HURTFUL LUSTS [ 2 ]

Diana left in panic. The beast had called her name!

“Diana!”

Next, I saw them both standing in the middle of the living room, Diana head bowed, like a lamb to the slaughter, The Beast, fidgeting with his weapon of attack – a small brown brief case full of fresh notes.

Due to the proximity of my bed to the door, I could perceive their gestures and I overheard snippets of their exchange.

“I can`t….” Diana sobbed, shaking her head, “I`m sorry …I just..”

”Listen! The Beast went on. “We both know I can still have things my way if I really want to. Now I really want to be civil and fair here. I know that was a really awful thing to do, but we all make mistakes sometimes, right? Don`t we?  And I know…”  Diana had broken down into louder tears by now.

“SShh !! I know  you feel awful right now, because of what has happened, and you owe an allegiance to your Mistress, to tell her and you probably don`t know how but listen, telling comes with consequences . Will she believe you? Will she implicate you in a law suit? You never know…  So, Let`s make this simple, just take all this money and play a simple role – just keep silent. Alright? This was just a little mishap, and  it won`t happen again….”

I heard the unlocking of the briefcase by the Offender and the immediate shutting of it by the Witness followed by whimpering and long stretches of “I just can`t”. The Offender was still awaiting the acceptance of his sacrifice.

“Come on, don`t be silly. This is more than you could earn in a lifetime. Don`t throw away a good chance.” The Beast insisted with a push and a shove and a thrust till the cold object of pacification lay fully in Diana`s arms.

”You have five minutes to consider my offer.” He said, whilst strolling to the bar at the far right corner, “Whatever decision you make is fine with me. Just make sure it’s the right one.”

Three seconds after he gulped down the half glass of hard liquor, the Witness was seen walking through the door, clutching at the sides of the brief case with dead silence. The Battle had ended.

Diana sneaked into my room. She had wiped her face of every tear and combed her hair to the back. She seemed startled to find me still awake. I stared at the brown briefcase and then back at her. She could not look at me straight in the eyes. She pulled out an empty Carton from under my wardrobe, in which she shoved her brown suitcase of costly silence. I started to think that she had suddenly considered the comfort and ease of a better life. After all, she was a young woman with pressing needs and pending dreams. Rather than clean up other people`s mess, she could strive to salvage her own life from the disgusting corridors of poverty and abandoned dreams.

The last I heard of Diana was her heavy jump through my bedroom window. She was gone!  And I cried my pitiful self to sleep like a baby abandoned by her mother to the mercy of wolves.

Not so long after she left, the doorbell clinked. I heard light footsteps and then the Beast`s voice giving instructions “Just give the needed medication, no comments, no questions, and make no fuss about the problem”.

“Yes Sir.” responded the Doctor, who did exactly as he was instructed. The medicine he gave me relaxed my nerves and put me to sleep in a minute.

At twelve midnight, I shivered to the touch of fingers on my cheek. The lady called “mum” sat by my bed, somewhat driven to compassion by ”the pain” I was going through. She said she had been informed by Dr. Crudolph of  ”My sudden illness” and Diana`s ”bolting away “ with Dr. Crudolph`s money.  

”Honey, I can imagine how awful it is for you to be in this state: down with a Fever, and your Nanny gone… But I promise you will soon feel better, alright? I have found you a wonderful school with great teachers and sweet kids. You`ll soon be out there playing with friends and everything will be fine again.”

What did she know about “friends” and “playing” and “being alright”? She smelt of expensive perfume whilst I smelt of drugs and blood. We had nothing in common,    she knew nothing about my life, and I hated to see her act like she could make me happy!

 But I nodded all the same. The Beast stood waiting at the door and I wanted them both to leave as soon as possible. She shoved a packet of biscuits into my hand and stamped a cold kiss on my forehead.

“I knew that Diana girl will turn out to be ungrateful! ” I heard her say to Dr. Crudolph as she closed the door behind her. Afterwards, I listened to her talk on “politics” and “the issues ” and the “President`s budget” and “what the media was saying” ….A while after, the lights dimmed in the living room, and  soft giggles resounded up the staircase and through the upper ceiling. The night dwindled by, and I bore the weight of its heavy silence alone.

During the last lapse of the week before i started school, the lady called “mum” was still so busy that she asked the Beast to “take care of me” and “keep an eye on me” while she was away. He gave me my food and saw to it that I took my drugs.

 I tried to avoid him as best as I could because he repulsed me, but thankfully, he kept his carnality in check, till the following week began with me still alive and kicking and somewhat ready to start school.   

The name of my school was one that I could not mention in full without taking a look at my I.D Card. It was a “prestigious school for prestigious kids”, said the head Teacher and since “mum” said she was” too busy”, she had asked them to put me in the Boarding house system, where I would live inside the school and visit home on weekends. 

