Esther chuckled. “Well, first he apologized, then he said he wanted us to talk about everything.”

  “And your response was? Please tell me you asked him to freeze to death in Antarctica.”

  “Well I guess I’ll just hear him out then I’ll make a decision.” What? I had to struggle to steady my phone in my ear. I thought you made a decision the same day you caught him with another woman? I gave a very sarcastic laugh. At this point I didn’t care that she was probably going to feel hurt. I wanted her to feel hurt enough to start seeing that she was just being used and manipulated.

  “Esther, you really want to do this? Wow! After what you went through?”

  “I just want to hear him out that’s all. I didn’t say I was getting back together with him.” Her voice had that hint of anger that seemed to suggest that I was judging her. I wasn’t. I was helping her.

  “Well, you always do. He treats you horribly and apologizes by flashing a gift in your face then you take him back. Why? You deserve more respect than that Esther,” I said with some anger. It was one of our rare moments of heated disagreement.

  “It doesn’t matter, Brenda. I have to put in the effort to make my relationship work. At least I’m in one.”

  It was getting more intense and this wasn’t good for either of us. So I had to step on the brakes to bring the argument to an end.

  “Hmm. Ok. Whatever you say. Just be careful. And know that I am rock solid with you, whatever your decision is. Ok? But taking him back is not what I’ll advise.”

  “Ok. Thanks. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Ok. Bye, dearie. Say hi to your mum.”

  When Esther hung up I couldn’t help but wonder what Fred was going to do to get Esther back. From her voice I could tell that she was already softening up towards him. Wow! Such power! If I could get him to teach me how he does it. I tidied up the last pieces of papers on my desk and headed home.

  Charles’ call came in shortly before I slept. We had been calling and texting regularly but he didn’t tell me that he was visiting.

  “Hey, Babe. I’m at your door?” Charles said when I picked the call.

  At my door? By 11 p.m.? At least he should have told me he was coming, or was he trying to catch me with another man? Haha! Though I loved the thought that he was jealous enough to want to “catch” me with someone else, I checked through the peep-hole to be sure that he was the one before I opened the door.

  “Hey,” I said smiling, “you didn’t say you were coming.”

  “It was meant to be a surprise.” He hugged me and lifted me off the ground. “I see you’re all set for bed.”

  “I was sleeping when your call came in. You should have told me you were coming,” I said as I disengaged from the hug.

  Charles got upset, “so you mean I have to take permission before I come see you?”

  “Not permission, but if you will come to my house, it’s only courteous that you tell me. Don’t you think so?”

  “No, I don’t. I can come here anytime. I don’t think you should put restrictions in this relationship.”

  “Charles, this is not about restrictions. I am not trying to…”

  I couldn’t finish what I was saying because there was a loud shout by a woman who seemed in trouble. She was calling out for help and it sounded so close. Charles and I stopped.

  “What’s that?” Charles asked.

  “I think we should find out.”

  We stepped out of my house to find my neighbor, Dianne’s house engulfed in flames. At the sight of the fire my heart skipped several beats. While I was still trying to figure out what to do, Charles had dashed to the house and was trying to open the door but it was either locked from inside or jammed. He used his legs to kick several times but the door won’t give way. Other neighbors started rushing towards Dianne’s house. A man came with an axe which they used to weaken the locks on the door. Another brought a big water hose. A woman came with blankets. There were about eleven people watching and praying that the fire victims were safe. We couldn’t go into the burning house but we called the Fire Department and gave them details of our location. Charles and another man courageously went into the house and brought the kids out. The man carried the 12-year old while Charles had the two younger ones on both sides. I couldn’t tell if the kids were sleeping or if they were unconscious from the smoke. Apparently, the man who carried the 12-year old was a physician and as soon as he got out the house, he called his wife to get his first aid box. She sprinted away and was back in a flash. The man took out his stethoscope and checked their heart beats.

