Five days later, the Rev. Atteh Daniel Oben of the Cameroon Baptist Convention was reading his Bible one evening, seated on an armchair in his living room at Street 7, Great Soppo – Buea, when he heard the doorbell ring.
Startled, he looked up from his Bible and adjusted his reading glasses on the bridge of his nose without tearing his gaze from the locked front door.
He was a small man in his early forties with graying hair. He raised his left hand and checked the time on his wrist watch; it was half past nine! He was taken aback, wondering who was knocking at his door at such a late hour.
With the prevailing crisis in town at the time, he was well aware that it was unsafe to welcome late-night visitors. So he kept still, hoping the visitor would give up and go away.
However, only moments later, he heard the bell ring again, this time twice.
Seeing the visitor was determined, he decided to go see who it was. He got his tired self to his feet, stretched his body and went to the door.
Upon opening the door, he found at his doorstep a tall, fair, slim young lady. Dressed in a short-sleeved orange blouse over a navy blue skirt and a pair of low black shoes with her hair pulled back into a ponytail with a shoulder bag over her left shoulder, she looked haggard.
‘How can I help you?’ he asked as he gave her a once over, noticing that her blouse was unbuttoned at the top, revealing a glimpse of her bosom.
‘Good evening, sir.’ She said, sounding like she was in great trouble. ‘My name is Ruth. I am so sorry to bother you by this hour, but I am in dire need of help. I was directed here by someone who said a certain Pastor Daniel lives here.’
Eyeing her a little suspiciously now, he said, ‘I am Pastor Daniel. Please come in.’
‘Thank you,’ she said as he made way for her to get inside. As she passed him at the doorway, he perceived the rich fragrance of her perfume. He locked the door and followed her inside.
‘Please, sit,’ he said as he passed her and sat on the armchair he had been sitting on. She sat on another armchair to his right and looked round the living room in innocent wonder.
‘You said you needed my help,’ he said, drawing her attention. ‘How may I help you?’
She looked down at her bag on her lap before meeting his gaze. ‘I have been having nightmares for about a year now, pastor. Each time I sleep, I would see a strange man come to me in my dream. It was always at a clearing in a forest with strange-looking trees.
‘He would take off my clothes and then make love to me. I could neither resist him nor run away whenever he came. Also…’ She paused. He could see that she was at the brink of tears now. She got a handkerchief from her bag which she used to dab her eyes. She then continued, ‘Each time I wake from sleep, I would feel moisture in my underwear; and when I check, I would see that it was wet with semen.’
The pastor shifted on his seat upon hearing her last statement.
She proceeded, ‘I have been to many churches for deliverance; still, the strange man keeps coming to me in my dreams. So I decided: no more. I was directed to your house just this night and so I got here as soon as I could.’ A tight smile. ‘You come highly recommended, pastor. I cannot let this go on any more. Please, you have to help me!’
The pastor was silent throughout. He then adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat and said, ‘You see, the Bible says in Psalm 34, verse 19: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” Tonight, the good Lord is going to break every hold the Devil has over you; He is going to liberate you from the spirit of a spiritual husband.
‘Remember, the Scripture also says in First Corinthians chapter 6, verse 19 that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, any contrary spirit using it for his evil purposes must be expelled and cast into the bottomless pit of hell. Do you believe this, child of God?’
‘I believe,’ she whispered. Tears were streaming down her cheeks now, and she made no effort to wipe them off.
‘Then get on your knees let me pray for you.’
Fueled by the Spirit, he shot to his feet, grabbed his Bible and turned to Ruth who was now on her knees before him with her head bowed low.
He felt his heart beat harder against his ribs as he realized had a better view of her bosom from above. He quickly turned his gaze to the ceiling as he silently recited the Scriptures in Romans chapter 8, verse 6: “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
He closed his eyes and raised his outstretched left hand clutching his Bible; laying his right hand on her head, he started praying.
He could hear her punctuate his prayer occasionally with “Amen” as he launched into the realm of the spirit, feeling the anointing welling within him.
All of a sudden – just as he was about to release the anointing on the young lady – he felt something that severed his connection with the spirit realm, and shocked him beyond measure. What he felt was a tender hand grabbing his groin through the thin fabric of his pair of pajama bottoms.
