And the Story Unravels

Anna did not know that she had to look out for other people besides her mother. That’s the danger of dabbling into certain things…there are potential consequences everywhere. What Anna did not know about Charles was that Charles was actually his real name. And polygamy was his game. Men are allowed to have multiple wives in Zimbabwe, so Charles chose to have four. And in order to have multiple wives, one must go through a phase where they have multiple affairs. Because the reality of the matter was that no matter what a culture normalizes no woman likes to share her man. Charles would have had more wives if it weren’t for the tenacity of the second oldest child by his second wife.

Rhea was the fieriest of Charles’s children. She had single-handedly been thwarting her father’s womanizing ways for years by ruining the lives of all of his mistresses to the point that they would not want anything to do with Charles and therefore he could not get a fifth wife. The last woman that Rhea had dealt with had changed her name and moved across the continent to Nigeria. 

Now her father had a younger piece than ever. She had seen his car dropping off some woman at Chisipite. Or should. She says woman? The person had barely looked older than Rhea. Rhea knows that the woman had to be a gold-digger because there was definitely no way that a girl that young and that attractive would want anything more from her father. Her dad had bags on his face from his heart issues and a huge stomach. Was she the type of gold digger that targeted old men with obvious health problems, hoping they would die early and she would inherit all his money as the young, gold-digging wife? Rhea scowled and kept in the shadows. She followed the woman to a bus stop nearby and boarded the same bus as her. She dropped off where the woman dropped off. Obviously, the woman didn’t want Rhea’s father to know where she lived. This was surprising though. Most of the women that her father went out with were not from the suburbs, but from the ghettos…women that grew up in lack and possibly poverty…who would tolerate a man that was as unattractive as her father for money. 

Rhea followed the woman as she walked to her home and soon realized that the walk to her house was very, very long. Rhea got tired and saw the woman greet a man seated by the driveway. Rhea walked up to the man.

“Hi there,” Rhea said to the man. 

“Hi,” the man replied with a curt nod of the head. 

“Do you know that lady?” Rhea asks him. The man raises an eyebrow at her.

“It’s just that my brother has a major crush on her and he’s shy so he sent me to go get her number, but I’m kind of shy too. It’s like totally weird so I understand if…”

“Dude, I totally get it. I can help another dude shoot his shot,” the guy said. “Her name is Anna Moyo, she lives at 4** Ha**** Road. I have her phone number here,” the guy gives Rhea Anna’s phone number. Now Rhea can really work her magic. 

“Is Anna in school?”Rhea asks the guy. The guy shrugs. 

“I don’t know, she’s quite a recluse. She finished high school years ago though, she must be around twenty-five or older now,” he tells her. “And can I get your number?” Rhea looks at the guy who obviously doesn’t know that she’s seventeen and technically a minor so she gives him her dummy number that she uses for guys she’s not interested in. 

Rhea walks back in the other direction to the bus stop and then calls her driver to pick her up. The driver is curious as to why Rhea is so far away from where she usually is, but she knows that he’s no snitch and won’t raise any alarms to her mother. 

When Rhea arrives at her family’s three-acre farmhouse in an area called Ruwa she immediately goes to her bedroom and logs into the Wifi. Fortunately for her, Anna’s number is connected to her F******k account, so Rhea is able to find her F******k profile quite easily. Her profile says that she is from Melbourne, Australia but is currently in Harare, Zimbabwe. That picks up Rhea’s interest even more. Why would a girl from no seeming poverty and who has traveled out of the country want a man like her father?

Rhea continued to look through her profile and noticed that Anna had gone to school at one of those educational institutes in town that were sort of like real-school substitutes. That showed that her family probably couldn’t afford private school tuition. Those institutes were often where people took their kids when they couldn’t afford private school anymore and didn’t want to put their child in a public school. Rhea looked through Anna’s photos and noticed that she had uploaded childhood photos of her when she had lived in Australia. She sees many pictures of a younger Anna by the beach with a man that looks a lot like her. Rhea assumes that that must be Anna’s father. The last picture of Anna’s father contains a sad message from Anna about how much she misses him. So that means that her father must be dead. Her mother and she must have moved back to Zimbabwe from Melbourne after her father died. Rhea gathered that Anna must not have a very good relationship with her mother because for all the pictures Rhea had with her father, there is none of her and her mother. 