  “We need to get them to a hospital immediately,” he said.

  “My car is ready,” another man said. While Charles went back into the house to bring out Dianne, we helped get the kids into the ready car so that they could get to the hospital quickly while their mum was still being rescued. There was no time to wait for an ambulance and a hospital was just a few blocks away. The physician and the man who had the car took the kids to Healing Hands Hospital. I was gravely concerned for Charles in the burning house. Even when I was helping out outside, my eyes were constantly watching the door of the house for when he will come out with Dianne. A few minutes later Charles walked out carrying Dianne. She was conscious so why was he carrying her? I thought, but then I cautioned myself to be empathic. I ran towards them looking from Charles to Dianne.

  “Are you ok?” I asked both of them.

  “Her legs are broken,” Charles said.

  She had broken her legs in an attempt to save her sleeping children. I didn’t wait to hear Charles say, “is there a hospital close by?” I ran to get my car. Charles put Dianne into the back seat carefully as she was in much pain. The physician’s wife requested to go with us so she stayed with Dianne at the back seat and gave Dianne little updates about her kids. The fire control team came in as we started driving away.

  We got to the Healing Hands Hospital where the nurses took over Dianne. All she kept saying was, “I want to see my children. Let me see my kids. Where are they?” The doctor’s wife called her husband to find out where the kids were but he wasn’t taking the call. “He might have left his phone at home,” she said after trying unsuccessfully several times. Charles asked one of the admin workers at the counter if the three kids had been brought to the hospital. “They were taken to the Pediatrics ER. They came with two men?” he asked for clarification. “Yes.” the physician’s wife and I responded in unison.

  The nurse who was with Dianne started pulling her stretcher away and said, “ma’am, you need urgent care right now. If those kids are yours, I can assure you that they are in good hands. The more we delay in starting you on treatment, the worse your legs could get.”

  Dianne was sobbing. She did not pay attention to the nurse. All she wanted was to see her kids and know that they were ok. The physician and the other man were walking towards us. When they got to us the physician assured Dianne that her kids were doing fine. “They’re awake and kicking. Not a single scratch on them but they will have to stay here a few hours to be watched; it’s standard practice,” the doctor said. Dianne thanked him and the other man. Only then did she calm down. One could tell that she and the physician were friendly.

  “I’ll check on you in the morning, Dianne. Stay strong,” the physician’s wife told Dianne, as the nurse took her away.

  “Thanks Liz,” Dianne responded in a tired voice.

  When Charles and I got back home it was already past two in the morning. We were knocked out. I let him sleep on my long couch as I went into my room to construct my fortified door before I slept. We slept all night and woke up quite late.

  “Still sleeping?” He asked me as he tapped on my door.

  “Not really.”

  “How was your night?”

  “Great, but short. I slept like a baby.” I brushed my teeth and opened the door so he could have access to the bathroom, which was inside my bedroom.

  “That’s because you’re my baby,” he said. “Does Dianne have any relatives who will care for her and her kids while she recuperates?”

  “Can’t say but I’m sure Luke and his wife will take care of that. I don’t know much about her except that her military husband was killed in a car accident. Story has it that her husband had a brush with top government officials who were doing shady deals and he threatened to expose them if they dint quit. I figure that he may have been high ranking.” I sat up on my bed and stretched my hands behind my head while yawning.

  “How’s Esther? And Fred?” Charles asked.

  “Oh, a lot happened while you were away. We caught him with another woman on the night of the bridal party.”

  “Ouch!” He cringed. “Why did he let himself get caught? Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Esther and I,” I replied. “Esther was a little ill and wanted to leave the party. I had to drive her to Freds but he had an adult, X-rated company when we got there,” I said chuckling. “What do you mean ‘why did he let himself get caught’? And seriously, why do men do that?”

  “No idea. I’m Charles not ‘men.’ But women cheat also. They’re just so sleek they don’t get caught.”

