PERFECT STRANGER

Hey there, several hits on my PC keyboard produced this piece. Trying to be imaginative#

Since I was a small kid, I have always had a picture of my dream chick, but this person sitting across from me in a restaurant in town was nowhere near that. But my heart was racing and I didn’t know what to expect…. She went on eating and did not seem to notice me, just to have a better view of her; I shifted to an empty seat at her table so we were directly looking at each other. I kept on stealing glances and before long; she noticed I was looking at her so then I mustered some courage and tried to speak, luckily I managed a halo to her. She stared at me in disbelief and I could read the question on her face, she must have been asking who the hell I was. After a minute’s glare she hallowed back. She introduced herself as Laureen.

All this time no waiter had come to attend to me, you would think they were giving me time to first finish with my “angel” crush. So I signaled one of the waiters passing by and ordered for  fresh juice which was brought on table a couple of minutes later, just to make sure that the lady stayed a little longer for a chat, and also in the spirit of being a gentleman, I asked her if she’d mind a glass of the same. She smiled and shook off her head; the waiter who had not yet left went and returned with another glass of fresh juice.

It was the start of a new semester and so I had decided to take myself out for a treat. I had a fat wallet that day, all thanks to the guys sitting in the 18^th floor of Anniversary Towers. This was not just a hotel, but the posh type where high life people come and waste their money on treats to themselves and their lovers and loved ones. So I had the money then and I also decided to waste it on myself. And now you know why the waiters did not want to attend to me, not that they were giving me time but that they feared I would not afford the meals. And yes they were right, everybody who visited that hotel would go there driving or they would be dropped by taxis. I broke the norm because I went there with my Kshs 250-type sandals, a three-quarter shorts and a T-shirt branded Safaricom.

My dream girl is exactly the opposite of Laureen. She was shining dark, slightly tall but not as tall as me and small boobies. Elizabeth Michael, a.k.a Lulu of Tanzania is a representation of ma type of girl; Laureen was not even on the average ground, but the extreme.

So we went on sitting there, not knowing what to expect, Laureen was a complete stranger. We would both sip the juice from the glass, almost the same time; we would look at each other more than we conversed. At some point I would go blank completely and let silence occupy our immediate atmosphere, I would then lament why I had shifted tables. I regretted even the more for having held her with the juice, maybe she would have gone since she had finished eating. Such awkward moments would only last five minutes at most, all thanks to my brains; I am a fast thinker and would immediately break the silence with a question or a statement that would bring up a new topic of discussion each time. So we talked on different themes, politics, economics, family, and love, with the latter being the mode of our discussions.

Laureen had a beautiful smile and she would smile a lot, interestingly, she would smile shyly - I wonder if she knew what effect her smile had on me, it really got into me and drove me crazy. I was in no hurry to leave, and she didn’t seem to be in a rush either, so we spent some considerably good time together in there.

We seemed to have exhausted everything and anything during our idle chatter, I therefore paid the bill, which was only KShs 500, a lot for a student, yes? I then asked her asked if we could leave, she stood up and picked her shoulder bag, we walked out together. On reaching outside, I was shocked to see the car she had come with, BMW convertible, at the touch of the remote button, she unlocked the doors. I was confused and wanted to go away, I wished I was not there that moment, I felt so down. She noticed it and stepped forward and said, “Hey come with me,” hesitantly I walked with her to her car, entered in and we drove. I was not sure where we were heading to and I feared to ask. We drove silently to the destination which did not take us long to reach. We got out of the car and before we could enter what seemed to be her house, shock was taking the better part of, almost making my mouth form an “O”. We went into the house, right through the verandah to the sitting room and she gestured me to sit down on the couch, she sat down too, turned on a big TV screen  on the wall from where she was seated using a remote, and for the first time, she initiated a conversation. Stupid as it might appear, all through our conversations, nobody had bothered knowing each other beyond our names. So this time, I was hoping that her conversation would take that line, but still, it did not, we just talked about life generally and avoided that direction.

I learned from her during that conversation that she was through school at only 20 years, she had done her first degree and had landed a very well-paying job as a brand manager of CX Ltd and that was how she had managed to buy the house she was living in and the sport car. At around 5pm that same day, she offered to drive me back to school, we had become very good friends in hours and we had really loved each others company, when we arrived at the school’s main gate, she told me to visit again. We bid each other a bye and she drove off back home.

Though out that semester, we kept in touch almost daily, she would call me and check how I was doing. I also paid her several return visits in her home during most of the weekends. During all my visits, we would have fun, and play around her compound and she would never let me spent the night at her place, I am not sure too if I would have wanted to, but I think I wanted, I was drawn to her. She used to drive me back to school in the evening of the same day that I visited.

She was naive, and I was too naive as well, but what naivety can do to two naive people locked together in a house, we know better. One weekend I visited and as usual, we played and had fun, when it reached 5pm, when she would return me to school, I opted for a quick shower because we had jumped a lot that day which had made me sweat. After the shower I walked into her bedroom for some lotion, she was lying in bed waiting for me to finish. When I was done, I sat on her bed and smiled at her, she smiled back, we continued exchanging smiles, getting close to each other without realizing it. The sun was now almost setting and its rays were hitting on the window sending a red reflection which made it all interesting being in there. All this time, I did not want to go, and she did not tell me to go either. What began as simple exchange of innocent smiles turned out into a romantic escapade, and not just that, we played sex.  When we recovered and got back to ourselves, it was around 10pm and she would not take me back to school, I spent the night there. I don’t know if we had both loved the act because none of us talked about it. We just sat and talked the all night. It was then, for the first time since we ever met that we talked about our lineage, I learned that she had been raised in an orphanage. Her mother bore her in her teenage hood and her father refused to accept responsibility of the pregnancy. She therefore did not know her father.

A month later, she missed her monthly period and went for a pregnancy test which tested positive. She did not break the news to me immediately but two months later. She said in a composed way so that it did not shock me, she told me not to worry about it as she would take care of her baby if I was not interested. I have always told myself that I will never let go my baby, my blood. So this would mean I marry this girl. It was painful knowing that she was not my type. I went through a hard time before I came to terms with it. A year later, I decided to take her home, by this time she had already born a baby girl. When we reached home, I introduced her to my parents; she told her story to my parents. All through the narration, only my mum seemed moved. Dad just stared blankly at no one in particular; you would not really tell what exactly his emotions and feelings were. He almost sprang up from his seat when mum asked the name of Laureen’s mother.  At the mention of the name by Laureen, dad shed tears, and amidst sobs, he said something that left us all shocked beyond word…he was the father of Laureen.

So Laureen was my sister???? Oh no, no... Is it why I probably loved her at first sight? Blood is thicker than water