Rhea notices a picture of Anna wearing a red shirt and black cap. The uniform of a restaurant that Rhea once went to that sold specialized in Middle Eastern food. Rhea noted that. The picture was from December meaning that Anna probably still worked there. 

The next day, Anna paid a visit to the restaurant at Sam Levy Village. Anna was not there that shift which worked well enough for her. She walked up to one of the waiters standing at the entrance. 

“Hi there, is Anna coming to work today?” Rhea asks the waiter. The waiter raises an eyebrow. 

“Anna doesn’t work here anymore,” he tells her. “She resigned the first week of January,” 

“Oh, okay thanks. I thought that I would pop in and say hi, but next time I’ll call her first,” Rhea says. The waiter smiles and nods politely. Rhea walks away. So Anna quit her job and is now fully employed getting money from her father. Rhea needs more information about the nature of the relationship between Anna and her father. 

That night Charles is sleeping at the home of his first wife. Unlike other first wives in polygamous families, the first wife of this family holds no animosity toward the other wives and their children. Rebecca is the picture of friendliness and warm-heartedness. And even though she is in her fifties now she is still youthful and beautiful. The one woman that was with Charles when he had nothing and he rewarded her by marrying other women…Rhea loves Rebecca dearly and sometimes even prefers her to her own mother. It’s a wonder how Charles got Rebecca in the first place. Rebecca being with Charles and never leaving him despite his trashy behavior is the only reason that Rhea might believe that witchcraft might exist. The only thing that could make a man that lucky would be the dark arts. 

Besides all that, Rhea’s relationship with Rebecca was good enough that she could sleep over at Rebecca’s house whenever she liked. Rebecca was left with only one child in the house. Rhea’s half-brother, Anthony who was finishing high school in a year so Rebecca loved it when Rhea spent time over. That night Rhea offered to help Rebecca cook the food for dinner. When Rebecca wasn’t looking Rhea snuck in some powder into the food, sleeping powder. She drank the counter just before dinner meaning that everyone else in the house would feel very sleepy while she would still be alert. Just as she planned, thirty minutes after eating dinner everyone started yawning and headed to bed. Anthony tried to catch a soccer game on TV but ended up falling asleep on the couch. Rhea felt guilty that she might make him miss a match he had been anticipating all week so she recorded it for him. 

After an hour Rhea was sure that everyone was fast asleep and that they wouldn’t wake up for at least eight hours. She snuck into Rebecca’s and Charles's room. Charles had left his phone on the bedside table. He had three phones. Rhea took the one that Charles never let anyone touch. It required Face ID. She switched on the light and scanned his face. The phone opens. Neither Rebecca nor Charles stirs the effects of the sleeping powder still strong. Rhea notices that there’s a Tinder app on his phone. She opens it and realizes that her father has been dating around quite a lot…or should she say hooking up with prostitutes. Sex workers have been using Tinder to find clients lately. She opens his Tinder messages. All of them are conversations about how much the sex workers' services are except for conversations with a ‘Mary’ Rhea notices that ‘Mary’ is Anna quite quickly. The conversation is basically Charles asking ‘Mary’ on a date. Was her father that stupid? It was obvious that a woman that attractive and young would only set the age that high up if she was after money. Apparently, they had gone to lunch at a restaurant called Luagar Pollo. ‘Mary’ had sent him a link to her Telegram account. Smart…so that she could keep her phone number a secret…Anna was not a dumb girl…which would mean that she could be a very strategic gold-digger. Anna knew how to leverage what she had without having to have sex with a man giving them the illusion that they were in an actual relationship when in reality all she wanted was his money. Rhea highly doubted that Anna would become her father’s fifth wife. She needed to do more research on this girl. 

