Life Under The Rainbow

Chapter Four

“Tear off your mask, your face is glorious”

Regardless of being despised by my co-workers and employees, I loved my job, I loved what I did. Although this was not what I wanted to study, as soon as I got to university, it grew on me. It also kept me busy, always on my toes. It distracted me from my pending problems with my personal life. So I always gave my best for everything, I was present fr everything, overlooking all my staff and the work. I would always make time to even go on site for some of our projects, you know, get my hands dirty too. 

Sometimes I would go just so I could stare and lust over the sexy construction workers we have. I mean who wouldn’t melt at the sight of well-built, hardworking men sweating in the sun. Amazing I tell you. I couldn’t make a move on any of these men though because many of them were married and straight. Plus, no one in the company knew I was gay. My biggest fear was people finding out and them losing respect for me. That is why I was so ashamed of the way I felt, that and the way I was raised. But when Mthonga came along, all of that changed. It changed all for the best. When he came around, I didn’t think I would be where I am right now, in love and happy. I never saw it coming. 

As always, our interior design department had a shortage of staff, so we had to run interviews. Christine, who was our former head of Interior, offered to come help me and the new head of interior and we were in charge of the interviews. We weren’t finding the right people, out of ten people we had already interviewed, only one person was good enough for us to hire. We needed four people! 

I remember when he walked in for his interview. A day created by God, specially for me and him. He was wearing navy slim pants, a crisp white shirt with no trace of a crease, tucked in neatly in his pants. He wasn’t wearing a tie, the first two buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing his red and white beaded necklace. He had the same matching bracelets on his wrists, two on each. My suspicions were he might be a spiritual person. I tried to stop myself from undressing him with my eyes as we conducted the interview. He had dark skin; a shade lighter than mine, a clean-shaven face, clean waves on his head and a nicely toned body. I just adored how his shirt hung onto those arms. I could already imagine myself in those arms, something I hadn’t felt in a while. 

It seems like I wasn’t the only one who liked him; Chrissy and Jordi seemed to agree with me. The only difference was I wanted him for myself. I had one problem though, and maybe it was going to be more than one. I didn’t know if he was a straight or gay man. The fact that I was contemplating all of that meant I wanted to shoot my shot, I really did. But he was also going to be my co-worker, our relationship would be strictly forbidden. I respected my job that much and having relationships at work was the last thing on my mind. With this man though, I was at the point where I was willing to break all the rules for him. 

So when he got the job, I used that as an opportunity to get to know him, unravel the type of person he is, I mean I already was in love with his physical appearance. This wasn’t easy, trust me, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. He was in a whole different department, and I would be lucky to run into him, once in a blue moon. I started becoming desperate and used and abused my company resources. I appointed myself as the head architect for one project and put him as the head of interior. It was a sly move, but I was starting to think of him more than normal, and not only in a sexual manner, but he occupied my mind. He stayed there like I’d known him my whole life. he had me at first sight. 

Mthonga Manqele was his name. From what I gathered on his CV; he was 28 years old. Like I have said before, he is an extremely handsome man and that is very rare to find. I would probably be ugly too, but I have some of my mother’s features, so I made it out looking like I do now. He’s also smart, has more than one degree to his name and has his master’s in interior design. He definitely is a hard worker. When we got together for meetings regarding our project, it was always professional and that proved to me that he was dedicated to what he does.

I was afraid to go off track and ask him about his personal life, because of that professionalism he always maintained. I didn’t want it to seem like I’m selling myself to him, I was just trying to get to know him. One late night at the office was all it took for me to get him to loosen up a bit. He had decided to stay behind so he could work on his plans for the interior of the place we were working on. I had no idea that was his plan but when I came from the top floor and saw his office lights on, I got curious.

I never use the stairs, no one ever does, but on that particular day, that late night, I didn’t feel like going home to my cold house to be alone, so I used every possible mean to delay getting home. Maybe it was a sign because that night was the beginning of the many nights we spent together.