How To Love

chapter five

"Where are we going?" I asked Thuso when we drove into the north, instead of heading straight on to join the N4.

"Our new home, or as my father likes to call it, our marital house. He has put in a lot of thought into the building of it, so I hope you will like it," he said, though the British accent was a delight, nothing beat when he spoke Setswana, the switch up was crazy.

My thoughts reeled back to the conversation my mother and I had. I vaguely remember her mentioning this to me.

"Oh, that's today? What about my belongings?" I asked him, referring to my boxes and the one suitcase I left at his house. I still had more things back at the apartment I shared with Lerato in Braam, I didn't know what the arrangement with those was.

"A moving company was hired to pick up your things from my home and your flat that you shared with Lethabo. All the furniture had been left behind, but Lethabo was kind enough to pack up your things for you. Hopefully, we will find everything in the new house already." A small part of me started to boil. I hated how this whole marriage was changing up my life. Couldn't they leave me to live with my best friend until I was ready to move in with Thuso? But then again, I don't think I was ever going to be ready, maybe his dad took that into account too.

Before high school ended, I had confessed to our parents how Thuso had been treating me. My mother cried so hard, I wished I never revealed it. As punishment, his father exiled him to the UK, hence why he studied there. As reparations, especially since my father's business had went bankrupt from an accountant they trusted too much, who then robbed the company, Mr Moeti offered to pay for my varsity fees, including living expenses too.

So him thinking that his son, the one he knew bullied me, and I were a perfect match sounded wild to me. Even these lengths he had gone to, it was like he was told things that we perhaps didn't know. Either way, I wasn't too happy about this arrangement.

•••

Later that night, Thuso and I sat in the dining room, eating a meal prepared by our helper, another gift to us from my father in law. On the menu tonight was a simple lasagna meal, with some garlic bread and green salad on the side. We had a chef for a helper, if you asked me.

"I think now that we will be living together, we need to establish some rules and boundaries," I started when both our plates were cleared, only our glasses of white wine still a bit full. For me, I was a bit over the alcohol intake, especially with how much I drank in the past week alone, which was more than I had in the entire year thus far.

"I agree. Would you like to start first?" He asked. Hm, if you asked about where we were as individuals in this arrangement, I'd say I've come to a point of acceptance, that this was to be my life for the next year until I could decide to annul the marriage. After our dinner last night, I think we have reached an equilibrium. I wasn't going to remind him every second that he was the villain, and he was going to right his wrongs the entirety of this year, though I didn't know how he planned to do that.

"Yes. My first rule is no room sharing, with the exception of having guests over. As this is our home, we need not pretend, unless there's a time where we need to preserve a united front, which would only happen when we have guests. In which case, let's try to have less guests as possible." He nodded, showing that he agreed and understood me.

"My second rule is that I will not be performing any wifely duties. Thankfully, we have help for the cooking, cleaning and laundry, so that's sorted. Another wifely duty I will not perform, is taking care of your sexual needs, which will bring me to my third rule, or well, exception, that being, from my side, you're allowed to seek entertainment elsewhere. As long as it's not in front of me, and not in public. Basically, I'm giving you the green light to have a private girlfriend." His face was no longer understanding. In fact, it looked like he was clenching his teeth in anger. But I didn't know what I said wrong. He didn't possibly expect that we'd have a sexual relationship right?

"I agree and understand the second rule. But your third rule is out of the question. Yes, I'll respect your decision to not have sexual relations with me. But I will not step out on this marriage, however unreal it is, because I respect you as much. Sex isn't all there is to life, so if it means I become celibate for the upcoming year, then I do not mind. Not that I am telling you what to do with your body, but I'd appreciate the same respect," he said. Oh, he was touched about that? Most men would jump at this opportunity, it's not every wife that gives her husband the green light to cheat on her, I guess my husband is built differently.

I'm glad that he made it clear that he wasn't telling me what to do with my body. Sure if I did it, I would be disrespecting our marriage, however fake it was, but he needed to know that I could do whatever I pleased with it. Luckily for him, I was not interested in having sexual relations outside of marriage. And even though I was married to him, I couldn't count this as a real marriage, hence why sex was out of the picture.

"Alright then. Those are my rules, what are yours?" I asked him, after all, he was part of this marriage as well.

"Another reason my dad wanted me to get married was because he's planning on naming me CEO of our company. With that in mind, the board members aren't exactly thrilled with that due to my past, my time in the UK wasn't all clean. So to prove to them that I was ready for the position, he thought marriage was a great set up for it. Which brings me to my point, you will need to attend work functions, events and galas with me, just to show off to the board members that I am not the stupid boy I once was." I could agree with that. I knew our marriage wasn't just on paper, that it wouldn't just benefit my family. So this wasn't a surprise, and it was relatively a small price to pay, but,

"What did you get up to that was so bad that it makes the board members skeptical of you?" I asked him, curious.

"After you told our parents, my father was pretty upset with me. At that point, I had not yet fully understood the gravity of my actions, so when he sent me to the UK, it made me feel unloved. In retaliation, I acted up by partying a lot, and doing drugs. The height of this was when I had done some introspection, and the guilt of what I did to you made me spiral out of control. I was in and out of rehab centres, what was supposed to take me four years to complete, took me six, and I only started cleaning up my act when I got a job that side and I had to look after myself because dad had cut me off."

I was not meant to feel sorry for him, I'm not sure if that was his intention or not, but my heart pulled at his experience, and it made me realise that I wasn't the evil spawn I thought I had become during the early stages of my meeting him again.

"Are you good now?" I asked him, genuinely concerned.

"Yeah, I've been clean for four years now, never touched a lick of that stuff I was on again," he said. "God, I'm sorry. I'm making this thing about me, when the real victim here is you. Anyway, let's move past this, is there anything else you wanted to add, or should we finally tour this place?" He asked.

I sighed out in relief, realising then that my shoulders had gotten heavy from that conversation.

"I'm cool if you are, is that the only rule you want to enforce?" I asked him.

"For now yes, hopefully we can revisit this topic every time we think there's something to revise?" He suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Now let's go see the house. Already I hate the living room, nothing about this place screams home," I said and he laughed.

After touring the house, we both agreed that it wasn't our personal style. He said he'll call the interior designer, and we will discuss what we think will work best for the place. Honestly, the most shocking thing about the ordeal, was him wanting to give his input as well. I know a home doesn't only belong to the woman, but usually, it's her that made it a home. Shockingly, it didn't rub me off in the wrong way. In fact, I thought it was pretty admirable. This time, my positive feelings toward him didn't weird me out.