His eyes flung open spontaneously as he looked down, only to find Ruth looking up at him, seductively biting her lower lip.
‘What are you…?’
He stopped in midsentence as she tightened her grip on him. He shut his eyes tight as he battled a surge of pleasure welling within him.
She stood slowly – her right hand still clutching his groin – and whispered into his ear, ‘Let’s not pretend it isn’t happening, pastor. You are stiff down here. So let’s play.’
‘What?’ he managed to say. He looked like he was at gunpoint, unsure how to handle the situation.
To his greatest surprise, she planted a kiss on his lips and then pushed him onto the armchair. Looking down at him, she bit her lower lip with a gratifying smile as she unbuttoned her blouse.
He just sat there wide-eyed as he watched her discard her blouse.
With a wicked smile on her face, she whispered, ‘It’s time to play.’
***
Less than an hour later, Ruth left the pastors house with a self-gratifying grin on her face as she went through the gallery in her phone looking at the photos she had taken of them making love on the armchair.
The pastor was so carried away by the pleasures of the act itself that by the time he realized she was taking the snapshots, she flung her phone onto the other armchair and hit him hard on his left temple with her right elbow.
As he writhed on the chair, clutching his head with both hands, she gathered her things in a hurry, and ran stark naked out of the house into the darkness. By the time the pastor recovered from the impact of the blow and dashed for the front door, he saw nothing but darkness beyond the bright glow of the security light above the front porch.
She went to a corner where she hastily got dressed before perusing the photos she had taken.
She smiled as she saw that the photos had a good view of the pastor’s countenance.
She bet her client would love the photos when she prints and delivers them as she made her way to the main road to take a taxi home.
***
Over the next few couple of days, Samuel kept hanging around with the trio: he was always seen with them on campus; and they frequented a number of nightclubs in town, dancing with so many different girls that he lost count.
In that space of time, he became so accustomed to drinking beer that he was astonished at himself. Yet he had to do so, lest he proved to them that he was not man enough to join their ranks. However, he turned them down one time when they urged him to smoke a cigarette.
And yet, two weeks into his friendship with them, he had still not learnt anything useful. So he decided to change tactics by adopting the divide and conquer strategy.
On the evening of the third day into the start of the first semester exams – which did not seem so bad to him – he called Nelson over the phone and invited him for a drink at a club around UB Junction called JAMROCK… just the two of them.
Nelson agreed, and they planned to meet at eight o’clock.
As it turned out, Samuel chose to arrive earlier than planned so he would not miss Nelson when he came. When he alighted from the taxi just across the road from the club, he crossed the road and ascended the staircase to the front door (the club was on the second storey of the building, above a local restaurant).
He was clad in a dark green polo shirt over a black pair of jean trousers and a pair of loafers without socks.
He looked round the club as he walked in. He was now accustomed to the glittering lights, posh furniture, sexy-looking girls, the music and the booze in the clubs.
A soft song was playing. There was a small elevated platform to the side of the hall facing the street, and across on the other side was the bar with a lady serving behind it. A young man and a younger lady were seated there drinking their beer and chatting.
Samuel went to the bar and ordered two bottles each of Castel beer and Mutzig and then waltzed over to a table surrounded by three cozy armchairs and sat on one of them.
He was met by a waiter a few seconds later with the order alongside two glasses and a bottle opener on a serving tray. He placed them on the table before Samuel and asked if he wanted anything else. When he said no, the waiter left.
He then opened one of the bottles of Mutzig and poured himself a glassful. Just as he was raising the glass to his lips, he saw Nelson enter, dressed in a short-sleeved red shirt over a blue pair of jean trousers torn in several places at the front and a red pair of sneakers.
Nelson looked round the hall and spotted Samuel waving at him from the far end, a glass of beer suspended in midair just below his mouth. He walked up to him.
Samuel stood to shake hands with him, glad to see that he indeed came alone. ‘Hello, Nelson. I’m glad you could make it.’
‘Sure,’ Nelson said as they took their seats. ‘I was just so bored at home when you called. I couldn’t miss it for the world.’
Gesturing at the drinks on the table, Samuel said, ‘Everything’s on me tonight, my friend. Drink up and be merry.’