  “What’s the percentage of cheating women to men? Come on, it’s almost like a chronic disease among men.”

  “Maybe it’s because men are polygamous by nature,” Charles replied.

  I couldn’t believe I heard right. “Where did you get that from? Men, polygamous by nature? Where did you learn that? That’s bull…. Here’s what I think,” I said, as Charles held my shoulder from behind and pushed me gently to the kitchen. “Society works such that the stronger specie rules over the weaker ones. Over the years, survival has largely been based on physical strength, men ruled over women naturally, so the men made the rules. Being selfish and to satisfy their selfish desires, men made unwritten rules which promoted promiscuity as fashionable to men but deadly to women. It has nothing to do with men being promiscuous by nature. It’s just a weakness in social behavior which favors one gender over the other.”

  “Hmm, Ok. So how do you explain that women can stay for long months, even years without having sex but it’s practically impossible for men?”

  “Same reason. The society has wired women to feel ashamed of their sexuality but has made men proud of theirs to the extent of celebrating it. I mean it’s so common to see boys celebrate their conquest of a girl but the poor girl lives with the shame. Moreover, it is not impracticable for men to go a long time without sex. You just don’t know any.”

  “Do you?”

  “No, but I know there are men like that. Not every man is a dog, you know,” I said.

  “But most women don’t enjoy sex. So doesn’t that show how nature differentiates women from men?”

  “I don’t agree that most women don’t like sex. I think women respond to sex differently but it doesn’t mean that they don’t like it. Ok look at this. Here’s a young lady who grows up in a society where she has sex with a boy, the boy is cheered but she’s scorned. In fact, the very boy she has sex with announces her as a conquered trophy; he’s proud, she’s ashamed. They both grow into a man and woman and get married, maybe to different people. This girl is going to want to prove to her husband that she’s a decent girl, and the way she’ll do that will be to shy away from sex. Girls and women love sex as much as boys and men do. Society has just shaped the female’s response differently. That’s what I think.”

  I started getting out eggs, tomatoes and onions to make breakfast. I couldn’t tell what direction he was headed with the conversation but I was getting tired of it.

  “Can you please help me fill this kettle with water while I get these?” I asked. He plugged the kettle and came to help me crack some eggs into a bowl. I was chopping onions, tomatoes and green pepper.

  “But Brenda, since you say that survival was based on strength, and men had the strength, so they made the rules to favor themselves, don’t you think God made it such that the men could be, well…, polygamous by nature and the women could be the more reserved specie? Couldn’t God have given women the same physical strength so that they could make rules for themselves?”

  “You’re messing with me, right?” I said smiling because he was mocking my line of reasoning.

  I poured the macaroni into a pot with boiling water and started barking like a dog “woof-woof, woof-woof.” I stuck my tongue out and started panting for a while then I continued barking.

  He looked at me like I was crazy and started laughing. “What are you doing?”

  “Barking like a dog? But now I’m talking like a human.” I stopped making the barking sound and started explaining my understanding of the polygamous nature of men. “If barking were my nature, anytime I opened my mouth I’d bark. I wouldn’t be able to help or control it. It’ll just happen and every single species in my ‘dog class’ will behave exactly the same way. We’ll bark because it’s our nature. Not all men cheat, which means men are not polygamous by nature. Some women cheat, which means women are not excluded from the supposed ‘polygamy by nature’. My point is, when people excuse the promiscuity of men on the basis of a false polygamous nature, I just see people who are morally too weak to accept their wrongs and are looking for ways to justify their actions. There are people who will justify these behaviors for their friends so that when they choose to get promiscuous, their friends will make excuses for them as well.”

  “You sound like a feminist now,” he said as we waited for our food to cook.

  “I don’t even know what the word really means. I see people who say they’re feminists hating men, and I don’t hate men. But a lot of people often say the feminists are entirely wrong by quoting bible scriptures that suggests that women are inferior to men. I haven’t seen anything in the Bible that suggests that men are superior to women. Have you?”