Rhea noticed that lately though Anna had been finding excuses to avoid seeing Charles. A sign that she had found a better offer elsewhere. That should have been enough for Rhea to get off of Anna’s case, but this Anna had poked the bear. Charles was not her father, she should not be siphoning money off of men by pretending that she was into them. She’d teach Anna a lesson that she’d never forget. 

The next day, Rhea goes to a hacker in town to try and hack into Anna’s W******p and know her location and movements. The person charges her a hundred dollars. There goes a tenth of her monthly allowance, but it’ll be worth it to bring this salacious gold-digger down. Rhea goes through Anna’s messages and realizes that Anna is actually a professional gold-digger. She is part of a group on W******p literally labelled ‘Sugar Baby Support Group’. So that’s what she calls herself. A sugar baby. Someone who has chosen to get money off of men as a career. How shallow and pathetic Rhea thinks. Rhea is disgusted by what she reads in the group. Apparently, there’s a website called Seeking Arrangements where the sugar babies find their sugar daddies. Rhea assumes that Anna must have joined that website as well as using Tinder to snare poor men into her gold-digging hands.

Rhea notices her conversation with someone called Clinton and they are having an actual conversation in real time. Rhea decides to read it. Clinton’s profile picture is a character from Mortal Kombat. She feels like she might know him. 

Clinton: Hey babe, how’re you feeling now?

Anna: So much better now that I’m talking to you.

Rhea rolls her eyes at this. This Anna knows how to manipulate people’s emotions for real. 

Clinton: I have a confession to tell you that I probably should have told you before now…

Anna: Oh ow?

Clinton: My real name is Munya. It’s awkward for me to like someone this much and they don’t even know my real name. 

Anna: Oh? You have a Shona name. Munya suits you so much more though. It sounds manly and kind…just like you.

Clinton: So you’re not mad?

Anna: Well I kind of was using a fake name too and didn’t know when it was appropriate to tell you...

Clinton: Great gamers lie alike :D

Anna: Lol, my real name is Anna.

Clinton: Like one of my favorite novels when I was a child, Anne of Green Gables. But you have the more sophisticated Anna. Sophisticated and sweet. Like you.

Anna: I’m barely sophisticated or sweet.

Rhea scoffs. At least that’s the point where this Anna is being honest. Rhea feels like she knows this Munya. 

Clinton: Are you free for lunch today? I was thinking of having something at Pistachio’s.

Anna: Well, actually no, but I’ll free up my time for you.

Clinton: Aw, I don’t want to interrupt your work. 

Rhea laughs out loud. If only this Munya knew that HE was her work. Rhea knew that she had to be at Pistachios at lunch to see who this Munya was. 

Anna: Believe me, you’re saving me from a very unpleasant Zoom meeting. 

Clinton: Well the best thing about Zoom is that you can play it on the background while not listening to anything that is being said at all. 

Anna: Lol, so see you at one handsome?

Clinton: I can’t wait. Will I get my portrait soon?

At that point, Anna sends a picture of a drawing. Rhea can’t believe it when she sees who the portrait is of. It’s the nice doctor that her entire family goes to in Borrowdale Brooke. He’s one of the sweetest men that she knows…and he owns the medical practice with his wife who is also a doctor. There is no way that he would cheat on his wife…his accomplished, educated, and loving wife for this gold-digging bimbo. But this gold-digging woman was the type that would use whatever strategy she could employ in order to get a man. She could use her skills in psychological manipulation to win over. This Anna literally had nothing to offer a man like Munya…except maybe her art skills. Rhea had to admit that she was quite good. 

Rhea sat at the back of the restaurant where no one could see her at Pistachio. Anna was already there. Wearing a cute white dress and sunglasses. She looked like the daughter of a rich man rather than a sugar baby. Maybe that was her appeal…she knew or had known the rich life so men spent money on her because they thought she was accustomed to being spoiled. She watched as Munya arrived and kissed Anna on the cheek. From the view of someone who didn’t know what was going on, one might think that they were just workmates or business buddies having lunch. After they ate Anna and Munya went to Munya’a car. Munya’s windows were tinted but he left his door open long enough to see them begin to make out in his car. Rhea scowled. This Anna had to be deal with quickly.