Nelson grinned as he opened one of the bottles of Castel beer and poured himself a glassful.
‘Cheers,’ Samuel said merrily as he hit his glass against Nelson’s before he could take his first sip.
‘Cheers,’ Nelson said as he drank from his glass.
‘I really enjoy being with you people, you know,’ Samuel said as he set his glass on the table. ‘I have never felt more alive.’
Nelson smiled. ‘Elvis knows just how to party, and he has shown us how to have real fun. He always says life has no duplicate, so you have to enjoy it while you can. I totally agree with him.’
‘Aye, I too agree with him there. So I guess you had a great time with Sylvia while you two were together.’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ said Nelson, his mood turning sour as his mind became flooded with painful memories he otherwise preferred not to talk about.
But that was exactly what Samuel wanted him to do – talk about it all. So he said, leaning forward as he rested his elbows on his knees, exhibiting great interest, ‘So what was it like, being her lover?’
Nelson leaned back on his seat and shut his eyes awhile – perhaps cursing the fact that he had to recount the painful past, Samuel thought – before looking at Samuel with a faint smile.
He said, ‘It was magical; life was such a paradise where everything seemed possible.
‘We started off around March last year when she was still a freshman and I a sophomore. I thought I was the luckiest person on the planet to have a girlfriend so meek and gentle, loving and understanding. We had our differences, but we settled them amicably.’
He paused to take a sip from hiss glass as the music changed. He noticed that there were more people at the club now.
He carried on, ‘Then Elvis and Karl advised me to take her out. When I told them I had been taking her out for lunch and dinner at posh restaurants in town, they told me that wasn’t enough. They said I should take her to the club, show her how we enjoy life; loosen her up a little with the whole chastity thing.
‘So I decided to take her to Las Vegas during a strippers’ night in April. I paid our entrance fee at the gate and took her down the hallway at the end of which was a pool table with a few stools next to it.
‘We stopped there to play pool for a while. I never knew she loved the game so much. I must tell you: that was the most magical moment I spent with her. We laughed a lot and kissed several times there.
‘I then took her past the double doors into the club itself. The music was awfully loud and I had to shout for her to hear me. She looked round the place with a frown on her face. I understood, since she had never been to such a place before. I pulled her close and whispered to her that by the time we left the place, she would not regret ever coming there. She just stood there and looked at me like I was speaking in strange tongues.
‘She kept looking round as I took her up the stairs to the second floor where the strippers performed. That part of the club was quieter and the people there talked in low tunes; and the music there was soft. I’m certain she had given a sigh of relief as I got us seated and ordered for a bottle of wine.
‘When we started drinking, she was fascinated when I told her the wine was worth twenty-five thousand francs (25,000 Frs).
‘In no time, the music changed as the strippers mounted the stage and started dancing. There were five or six of them, I guess. Sylvia looked so disgusted when they started discarding their spare clothing and the audience burst into a loud peal of lustful laughter.
‘She turned and looked at me in disbelief as though she had not really understood when I told her we were going for a strippers’ night.
‘I did my best to make her relax, but she grew even more uneasy and asked me to take her “out of this filthy den of sinners,” to put it in her own words. I understood how she felt, given that she had got a sound moral upbringing.’
He paused for another sip as Samuel remained rooted where he was, waiting for him to resume the narration.
Nelson took a deep breath before rotating his head anticlockwise in order to kill the crams around his neck. He later focused his gaze on Samuel and said, ‘Just as I was about taking her out, I noticed her mood change all of a sudden.’
Samuel blinked rapidly, wondering what Nelson meant by that.
Nelson gave a crooked smile before saying, ‘She told me she had changed her mind and was beginning to enjoy the music. She was now shaking her head, drumming her laps with the palms of her hands and tapping her feet on the floor to the rhythm of the music as she watched the half-nude strippers in newfound amusement. I was very surprised and thought it was by sheer luck that she had finally come to see things from my point of view. She was enjoying herself just the way I hoped she would.
‘The wine tasted sweeter, the audience’s euphoric shouts welcoming, and the strippers most entertaining. She no longer had any qualms watching them peel off their spare clothing as she smiled from ear to ear. I was still experiencing a fit of surprise, but I flowed with her, chatting and laughing until…’ He stopped abruptly.
