III: I bought your love…so I own you

🕸🕸🕸

Easineya closed the balcony doors behind her, shutting out the music and chatter from the party. She turned to face her friend.

Nacilele fussed with the traditional ivory bangles on her wrist.

“You better have a good explanation as to why what happened, just happened.”

Nacilele shrugged her shoulders hopelessly. “What do you want me to say? Your brother just doesn’t love me anymore.”

“He just couldn’t have woken up and not love you anymore. Nobody does that.”

Nacilele chuckled dryly. “Well, your brother did.”

Easineya shook her head at her. “No. This isn’t right. And you?”

“What about me? A relationship is about two people. I wasn’t about to force him to love me when clearly he was miserable.”

“So what? You just gave up?”

What could she say? Easineya had no idea what it felt like to have the rug pulled from under you. A seemingly perfect day had turned out to be her worst nightmare. For over three weeks, she had been living that nightmare.

“How long?” Easineya asked, as if reading her mind.

“What does it matter?”

Easineya crossed her arms over her chest. Nacilele frowned at her. She knew when Easineya was determined on something, she never let go easily.

Easineya was not one to be easily shocked, but when her friend told her that it had been almost a month, she stared at her, lost for words.

“And you tell me this now?”

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Nacilele replied.

Truthfully, she hadn’t. While she had waited day after day for him to call her and tell her he had changed his mind and wanted a second try, the fear of what-ifs had overwhelmed her too.

“He’s your brother. I didn’t know whose side you would be on.”

Easineya slapped her across the face.

Nacilele held her burning cheek and looked up at her fuming friend.

“If you had told me,” she hissed at her, “you would not have humiliated yourself like you did tonight.”

Nacilele tried to apologize, but Easineya was not having any of it. She had a crisis at hand and didn’t have time for apologies.

“Answer me this. Do you or do you not love my brother?”

She was taken aback that Easineya could even ask that. Lemba was the air that she breathed.

“Good. That’s all I need to know. He has no right to treat you like this. He will marry you unless my name is not Easineya.”

She walked out, prepped for battle.

Nacilele, for the first time in weeks, smiled. For a while, she had forgotten what it was like to be at ease. She now knew everything was going to be alright.

Let’s see you run away from this, Lemba, she thought, just as it began to rain.

She had never intended to pit the siblings against each other. But at some point, one of the two—love and friendship—ought to have worked in her favour. In the end, friendship had. And that friendship would see to it that she wore her white wedding dress, walked down the aisle, and said I do.

🕸🕸🕸

Edmond Zimba, a calm and charismatic man, watched his son Lemba as he chatted with a group of ladies. Not a single one of them was married, engaged, or dating, if his mind served him right. Since the announcement of his termination of his relationship with Nacilele earlier, the singles of the fairer sex seemed to have found his company more pleasing than usual.

He walked over and joined the circle of his son’s new friends. “Ladies, mind if I steal him from you for a minute?”

“Thanks. I really needed a little breather,” Lemba said with relief.

Edmond lifted his glass and watched the young ladies—daughters of some of his acquaintances, business associates, and friends of their social circles—chat up some other guests as others just waited from what they considered a respectful distance. He turned to his son, his kind eyes compassionate.

“Are you okay?”

Lemba stared into his half-full glass of wine. The only glass he had had for the past hour.

“I am alright.”

Edmond didn’t believe him but said nothing. He knew his son wasn’t one to talk much, especially about heavy stuff.

“I’m sorry,” Lemba said apologetically. “It must have been a shock to you and Mum.”

“A little disappointing, but it is what it is. So what happened?”

Lemba looked around him. Life seemed to have moved on just fine. They would be the hottest topic for a little while, but soon would be forgotten.

“Is there another woman?”

Lemba looked up at his father in shock. Another woman other than Nacilele? Of course not. He wasn’t that type of guy. Besides, he didn’t know how to date anyone other than Nacilele.

And he told him as much.

“I am glad to hear that. It’s better it all happens now, not later when you have already said your vows or there are kids involved.” Edmond patted him on his back. “Why don’t you get out of here,” he continued as he saw from his peripheral view his eldest child, Easineya, emerge from the balcony geared for battle, Nacilele close on her heels. By the hopeful looks on Nacilele’s face, he could just imagine how their talk had gone. “This doesn’t look like your scene. It’s okay if you want to leave.”