It did not take long for me to realize that I was actually attending class with children of Ministers of State. The Defense minister`s son was a tall lanky boy with a mean look in his eyes especially for teachers who asked him to tuck in his shirt, the Communication Minister`s daughter was the girl with the most expensive laptop and coldest attitude, whilst the Finance minister`s Son tried to buy every girl`s attention with rare tales, smooth talk and  ”expensive smiles”:. I was just the daughter of a certain woman called “mum”, and unmistakably, the most timid and reserved student in the class. 

The only person who was kind enough to try to be my friend was Alberta, the beautiful girl with blue eyes. By the end of the first month, we were eating together at break or running around the swing. We developed a game called “Tell it as it is” in which we jabbed random questions at each other, in order to know each other better. Questions like

“Which will you tell first, a joke or a lie?”

“What will you eat first, Cake or Meat pie...

On one such occasion, Alberta jabbed a question to which I had no answer.

It went,

“Mum or Dad, who do you like better?”

“None” I said.  “And You?”

“Mum” she said…and then she slowly went down on the ground weeping.

“:I hate Dad” ,

 “Why?” I asked

 “ ’Cus he`s never there” She lamented in loud tears.

“:Alberta Crudolph!! Get up from the ground and  Don `t dirty your clothes.”

Our Class Teacher suddenly called out.

I was startled! Not by the Voice but by the name that had just been mentioned.

“Alberta Crudolph? “

 I helped her up, all the while finding it hard to believe that my newly found best friend was related to the Beast who molested me. I was filled with both grief and anger. Why did Dr. Crudolph do to me what he would not wish any man to do to his daughter? And, if he, Dr. Crudolph had a family and such a beautiful daughter, what was he doing in our house, with the woman called “mum”. I straight away felt like ”Telling it as it is’, Telling Alberta that her Dad was in our house now with the lady  called “mum”, that her Dad was the Beast who gave me the worst experience of my life, that her Dad...” But I couldn`t!  I just quietly suck my candy.

 And once again silence seemed to be the only dwelling place for my troubled mind. I played with Alberta alright, and because we were in the same boarding house, it was difficult to avoid her, but I had coiled inside the more as several questions kept running through my mind.

 As for that lady called “mum”, she was in her own world with her Dr. Crudolph, so much so that she called me through the School Office on Thursday, (two days after my birthday) to wish me a “Happy Birthday”, adding that she could not wait to see me on the weekend so we could “do something fun together”.

That was the weekend that turned my silence into deafness.  For one, Alberta Crudolph had managed to obtain a rare permission to spend the weekend with me, to mark my Birthday and instead of being excited, I was obviously silent about it. 

We left school at about five and as the School Driver drew closer and closer to our vicinity, I felt my whole body go numb. When he finally pulled into the parking space, my heart began to pound.

‘’Get down now Esther, we`ve arrived’ Said the Driver.  As he walked Alberta and I towards the house, I could hear the soft music that the lady called mum often played at night. When we got there, the door was open but there was no one in the living room, the tap was running in the Kitchen but all the lights were out. I could see the dining table set with food and drinks.

“Where`s your mum?”  Alberta asked.

That was when I saw blood from behind the Sofa next to the Stairs. Hardly had i pointed in that direction when the screams of Alberta pierced through the cold of the evening. Her Dad lay dead right next to my “mum” wearing just his inner T-shirt and shorts. Beside my “mum” lay a well folded note, red roses and a cold plate of Potato Salad.

For about twenty minutes, the School Driver was on the phone, calling this person and that person, figuring out what to do first and what to do next. Meanwhile Alberta`s screams had drawn some neighbors to the house. There was a lot of murmuring, shaking of heads and telephone calls. I heard phrases like,

“…Urgent attention…brutal incident …. Mysterious murder scene…parents of School kids…”

Reporters of a nearby local T.V Station also stepped in quickly to capture the news and since there were barely any witnesses, they just wanted to hear from neighbors and those close to the victims. I did not know what to say when the lady pointed her microphone in my direction.

“Do you know what happened to your mama?” I remained silent.

Then, I was perhaps too young to answer right so I shook my head and stared into space, as the School Driver tugged Alberta and I along with him, back into the Car and to the Boarding House.

But as time passed and as I grew, though the police had brought up many names of suspects for my “mum`s” murder, which included Uncle Robert, I began on my own to investigate the incident and to reflect on the Reporter`s question “Do you know what happened to your mama?”

 I realized after careful consideration of all I had seen and observed in my childhood and the life afterwards, that my mum`s actual murderer was Lust. Her own uncontrolled Lusts… That was what took hold of her and strangled the life out of her and brought her to an abrupt end.

This same "Lust" lies in wait, somewhere in the unseen darkness. 

And he is the enemy i am determined to conquer and defeat.

v  

{1Timothy 6: 9}

But they that will be Rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men into destruction and perdition.

                                                      THE END.

Written By: Alice Blighton