‘Until what…?’ Samuel felt like strangling the rest of the story out of him.
‘By the time everyone was really getting mad over the strippers, my gaze was focused on them and I hardly looked at Sylvia. Then something caught my attention by the side; I thought I saw someone I recognized there. I looked and saw that I was mistaken. By the time I turned to pour myself a drink, I saw that Sylvia was no longer there.’
Samuel regarded Nelson saucer-eyed as he felt his throat go dry. ‘Where did she go?’
‘That’s the part that bothered me most. After looking round the jam-packed hall, I saw her coming from one end of the stage smiling from ear to ear just as the stripper who had been dancing at that extreme end just got back onstage. It was then that I realized that Sylvia and the stripper must have had a little chat by the side. That really struck me as weird.’
Samuel felt a strange feeling envelope his entire body which jolted spontaneously as he stared blankly at Nelson in disbelief, thinking perhaps he had been mistaken, or was a little tipsy and was mixing up the details.
Yet Nelson looked lucid and very serious – a little shocked himself, as though he were reliving the moment when he had found Sylvia leaving the side of the stage.
‘I thought I was mistaken, you see,’ Nelson again took up the story; ‘I thought maybe she went to do something else around there. But there was no one else around there that I would have guessed had been the one talking with the stripper. It was just the two of them leaving that place, you see. And the look on Sylvia’s face was no random occurrence. There was no mistaking that she had been talking with the stripper, and was very pleased with herself for doing so.
‘Before I could ask her what that had been all about when she got to our table, she grabbed her handbag and told me she wanted to go home. I was surprised, but then I emptied my glass and led her down the stairs and past the double doors into the corridor that led outside.
‘She did not even glance at the pool table – she just waltzed right out toward the gate with me behind her.
‘When we got out, the air felt cooler and we stopped to feel it caress our bodies and dive into our lungs to fill them with freshness. I then turned to her and asked why she wanted to leave so soon. It was barely midnight, and we had agreed to stay out all night.
‘She just told me she was exhausted and wanted to go home.
‘It was then that I asked her what business she had with that stripper I had seen her earlier with.
‘She instantly took umbrage, saying, and I quote, “My God, Nelson! How could you possibly think so low of me! As low as to have anything to do with those shameless women who expose their bodies for the pleasure of others! Or was it because I was suddenly enjoying myself in there? I just happened to love the song that was playing then and lost myself in the moment!”
‘She then walked out on me, seething with rage.
‘I guess you know the rest of the story. When I saw her on campus the following morning, she told me it was over between us. I tried to apologize, but it didn’t do any good. And that’s the end of the story.’
Samuel sighed deeply, somehow feeling so bad for Nelson. ‘So did you ever see her again?’
‘Not then, not ever. I only saw her from afar, but she acted like I wasn’t even there. I guess she later blacklisted my number because after a while, I could no longer reach her on phone.’
Samuel bowed his head, genuinely feeling sorry for Nelson, probably because he understood his grief so well since he himself had been in his shoes. All he could manage to say was, ‘Sorry about that, bro; that’s life.’
‘Sure, it is. Elvis and Karl are right: I have never since got over her. I still miss her to this very day.’
After a long silence, they talked on other issues, Samuel feeling bad for having made Nelson recount that story which had altered his mood throughout the rest of the evening.
But he needed to know; and despite the pang of guilt he felt within him, his body was consumed by a soothing warmth as he felt like a weight had been taken off his shoulders for having answered one of the three fundamental questions which had been plaguing him for weeks: Who stole my schoolbag? Sylvia really once dated Nelson? and How come Elvis knows so much about the night I asked Sylvia out?
They stayed there a little longer before parting ways around eleven o’clock.
As Samuel sat in the taxi he had boarded home, he whispered to himself, ‘One down; two to go.’
***
Melanie was at Jennifer’s hostel at Mile 16 the following day. She, Jennifer and Laura – Jennifer’s roommate – were in the small self-contained kitchen walking up and down and chatting noisily as “Ndolo” by Daphne and Ben Decca was booming from the stereo set in the room at a very high volume. If there was one thing about Jennifer, it was that she loved to play hermusic that way. It made Melanie, Laura and her other friends wonder whether she had hearing impediments.