Lemba smiled and nodded gratefully. Edmond took his glass of wine and gave him a discreet nod toward the door. He turned just before Easineya could reach them.

“Honey. We need to talk,” Edmond said and held her by the elbow, halting her steps, and turned her back.

“Dad, not now. I need to talk to Lemba.”

“Now, sweetie,” he said firmly. “Don’t go causing a scene.”

Nacilele watched hopelessly as Easineya was subdued by the only family member who never tolerated her nonsense.

Edmond smiled at Nacilele and raised his glass to her. His daughter was strong-willed and opinionated; a confrontation between the two would be disastrous. He wasn’t about to let that happen.

🕸🕸🕸

Clere hurried down the stairs through the rain, the folder clutched tightly to her chest. She got into the waiting taxi.

Someday, Ian, she said to herself as she watched the hotel disappear through the rearview mirror. Mark your days. I will get my revenge, she vowed to herself.

She traced her fingers over the folder. The humiliation she had faced tonight at the hands of Ian would always be her driving force.

Her parents, for almost six years, had suffered at his hands. They had lost everything. It wasn’t so much the material property, but their peace of mind. When he had stolen the company through the hostile takeover, he had literally owned their lives. Her father had nearly lost his life. Twice. The shock that his partner could ruin his entire life’s work was too much to bear.

Ian taunted his neglect and poor mismanagement of the company to their faces, knowing there wasn’t much they could do about it.

But as the hotel became nothing but a distant dot in the back, Clere vowed: vengeance would be hers to relish.

🕸🕸🕸

Pumulo stepped out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. His phone, which he had left to charge on the table, pinged with a message. He pulled the charger out to read it.

It was his mother. She wanted to know how he was doing.

What do you think? he murmured.

His mother was responsible for the mess that was his life. She had forever ruined his life, all for what?

Duty, she had told him. Duty and honour for the family. He didn’t know if he could ever forgive her.

He was about to walk away when he noticed the message delivery report. Puzzled, he clicked on it at the very moment his wife walked in.

“Well, that was fun,” she mused, chuckling as she sipped on some wine. “Pathetic, even.”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

She looked at him blankly.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said, going over to the dressing mirror. She picked up a brush and began to brush her cropped Peruvian weave.

“Don’t play dumb with me. You set all this up. Teliwe showing up here, that was all you!”

“So what? I had to put that slut in her place. I wasn’t going to let you two meet up and make a fool out of me.”

Pumulo went to the suitcase, grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

“Funny, I thought that title belonged exclusively to you,” he chuckled, pulling on the jeans.

Nsemiwe glared at him through her reflection in the mirror.

“Tell me, do you even know who is responsible for that?”

She put her hand on her tummy.

“A few names do pop up in my mind, though,” he continued, clearly enjoying himself. “Khumalo, Mandla, Benson, or Wong. Or maybe it was that Afrikaans—what was his name again?”

He pulled the golf t-shirt over his head. “Then again, from a third-person perspective, it really is hard to keep up with your bedroom royal rumbles when you have sex with the whole town.”

She turned and hurled the brush at him, which he deflected with ease. She marched over to him, short of flying. Her deep brown eyes blazing dangerously.

“I would be very careful with what comes out of that mouth,” she hissed at him. “I own you. You and your whole damned family. I own you,” she continued, poking at his chest. “When you said ‘I do’ to me this morning, I bought you. I bought you and your love.”

Pumulo looked at her, stunned for a second, then burst into a deep-throated laugh. “Come on. Surely, you couldn’t have been that naive?”

Nsemiwe looked at her husband of just over twelve hours, confused.

“Did you buy into that crap? Bought my love? How can you buy something I never had to begin with? That love ship sailed a long time ago with Teliwe.”

“Bastard!” she hissed and raised a hand to slap him. He blocked her, gripped her other hand, and pinned them together.

“And you, my dear wife, are a lying, scheming, manipulative, and insecure bitch,” he told her calmly and pushed her away from him. “I don’t love you. I have never loved you, and it will be a cold day in hell before I can ever love you. Please get that through that thick skull of yours. The sooner you do that, the sooner we can all live in peace and endure the hell you have condemned us to.”

He went and grabbed his phone and car keys and marched out, banging the door behind him.

All the while, Nsemiwe stared at his retreating back, casting him invisible fiery arrows as her fingers dug into the soft flesh of her palm.