I think she saw it and understood.

“We aren’t rehearsing life, Ken.”

That was the cue. I kissed her back with all the passion I had ever kissed a girl with. At first it was gentle, then it was hard – teeth against teeth, tongue exploring the back of her throat, mouth welling with saliva. She tightened her grasp around me.

I knew better than to talk more. My warning signals were going off, green light flashing.

Without a warning or another word she slid on top of me and undid the ponytail of her sleek shiny black hair that she always combed straight back. It was shining brightly from the illumination of the fluorescent bulb overhead.

Susan had the slowest of soft hands. She touched me all over, all the sensitive parts of me and then finally did what I was sure she did not mean to do tonight. She let me slide inside her hot, wet, waiting womanhood. It felt like... she began to rock back and forth in a pacified swaying motion. Everything seemed so easy.

I felt such a sensation all over, such a feeling I had first felt with Kate. Warning signals were singing aloud inside my head, wailing, screaming. I was breathing fast, faster, fastest!

I reached for her swollen breasts. I touched them gently, and then roughly, cupped them in my hands. I felt their perfect roundness.

She shut her eyes.

She opened her eyes.

She shut her eyes again.

I never closed mine. I never did. I watched Susan do her thing.

I wanted to see everything, watch...

She was moving faster, making funny but sweet sounds syncopated with
shith, shith, shith
sounds. They were sweet mellifluous sounds of music I had never heard. I loved them. I loved her making the sounds.

I was hyperventilating.

I gently manipulated her with my hands as she danced to her music, moved to her rhythm, and gyrated her hips vigorously. She was the only one who knew this music and dance style.

Then something happened... her body stiffened, and she began to fall forward against my chest. She arched dramatically backward and jerked forward again. It was as if currents of electricity were passing through her nubile body.

I was not almost certain but certain I was.

She was coming.

Her whole body was shuddering.

Susan was having an orgasm... Susan, this beautiful Susan, only Susan.

Then it happened to me. It was like police sirens piercing the silence of the night. A sudden rush of hot liquid coursed through veins I never knew existed inside me, sensitive channels that had seemed to be rudimentary. I grabbed her so hard that I thought I had bruised her. Our bodies were coated with thick hot sweat that acted as the adhesive joining the bodies together. There was a loud
thumb, thumb, thumb,
in my chest that I thought could collapse the walls of this expensive hotel. It lasted just for a moment and then silence took over. It was almost deafening... the silence, that is.

After a while she said, “Enough of the foreplay, let’s be serious and get down to business...”