Set against the window overlooking the roofs of the nearby buildings was the gas stand on which was the gas plate carrying two gigantic pots on its gas rings; and the aroma of chicken filled the whole place.
Melanie opened one of the pots in which chicken was steaming and stirred it while Jennifer, a statuesque fair young lady in her late twenties, diced meat on a chopping board on the countertop.
‘Hope you know the chicken doesn’t have to steam for long before the frying,’ Jennifer shouted for Melanie to hear her even though they were so close to each other.
Melanie was about to shout back when they both heard someone turn down the volume. Jennifer frowned and folded her arms as they watched Laura walk into the kitchen.
‘My God,’ said Melanie with a sigh of relief, as she closed the pot she had been stirring and put out the fire under it. ‘I thought my eardrums were going to explode.’
Melanie was dressed in a pink T-shirt over a tight-fitting blue pair of trousers with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
Jennifer wore a white T-shirt which she hadtied into a knot just above her navel, into which a silver ring had been etched, with her long curly dark hair almost preventing her from seeing well; she had to shift it aside often when she needed to see something clearly. She looked a little older than Melanie, though they were age mates.
Laura, who was a little younger than them, was clad in a short orange dress with her long straight hair falling across her shoulders.
They all wore low slippers.
‘Why did you do that?’ Jennifer asked Laura, still frowning.
‘Because the volume was going to blow down this entire hostel,’ Laura countered as she gestured her slim hands into a wide circle to emphasize the size of the hostel, ‘and you would have nowhere else to throw your party. Seriously, Jennifer, don’t you like the way the music sounds now?’
Jennifer had informed them – and all her close friends – that she was going to throw a small all girl’s party for her friends that night at in her one-bedroom apartment to celebrate the good fruits which her deal with Pichichi, the details of which she adamantly withheld from them, just yielded.
‘I don’t like it this way,’ Jennifer shot back as she tried to get past Laure at the doorway to turn up the volume.
‘Come on, Jennifer,’ Melanie said. ‘There are other students in this hostel reading for their exams. The least you could do is turn down the volume.’
Jennifer turned her furious gaze to her before silently returning to her dicing. She then called to Laura over her shoulder, ‘The chicken is ready; come fry it.’
Laura leaned on the doorframe and said, ‘I’m not done cleaning the room.’
Jennifer turned to face her. ‘Jesus, Laura! How long does it take to clean a room?’
‘I’m almost done.’
‘That’s what you said half an hour ago!’
Melanie just smiled as she watched them. She knew that these two could go on arguing all day without getting anywhere.
‘Don’t worry, Laura,’ she intervened, ‘You can go and continue cleaning the room. I will fry the chicken.’
Laura gave a grateful smile before returning to the room.
‘You are spoiling that girl, Melanie. She needs to learn to get things done properly and fast,’ Jennifer barked as she went to check the other big pot on the gas plate (in which fried rice was cooking) before returning to her dicing with her back turned to Melanie.
Melanie just smiled as she set the pot of chicken down from the gas ring and set a smaller, empty one in its stead. A short while later, she poured vegetable oil into the empty pot; and as she idly watched Jennifer dice the meat while waiting for the oil to bleach, something occurred to her.
‘Um, Jennifer,’
‘Yes?’ Jennifer did not turn from what she was doing.
‘There’s something important we need to talk about.’
Jennifer turned to face her. ‘And what would that be?’
‘It’s…’
The buzzing of Jennifer’s phone on the countertop next to the chopping board interrupted their conversation.
‘Hold on a minute,’ Jennifer said as she turned to answer the call.
As Melanie started putting the first pieces of chicken into the pot of oil, she could hear Jennifer talking sternly into the phone as though spelling something out to the caller.
After a while, Jennifer turned to her, saying, ‘That was Bella. She said Sakwe wants to come over for the party with three packets of Baron de Madrid. I made it clear to her that his gifts would be very much welcome, but he is not allowed to come, because this is a girls’ party. He thinks he can bribe his way in with three packets of wine.’
They both burst out laughing. Bella was their friend and Sakwe – they knew – was Bella’s boyfriend, whom they also knew was a chronic womanizer. They had warned Bella of this, yet it seemed she was blindly in love with him. So it was not unlike him to try to buy his way into a girls’ party.
