…Life is about rules and regulations; it hurts to play outside them!
William loved something about Miss Wesmor Bukky Jack. She was kind of reserved and had not been passed around. They rode on the same office bus every day to work: the one from Ogba through Opebi to Maryland down to Town Planning Way, up to Gbagada Express Way then joining the Third Mainland Bridge to Victoria Island where the Corporate Headquarters of the conglomerate they worked for was situated.
Miss Wesmor joined at Opebi, just by the Opebi end of the Opebi By-pass. William rode from Ogba. So, he studied her every morning as the long cream and blue 24-seater Mercedes bus with the LGI logo standing for Liquefied Gas Industry pulled up beside her to take her in.
She always stood a solitary tall and svelte figure in clean and expensive clothing, whose age could be anything from mid-Twenties to mid-Thirties. Miss Wesmor was always bright, shaming the early morning fog, shining through its hazy light; bright and alert as if she had been awake for six hours instead of for one.
A single ‘Good Morning!’ thrown into the chilled bus was her usual entry signature. Her greeting typically circulated around sleepy heads nodding perhaps not in response to the greeting but from half slumber, looking for where to land. It usually landed on William. He often caught it and replied without waking the chilled sleepy bus that smelled of sophistication and great wealth.
William had checked her out with his female cousin who worked at the front desk. She connected calls and siphoned info from different departments. Her verdict – ‘Miss Wesmor Bukky Jack has a long pedigree of ‘datelessness!’ This excited William who watched her every morning. Her head would bend over a book almost all through the ride. He thought she wasn’t sociable. He had seen her smile though, a broad smile that lit up her face, the day the driver said something about May Day and how welcomed it was to him. He knew she was human too and would love some time off work like every other person.
They worked in different departments, he in Accounts, and she in Personnel. After work, they rode home differently. She rode with her boss who lived in her area but came late to work; he rode back with the office bus. He had had five failed relationships in the workplace. His fact-finding mission showed she had had none. His interest was more than kindled; non-dating girls set him on fire.
One morning, he splashed more cologne than was necessary and sat on one of the two seats she usually preferred. She hesitated when she came in. He encouraged her to sit with him and she inclined. Two three times after that, it became a routine. He found out that she read a devotional book every morning and bent her head in prayer for the rest of the ride. He also found out that she was from a more organised society than he: she was a member of a church! Prior to this time, he had hated the iconoclastic attitude of fanatical church goers, it stifled him. He stayed away from them. However, with Miss Wesmor, it was different. Her kind of Christianity fascinated him. Actually, what really fascinated or intrigued him was the sheer feat of a grown human going on week after week, month after month, year after year without sex! It intrigued him. He made a pass at her.
Now, Miss Wesmor was in a backslidden state when William made a pass at her. She was flattered; she accepted.
“I’m a Christian though,” she said, “although, there’s nothing wrong with having a guy as a friend, just a friend.”
“No, nothing wrong,” he agreed. “I love broad-minded people,” he said and added, “and ‘narrow-waist’ ladies.”
He thought it would annoy her but to his relief, she laughed. He knew it was safe to joke with her then. She was really sociable and laughed a lot.
As the days went by, he made references to her physical features – her slanted up eyes, her athletically built legs, her rounded hips, her slim waist, and so forth. He complimented her on them and watched her face break into beautiful smiles.
Sis Wesmor’s problem was that she waited too long for God to show up. He did not. So, she decided to help herself. The guys in her church were afraid of her class or so it seemed. She was a jet-setter, a fashionista, a seven-digit earner and a snob. The brothers had no balls. They were too afraid to approach her. Their whole month’s salary could not pay for her time at the spa or maintain her ‘a million braids.’
William was different from the brothers in church – he had class and possessed style. She checked him out – not with God but at the company’s database for workers’ bio data. She found out that he was five years younger than she was and that he was related to the MD. He was an urban boy who knew his way around; classy but no religion. He had no idea what the Bible says, which was not a problem, at all. He was an educated man and everything was about Information Technology. So, she had the Bible downloaded into his IPad for his personal perusal. He paused over a few verses when he had the time which was rare and at long intervals. He was a free thinker and hated what he called the authoritative voice of the author of the Bible. He believed not in chastity but in the right of individuals to express themselves. He persuaded Miss Wesmor of the need to express herself and not kill herself with bottled up feelings. Miss Wesmor’s resistances were weak and her Nos’ were feeble. They slept together a few times and she understood how the Bible is true that sin has pleasures.
They went to church together for that was her life and she pulled him into it. He was fascinated by church lifestyle, how multiplied hundreds of people who seemed to know one another would come together two, three times a week to sit down like people in a theatre watching a solo actor; more like an orator, perform on stage while they cheer. Some days he made them happy; some days he made them sad by making them feel they were not working hard enough towards a heavenly eternal rest. Fools, he thought, how could they refuse to enjoy the world they lived in, hoping and pining for a utopian place unseen by physical eyes? Still, he suffered the services gladly as long as the end of them ushered in a blissful time of pure heaven on earth at his place or hers as the ‘spirit’ led them.
This they did for a while until Miss Wesmor, driven by conscience requested that they make it permanent which he accepted. Being very attached to her organised society, she insisted he should become a member. He shrugged his acceptance – what did he have to lose? He was comfortable with Bukky. She was a well-behaved girl, five years younger than he or so he was led to believe, who agreed to most things he said and treated him like a prince.
To be continued next week.