  “Yep. I have. It says women are the weaker vessels.”

  “How does that translate to superiority?”

  “Hmm. Very simple. It’s like this...” Charles pulled me out of the kitchen to the sitting room, and carried me up, off the ground, like he was lifting weights. He’ll lift me way up and bring me low, up and low, up and low, just like that. Then he started walking around the house. I was laughing so hard,

  “Put me down, Charles. Oh my God. Charles, if you let me fall, I won’t find it funny. Put me down,” I kept saying in between screaming and laughing .

  “Can you lift me up like that? Isn’t this why we’re superior?” He was walking to my bedroom. I thought I’ll use my legs to stop him by wedging them on the lintel of the bedroom door. As I stretched my legs out towards the lintel, Charles lowered me to get me through the door and then raised me up again in the room.

  “I can’t lift you but there’s a woman somewhere who can lift you up with one hand!”

  “Oh really? How about this?” He raised me above his head and started spinning. I was afraid of falling. It was fun but I was getting dizzy. I closed my eyes and started screaming,

  “Charles put me down, please. I’m getting dizzy. Please stop.”

  He put me down standing but I was too dizzy to stand. Everything was spinning around me I closed my eyes and slumped on the bed holding my head in my hands.

  “You’ve made me so dizzy,” I said still laughing.

  “Marry me.”

  I knew I heard, “marry me.” My eyes flung open but everything was still spinning around me. I vaguely saw Charles stooped in front of me and holding out something that looked like a jewelry box in his hands. It wasn’t clear. I closed my eyes again to regain my balance as he started rubbing my arms slowly.

  “Are you alright?” He asked. “Yeah, I’m fine now.”

  When I opened my eyes I didn’t see him with any box and he didn’t repeat the “marry me” I was very certain I heard. I quickly scanned around for the box but it wasn’t anywhere in sight. He must have quickly hidden it or it must have been an optical illusion from being dizzy.

  I wanted to ask him but I was shy and I didn’t want him to think that I was desperate, so I let it be. Was he shy or did he suddenly change his mind? If he meant it, he’ll ask again, I thought, but if he didn't why should I bother myself?

  There was a little crease on Charles forehead. He was still in a stooping position in front of me “can you perceive something burning?”

  “Our food!” I shouted and ran to the kitchen, Charles following behind.

  In the evening, Charles and I decided to go for dinner at Chaka’s Grill as we loved it the last time we were there with Esther and Fred. I ordered grilled fish served with chips, vegies and a cocktail. Charles went for grilled jumbo prawns served with curry rice, vegies and a cocktail. We were enjoying the meal over little chit chats. I took a prawn from his plate, just to taste what it was like. When I took the first bite I felt like I had made a mistake with my order.

  “Wow! This is very nice, hmmm, can I have another one?” I asked.

  “Nope, eat your fish, its bad manners not to mind your plate!” He said as he smiled.

  “Ok, take all my fish, just give me only one prawn.” I raised my fork to emphasize “only one.”

  “Alright”. He put one prawn in my plate. I wanted to give him the fish but he declined. “No, dear. I’m ok with this.”

  “Are you sure? But I can’t eat everything, it’s too much for me.”

  “Keep going, I’ll join you when I’m done with mine.”

  The waiter brought our bill and gave to Charles but, he motioned for the waiter to give it to me. I was shocked! I hadn’t seen that happen anywhere, even in movies. Where I come from, men pay the bill for a date. Even if he didn’t have the money, I expected that out of shame, he should have collected the bill and allowed the waiter leave, after which we’ll discuss the payment. Anyway, I took the bill from the waiter and thanked him.

  “What was that?” I asked him.

  “You are hosting me, so you should take care of the bills.”

  “I am hosting you? How?” I asked him. I was already feeling embarrassed.

 

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