‘I wonder what she sees in him,’ Jennifer said as Melanie turned to stir the chicken in the pot. ‘He earns so much money from that phone shop of his, yet he cannot give her enough money to keep her fit. Rather, he spends all of it on anything he sees in skirts. I pity her.’
‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison, my dear,’ Melanie said. ‘She has made her choice. It’s not like we haven’t warned her.’
‘Yes, lest I forget, you said there was something important we needed to discuss. What is it?’
Melanie could feel her blood pressure rise as she contemplated whether that was the appropriate time to discuss such an issue. So she just shrugged and said, ‘It’s no big deal. We can talk about it later.’
Jennifer eyed her keenly for a while – she had that piercing look that seemed like she could see deep into your soul – before saying, ‘Ok then.’ She then turned to pour the diced meat into the pot of rice.
By half past seven, the room was jam-packed with a lot of girls. “Higher Higher” by Mr. Leo, Salatiel, Blaise B and Askia boomed at a high volume from the stereo set as the girls ate, drank and chatted amiably.
Fried rice with chicken was being served in serving trays by Laura and another girl while the study table, which had been cleared, was now occupied by bottles of beer, wine, whisky and spirit. Everyone in the room was in high spirits.
After a while, Jennifer clanked her wine glass with a fork to draw everyone’s attention as Diane – who was the D.J. that night – turned down the volume.
Jennifer swaggered to the centre of the room with her glass of wine in her left hand, amidst the ululation, and held up her right hand for silence, saying, ‘Wow. I can really feel the heat in the house.’ The others ululated more. ‘I know some of you are wondering why I am throwing this party tonight. You must be thinking today isn’t my birthday. But let me tell you: what I am celebrating tonight is just as important as my birthday.’
‘Oh, yes,’ they concurred.
She carried on, ‘God has been so good to me and has showered me with lots of blessings. He has blessed me in such a way that everything I touch literally turns to gold. So I thought, “It’s not right to enjoy these blessings all by myself.” That’s why I gathered all of you here tonight, so we can all jubilate and enjoy the blessings tous ensemble.
‘So clear the place and put on your dancing shoes because it’s dancing time.’
They all got to their feet and let out shouts of joy while applauding her for her generosity and concern. The room was instantly cleared of the plates, glasses, bottles and cutlery, and the furniture was shifted to provide enough space in the center for them all to dance.
Diane set “Calee” by Daphne to play as the bevy burst out in shouts of euphoria just before they started “rocking the floor”.
It was only around two o’clock that the girls started leaving, each one stopping to thank Jennifer personally for the party before finding her way home. Most of them were already tipsy and Laura wondered how they were ever going to make it home.
Around a quarter to three, the only ones left in the room were Jennifer, Melanie, Laura and Bella. Laura and Bella were tidying up the place while Melanie dragged Jennifer out onto the balcony. The apartment was on the third and last floor of the hostel.
They looked out into the starry night in silence as they felt the cool breeze moving gently around them.
Melanie turned to Jennifer and said, ‘You know I am your friend, Jennifer, and I want only the best for you.’ When Jennifer remained silent, she continued, ‘I was with a man one day when he told me whatever you have going on with Pichichi would likely land you into serious trouble.’
At once, Jennifer looked at her with eyes burning with fury. ‘What did I just hear you say, Melanie? How on earth did this random man get to know anything about Pichichi and me? Don’t tell me you have been blabbing about what I told you to keep as a secret.’ She looked like she was going to throw Melanie over the balcony if she annoyed her any further.
‘It’s nothing like that,’ Melanie said, taking a few tiny steps backwards. She had never seen Jennifer look so mad. Her eyes were beginning to become bloodshot. ‘He just said he has been on Pichichi’s trail for some time now and…’
‘How did he even come to know about Pichichi and me in the first place?’ Jennifer barked. Her voice was loud and unsteady now. Melanie was surprised that Laura and Bella had not come out to enquire what was going on.
‘Calm down, Jennifer. He only asked whether I knew of any Pichichi, so I told him…’
‘What!’ Jennifer’s rage was in full bloom now. She gripped Melanie by her red dress and seemed determined to fling her over the balcony. ‘And what did you tell him?’
