Chapter Ten

“I don’t want to see you with him again. You belong to me and me alone. Don’t you get it?” Donald shouted. 

“But...he is my boss”

“Let his bosshood end in the office. It shouldn’t go beyond that,” he paced around her living room. “Did I make myself clear?” 

“There is nothing between us” 

“I saw how he touched you. I saw it for crying out loud. How he was smiling for you. He is in love, Eme. Can’t you see it?” 

“You are taking this too seriously”

“Why wouldn’t I, Eme?” he breathed in and kept quiet. It seemed he was letting silence do the rebuke now. He wiped the sweat dripping down to his memo shirt. 

“A clear conscience fears no accusation,” Emelda said, picked her bag from the couch, and left for her bedroom.

“You better mean that” 

Emelda didn’t know what to say to make him believe there was nothing between them. Though, lately, her boss had been fond of her. From liking her to sending her on an errand, to overtasking her, to insisting she would be the one to do his private jobs.

He had given her some jobs that she delivered excellently well not because she was good at them but because her boss believed in her. Emelda would say, his toughness came from a place of love. It was only those who cared so much about you that would need you to improve.   

She had wanted to quit because of his toughness. Moreover, she needed finer pay. But since he began to smile, showing signs of love in her, she had reviewed her desperation to quit.

She would still do that if she must, but she had decided to wait, to know where all this was headed. 

A few days ago, he had invited her for a dinner. She refused initially…not with words but with eyes. Those eyes that would blink and wander…that would subtly communicate refusal. How she had looked at him told him she was in a relationship and wouldn’t accept such an offer. But her boss was adamant.

Very adamant for he continued to persuade her. Saying there was nothing bad about a boss inviting his employee over for a dinner. 

“But this is not for official purpose,” she had said. 

“Eme, what makes you think our relationship should only be official? Who dictated it… it should be for official purposes? Can’t I have the privilege of relating with you on a personal level?” 

 “That sounds like I owe you beyond the official services I provide – for you”

“Intelligent. Bold woman,” he moved closer to her “You know what. You are the best woman in the whole world. I just want to feel the aura of your intelligence; I want to know more about you outside work.”

“Is that supposed to be a flatter?”

“Whatever you call it, Eme” 

“But I am surprised at you” Emelda chuckled “like, I can’t believe it. How you have condescended to talk to me. Is this not the boss I know?”

“Emelda, you should know better. Come on. It is dangerous to bring sentiments into business. I am that tough, otherwise, you guys would play with the business”

“Not as less as you portray it. You are the toughest man on earth” 

His boss laughed and patted her on the shoulders. Emelda felt his hands, soft, and sleek. The softness he lacked in attitude, he had in flesh. 

“Eme, you don’t know me beyond this office. Do you?”

“I judge from what I see”

“You very well know appearance could be deceitful” 

“You want to salve your conscience”

“No. I am not as bad as you assume”

“I never said you are”

“Okay. I am not as tough as you said” 

“What do you want from me?” Emelda said, looking straight into his eyes. She couldn’t imagine how confident she was speaking to him.

Anyway, maybe it was because they weren’t in the office. Protocols and etiquettes ended in the office, and anything outside, he should be ready to see her different colour. 

“I just want to see your beautiful face more”

“What about Oby? Her beautiful face?”

After they had spent time together that night, he dropped her off but Donald was upstairs, watching them. There were no parting kisses or hugs, only smiles, and laughter but that was too much evidence for him. 

When Emelda came back from her room, he found him playing chess, sloped on the sofa. She went and sat beside him. She would like to prepare some food for him but she hadn’t gathered the energy.

And worse come to worse, she would go downstairs and get him something to eat; since he didn’t like a local delicacy, probably after his stay in England, she hadn’t bothered cooking him a nicely-prepared African food that he liked before he left for England. 

“Drop your phone, let’s play real chess,” she grinned, trying to calm him down. 

He was silent. And would not smile even when she tried to tease his look. He had shaved his bears and had cut his hair, looking like a school child. 

Since they knew each other, it had always been one hairstyle – what they called old school. He always trimmed and carved it to the size she liked and even to make it look more attractive, he liked gold sprays on it. 

But what had made him cut his hair, Emelda wouldn’t understand. She tried to get him to talk but it seemed what he saw tonight hadn’t left him entirely. Was he still angry with her for hanging out with her boss?

How much he loved her that he didn’t want to share her with anyone, Emelda wouldn’t agree more.

He had always monitored her movement, taking offence when guys tried to play with her. And she had thought about this madness several times. She was not yet his wife and he was this authoritative and overprotective, what would be her fate when he finally married her?

But she loved him like that, anyway. There was something in him she couldn’t describe; something words would not dare carry, something that had outwitted her intelligence. 

She wouldn’t get her mind off him. Of all the weaknesses she had found in him, this one side of him, this one side she was yet to decipher, would compensate for all of them. And she would not listen to Maria who had advised her to leave him.

Who had told her several times that Donald could be struggling with a psychological disorder and wouldn’t make a good husband as both of them didn’t have most things in common. She had disagreed with her that he was not a psychopath and that there was no medical proof of what she assumed.

She had told her that he could sometimes be strange with the way he got angry easily and resorted to violence but that didn’t mean he was sick in the head.  

“Talk to me, sweetheart,” Emelda persisted. 

Donald threw his face to the left, looking skyward. She caressed his neck, and slowly went for his head. Turned it around, and said “There is absolutely nothing between us” 

He murmured and shifted an inch away from her.

What was he doing?

She wouldn’t let him be until he showed he was no longer perturbed by the incident. She slipped off her sleeveless wear until they rested on her boobs. She caressed him and said again “There is absolutely nothing between us. Trust me”

Donald wanted to say something but couldn’t as she had pressed her lips on his. They started smooching very strongly. They started smoothly, quietly exploring their lips. Emelda knew his lips tasted like olive.

They were the best lips she had kissed.

And no wonder she preferred them to any other form of foreplay. She was getting tired when he went hotter. Hotter and hotter until passion overpowered them. Emelda was now lying down on the couch and he was on top of her.

There was a knock on the door. No one answered. She knocked the second time. No one answered.

She pushed the door open and saw the two playing on the couch. Donald forced himself out of her body and wiped his lips, and immediately wore the look of a boy, throwing around gestures that demonstrated innocence - that passed the message: nothing was going on.

Emelda couldn’t understand why he was doing all of that. They were in a relationship. Someone had badged into their privacy and saw them kissing. Why would that throw him off balance? And she couldn’t understand too how Mama Bisi was looking at him. As if something was going on between them.

Was there something they were not telling her?  

 Mama Bisi apologized and asked if Bisi had come over. Emelda would have been mad at her but she was still trying to uncover what was going on.

What was really going on? Why her violent boyfriend didn’t shout at her but rather kept quiet and pretended they were not doing anything before she badged in?    

“What was that?” Emelda looked at him suspiciously.  

“What?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know what I am talking about?” 

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Eme?” he screamed. Emelda knew it. It had always been like that except when they first met. That was he. Always the first to raise his voice even when he was guilty. For how long would she continue to overlook this flawed character –a menace, she would say—that had been threatening her wellbeing?

“Is there anything you are not telling me?” 

“What has come over you, Eme?” he shook her shoulders as though he was shaking off her suspicion.