YET TO COME

..TWENTY NINE..

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Lunch was not a quick affair like she had thought it would be. They had spent more than an hour having lunch. But, she had enjoyed it, the food, his presence, their bonding, everything. They had left the Chinese restaurant at around one forty though they had arrived at about twenty five minutes past twelve o’clock. They had spent a great deal of the time talking than eating for he had chosen that time to tell her all about his past.
He –Clement Ihunanyamme Ugwu- was an only child and he wished he wasn’t but his father was impotent. His father had deceived his mother into their marriage because no woman would want to marry an impotent man. She had discovered his condition by chance about roughly nine years after their marriage. She had left in anger. His mother had gone into hiding for almost a year.

When his father had finally found her, she was a few weeks pregnant, obviously not for his father. She had explained that she had been drunk at the time the baby had been conceived; even his biological father had also been inebriated. She had proposed to take out the child when his current father came back for her, begging, for she still loved his father, impotent and all. His father had prevented her from taking out the child. They had agreed to keep Clement, informing his biological father whose name was Timothy of the decision. He had agreed and told them that he would like to be seeing his child once in a while under the guise of Uncle Tim. So, Uncle Tim he had been to Clement until his death twelve years after Clement’s conception.  Clement had been eleven at that time. Uncle Tim had died unwedded and his properties had gone to Clement who had no idea that his biological father had willed everything he had to him on the day that he was born. His real father had been sick, suffering from a chronic disease which had taken him. It was a big fortune that he had Clement in his life at all.

He had asked about her past and she had told him what she always told people. Her mother had died when she was little, about six years old. She remembered her a bit. She knew what the woman had looked like in real life. She had three sisters from her mother for her father had many mistresses. There was Lotenne her senior sister, Melody and Corinne her triplet sisters. She had five other step sisters and a step brother. Her father had died on the day she had turned seventeen. He had fallen by the swimming pool, his head smashing open at the back and he had bled to death, crashing their birthday pool party in 2010. It had been a really gruesome sight. Most of her sisters had been hospitalized based on the shock that they had received.

She had four living stepmothers, two well known, one vaguely familiar and the last completely unknown. She had a dead step mother who had fathered her father’s sixth child and her own mother who had borne five children, a son and four daughters was also dead. Her brother had died from leukemia when he was eight years going on nine, about a year after her mother’s death. She had been told by Lotenne that he had died on the 22nd of May, five days to the children’s day that he always looked forward to each year. Well, that was everything that she could say. He had listened raptly until she was done. When he had begun to ask prying questions, she had delved into the forgotten lipstick matter. He had been quick to start explaining.

He had known Sandra for almost three years before he started dating her. He had known her from college. They had been competitors in a certain course with him losing to her once in a blue moon. She was mostly always behind him with two marks or outmost three marks. They had started dating in 2012. He had been twenty six at that time and she had been twenty one. Their relationship had been a beautiful but competitive one, each wanting to always be ahead of the other. He had enjoyed such as much as she had. Their courtship had lasted for six months and then he had proposed marriage. He had found out that she was cheating on him with one of his many acquaintances about a week to the wedding. He had caught them red handed unknown to both. He had not said a word, causing the wedding to hold and then not showing up at all on that day. That had been his sweet little revenge for her disgusting betrayal.

She had confronted him after the wedding without the fear of God as if he was the one in the wrong when it was otherwise and he on the other hand had told her all about what he had found. She had had no more argument on the matter after that. But, she proceeded to tell him that she had loved that his acquaintance for a long time but still wanted to have Clement because he wanted her. She had deceived him and he had fallen for the ploy. Ever since, he had hated deceivers and deceptions. The story had been an interesting one. When she had tried to console him on Sandra’s betrayal, saying it must have hurt, he had told her that it was all in the past, buried deep. It had hurt then but it didn’t hurt now because he had her, Chloe, with him.

After their much enjoyed lunch, he informed her that they would be going to his favorite place, a gaming house. She had stared at him as they walked to the car, amused. 'The game house is really your favorite place?’ she had asked him. He nodded in response to her question.

‘I'm surprised.’

‘Why?’ he had asked her.

‘Well, you do not strike me as someone who loves to play games,’ she told him truthfully.

‘What hobbies do you think suit me then Mon Coeur?’ he asked her. She hesitated, stopping to think it through thoroughly before speaking.

‘You seem more like an avid reader, voracious with books,’ she mused.

‘Well, I do read my sweet, as voraciously as you implied. But, a man has got to still be a man. A man has got to be able to play games if not he will feel left out among his own clique, responsible or not responsible,’ he pointed out.

‘Okay,’ she agreed readily. ‘I will agree with what so ever you say.’

‘I think that is good.’ He helped her into the car then went in himself. He drove off towards the game house.

They arrived at the gaming house about twenty minutes later due to the little road traffic for the gaming house was only about ten minutes drive from the Chinese restaurant. That was even the reason why he had chosen it. It had been the perfect relaxation spot for after lunch. It was fun trying to teach an inexperienced player how to play games that even experienced players still had problems with. He wasn’t much of a player himself, but he acted as if he were a pro, easily winning her and feeling so accomplished at the fact. She didn’t complain because she was having a lot of fun, enjoying herself greatly. Today might just possibly be her last day with him; therefore she was utilizing it as well as she should.

They spent almost an hour in the gaming house. He had had to drag her with him when it was time to leave as he had helped her to unravel a new interest. He promised to buy her a game set and play with her as often as she could. That was what made her willingly follow him out of the game house, without any argument.

‘Now, you have succeeded in making us late for our movie?’ he had grumbled as he helped her with her seatbelt from his side of the automobile.

‘There’s a movie?’ she had asked with wide eyes that had him chuckling.

‘What is a date night without movies? Of course there will be movies before dinner,’ he informed her. She ululated at this assurance.

‘You are really the real deal, the very best,’ she praised him. ‘What movie are we seeing then?’ she asked. ‘What genre is it?’ she asked him. He didn’t answer for a moment, completely focused on driving.

‘I chose the most scary horror movie so that you could get frightened, scream loudly and burrow into me for protection,’ he said to her with a mischievous smirk that further infuriated her.

‘You should have asked for my preference before you chose a movie,’ she complained angrily.

‘Next time I will, but today is my day and you know it,’ he said.

‘Alright, I will let you off for today because of that, solely because of that and nothing else,’ she warned him. He nodded.

‘Yes ma’am, thank you ma’am,’ he said to her with a huge grin that made her insides melt into a mass of warm puddle. Oh! She was so in love with this man. She would never forget him, remembering their fun times together.