‘I… I just…’ Melanie was frightened – more from the fact that Jennifer could get so mad over something she herself thought was a minor issue, than from the fact that Jennifer was actually threatening her. ‘I just said Pichichi got you into a deal…’
Jennifer instantly let go of her and regarded her like she was too dumbfounded to do anything. He body was beginning to shiver on its own as her gaze became unsteady. She looked like she was going to burst out crying at any time.
‘Do you realize what you have just done, Melanie? Do you?’ Her voice, which had been brought down, was now rising in pitch with every word she uttered. ‘You just stood here claiming to be my friend whereas you have already dug my grave!’
Melanie’s befuddled face was now flushed with embarrassment. ‘Jennifer, what…?’
‘Hey, just hold it there!’ Jennifer held out her right hand to silence her, ‘Just pray nothing bad comes out of this; else, I will personally kill you! Now, leave my house!’
Melanie thought she was dreaming. What was Jennifer turning into? She wondered.
But she did not have the time to stick around and find out, as Jennifer who was now at the brink of tears was continuously screaming at the top of her voice: ‘Leave my house!’ as she kept hitting Melanie with her fists, causing her to practically run into the room to get her handbag before dashing out the front door past the stunned Bella and Laura who had been silently seated on the couch and listening to everything, careful not to interfere in something they knew nothing about.
After Jennifer successfully pursued Melanie out of the house, she then turned to the two girls who noticed she was now crying.
Looking even more puzzled and wide-eyed, Bella quickly said farewell to Laura and carefully rounded Jennifer before leaving the room, closing the door behind her.
‘What in God’s name is going on?’ Laura asked as she stood to cuddle Jennifer and console her.
Jennifer just pushed her unto the bed and hurried into the bathroom.
***
Fabrice woke early the following morning to the ringing tone of his cell phone. Cursing the phone for rousing him from a sweet slumber, he reached for the phone, the blue glow from whose screen lit up the dark room (since he always slept with the lights off), wondering who would be calling him at such an early hour of morning.
When he saw that the caller was Melanie, he sat upright against the headboard and answered the call without delay. It was the first time she had called him since they last met, and he hoped she had some good news for him.
‘Hello?’ he heard her voice from the other end of the line. She sounded so depressed. True, she too had just woken from bed, but what he heard sounded unsettling.
‘Hello, Melanie. Good morning. How are you doing?’
‘Not good.’
He was a little uneasy. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Can you believe Jennifer actually drove me out of her house last night?’
He was taken aback. ‘What! What happened?’
She told him how she had tried to get Jennifer to open up about Pichichi and how badly it had ended. She concluded by saying, ‘I have never in my entire life seen Jennifer the way she was last night. She looked like she was going to kill me right there.’
Fabrice sighed, saying, ‘Have you now seen for yourself what I told you about? I bet she sounded secretive.’
‘Are you telling me, Fabrice? Even when I just mentioned to her that I told you about her and Pichichi, she suddenly went wild. I don’t understand what is going on anymore… Jesus, Fabrice! Didn’t you say the other time that you feared her life could be in danger?’
‘Yes, I did.’ Fabrice was beginning to feel that throbbing in his temples that indicated he was dangerously close to something.
‘I think she was so scared that if Pichichi found out she had spilled anything about him he would…’ her voice trailed off as though she could not bring herself to finish the statement.
‘He would kill her,’ Fabrice said calmly as the throbbing subsided as quickly as it had come. ‘I know Pichichi, Melanie. If there’s anything about him, it is that he never forgives.’
He heard her speak quickly, ‘Promise me you will not tell anyone what I have told you! I fear for her.’
‘I, too, fear for her, Melanie. Your secret is safe with me. That is why we have to get Jennifer out of the mess she is in before it is too late.’
He heard her say what he had been waiting for her to say – just the way he had wanted her to say it, ‘What do we have to do?’
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The Moment of Truth
Mystery / ThrillerWhen the Presbyterian Church pastor dropped dead after making a mind-blowing confession, everyone thought he was crazy. But when other Pentecostal Pastors start dying under mysterious circumstances, the situation becomes alarming as the media emphas...
