The Tinted Glass – Interesting Story

She saw him passing by the grand gate. He was shabbily dressed. Grey hair in patches on his rather black head. He was almost stoop with more signs of poverty that had befriended him in the recent past. That was Kazeem, her very first lover, the boy; now a man; that had broken her hymen. The one that had taught her the dance of the darkness and the flickering lights. The one that had actually taught her how babies were made. He was nine years older, he still is, though no one could have guessed that he’s just 49 years old now. What years had done to each of them!
She’d been lucky, for Aunt Grace to have taken her to Ibadan where she’d obtained degree in Biochemistry. It was tough living with Aunt Grace, but it had all been worth it at the end. Now she has a family of her own, Greg is a doctor and right now, she is a professor of Biochemistry and had made name for herself in the Academia and the high society.

“Kazeem!” she thought. Kazeem was the dream of many young girls in the village where she’d grown up. She’d been bashful the day he waylaid her on the way to the public well. She had been flattered by how he had taken the pail from her, fetched the water for her and spoke kindly to her. She was touched and had allowed him to kiss her, but had hastily smacked his hand when he had attempted to touch one of her budding breasts.
That had been the first of their series of rendezvous and trysts. She had thought she was in love, or was she really in love?

The day she lost her virginity was a memorable day; she could still remember the pain; the blood, the cry and Kazeem’s big body pinning her to the coarse sand and his large hand half-covering her crying mouth. She had tried to wriggle free, he had overpowered her. She shut her eyes, as the pain and anger coursed through her veins, but something softer replaced the feeling. Sex with Kazeem had become regular after then until her Aunt whisked her away from the village. How time flies, how fortune of man changes with the tide of time. Kazeem, the dream of many, now reduced to a scarecrow, a mere shadow of who he had been. Who could have tell that she’ll be in her Bentley car to watch Kazeem so wretched? It was emotive. She shrugged her shoulders; how can she help him now? Better for him not to see her; what is he doing in the city anyway? The last time she had heard about him, he had had three wives with many children. That was when she had gone to bury her mother; the only surviving parent she had got. Since then, she’d jettisoned the village like an old cloth.

The two weeks trip that she had made to Germany had been fruitful, and she had been full-spirited and had been eager in the last week to be back home with Greg who she had missed so much. Apart from that, men nowadays should not be left to their own devices. She had been riled when Greg had called to apologise that he would not be able to pick her at the airport that day. Had she not tried her best to avoid any argument around the time, it would have led to a serious row. But she’s wiser now, she had to silently agree to Sadiku, the driver coming to pick her at the airport…only to come home to see Kazeem by their family-home’s grand gate.
“What’s that man doing here?” she asked Sadiku hotly.

‘Madam!’ Sadiku began, surprised at her boss’s harsh tone: ‘that’s the new man that Oga hired as a gateman, he came here begging and luckily for him, Oga saw him at the gate while he was still honking for Sunday who was in his usual drunken stupor. On close questioning, Oga said he discovered that the man is from your village, do you know him Madam? Oga fired Sunday and employed him instead’
“He hired who?!”
‘He’s a good man Madam, you might even know him, since he’s from your place’ Sadiku re-joined
“Shut up! Where did Greg go?” She retorted
‘He was called back to the office this morning to help sort some files…’ Sadiku recounted meekly
“Oh, my God! Don’t wind the window down please, just drive through, my friend!”

Sadiku honked, Kazeem hurriedly opened the gate and bowed graciously, hoping to catch a glimpse of the lady of the house of whom he had heard a great deal of good stuff from other staff of the house. She was rumoured to be kind, generous and helpful to the domestic staff of the house. He was so curious to see her. It then surprised him to see the driver zoomed past the gate without the Madam caring to wind down to say “hello”. That was strange, not compatible with the image of a friendly Madam he had carried in his mind. He shrugged his shoulders and went back to close the gate.

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Gregg was the forty-seven year old gynaecologist, she had fallen in love with as an undergraduate in the University of Ibadan. They were both in the second-year in the school then and had both been offering the same elective in the…

come back  for part 2 of the story.