Raising Tasha

Temptress

Jerry

Just how crazy was this woman? Why would she open her door for strangers barely dressed?

I had seen all the way from my car how her neighbour seemed to be really unfriendly towards her. From the way the woman had relentlessly banged hard on her door without a care in the world. Claire had a baby for crying out loud.

It was my fault for hooting loudly in their compound that early in the morning and now it was Claire bearing the brunt of my actions. If I had known her house number I would have politely knocked on her door but she had sent me off really quick that evening I did not get to see what house she had gotten into. She had been so eager to get rid of me so I had no choice but to leave.

I had realised I had no way to contact her for the job immediately I had gotten inside my house. I had promised her a job but how would she get here? Claire had no means of communication, I had not seen her with a phone and I had not asked for her number either. That was exactly the reason I had made up my mind to come and pick her up for work.

I knew that she was counting on this job I had to offer and I could not let neither her nor Tasha down. I was basically their only source of food at the moment and I was not going to let them suffer if there was something I could do about it.

“How can a married man come knocking at another woman's house this early in the morning?"  a woman grumbled walking past me.

'How disgusting!' I thought to myself. Why would someone get married just to cheat? There is nothing I disliked more than cheating partners. 

The pain of being cheated on, the self blame, the feeling of worthless.

I have first hand experience in that department. I almost got married one time, back then no one knew how wealthy my family was. In university I had dressed modestly, lived like your average student, avoiding attention from others.

I had met one girl, Lucille. Never in my life had I loved someone as much as I had loved Lucille. She was the one for me, between going for dates at the food shack near school and helping her with her assignments life was great. My friends always teased me about coming to campus to marry. I was serious about her. I loved her!

Lucille was not demanding, she was not high maintenance, she did not even care that I was not rich and I knew I was not going to get some one like her anywhere else.

So I made the decision, introduce her to my father during our graduation. For university students that was usually the biggest step in a relationship, that was the foundation of a long lasting relationship, the first step to marriage.

The day before graduation my friends dragged me to club in the suburbs. To freedom they said, we were finally done with school and that deserved some alcohol pumped into our systems.

Sitting in a corner having fun, then I saw them. My girlfriend, my Lucille, my woman, sitting in the laps of man looking cuddly and lovey dovey. The man might I add looked older than my father.

Shock!

Where is the love my life, the beautiful soft spoken Lucille I had grown to love? The Lucille I was supposed to introduce to my father the next day?

Rage!

I could not remember how I had gotten up from my seat. I could not even remember my walk across the club filled with sweaty bodies but the I was, standing infront of Lucille and the man she was practically dry humping.

“Lucille what the fvck!" She had not seen me yet but my voice was loud enough to be heard over the music at the club.

“Jerry? What are you doing here?" The nerve! This b***h had the nerve to ask me why I was here while in the arms of another? How bold!

“Who is he?" I ask, gesturing to the the man she was still sitting on. How shameless, I was her boyfriend dammit! Me!

“I...I can explain," she mumbles standing up, at least she had the common sense to feel ashamed of herself but that had not lasted long.

Lucille had introduced me to her sugar daddy as the annoying classmate that is always following her around. According to her she had told me on several occasions that she was not interested in me but I kept bothering her.

Rejected I had walked back to my friends at our table, there I had that the reason they had brought me tothe club was to show the kind of person Lucille really was. They had seen her in the club every weekend with the same man.

My friends had known that girlfriend was cheating on me for years but had not told me anything about it. In their defence the said they thought it was just a campus fling and that Lucille and I would go seperate ways after graduation until they had heard me talking about introducing her to my father on graduation day.

Then they decided it was better to tell me the truth before it was too late.

Then I learnt that Lucille cheated on me because I was not rich. She had gotten her dumb campus fling that did her assignments and signed her classes for her and satisfied her sugar daddy during the weekend. The same weekends she had refused to spend with the excuse of going home to have family time.

I had been used for three years then dumped just because I was supposedly poor that was when I had accepted the cleverness of my father, enrolling me in a public university making me be like the others, fitting in seamlessly with everyone else.

Lucille had taught me an important lesson, if you do not let others in the they would not have a chance to hurt you.

Slowly I had turned into this emotionless unapproachable person that everyone now knew but atleast it prevented me from getting hurt. That was until Claire and Tasha.

Just one sentence from the woman had made me take a trip down memory lane, somethings I had swore to never let affect my life ever again.

Then I realized there was no man in the compound except for me.

No one was knocking on doors except me.

When did I get married though?

“...”