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Derrick passed by Dennis’ office and asked him if he could join them for lunch. He wanted to say no but could not come up with an excuse that fast. Derrick was standing in the doorway waiting for him to switch off his computer.
After the previous day’s incident at his house, Dennis did not know what to expect. He felt a churn in his stomach as Derrick laid a hand on his back saying, “you should get away from your desk more often, it’s good for your health and your mind.”
They were going for lunch at a private golf club in town. They were all members. Derrick, Dennis, and James. Derrick owned a real-estate firm that had properties in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru and Thika among other towns. He recently partnered with a venture capital firm and was expanding his business interests to South Africa, Nigeria, and Senegal which was the newest baby.
He frequently traveled there to meet with the team and review their strategy for the booming Dakar real-estate market, and to sign deals with Senegalese banks and other financial institutions. James was his head of marketing and strategy for the Kenyan market and Dennis was in charge of operations.
Dennis was a workaholic. Derrick trusted him with the company. As long as he was handling something, Derrick would rest easy that it would be handled as he would himself if not better. Their relationship had started ten years earlier when Dennis joined a firm he worked for before starting his own business. He had loved his aggressiveness and when he decided to ‘start his shop,’ Dennis is one of the people he poached from his old firm.
In the ten years working as Derrick’s right-hand man, Dennis had become like family. Other than sorting out issues at the firm, Dennis sorted out Derrick’s private issues. He had access to his bank accounts. He knew which personal bills were due and sorted them out before Derrick even knew. He knew when the personal cars for both Derrick and his wife Mercy needed to go for service. He organized for the membership club subscriptions. He paid their kids’ school fees. Derrick had a personal assistant, but it’s Dennis who even booked his flight – apart from this one to Dakar where he was to spend four days.
Unknown to Derrick though (at least until recently), bills were not the only private thing that Dennis was taking care of, neither were the cars the only thing he was servicing for him. He was also taking care of Mercy’s bedroom needs. They had had an affair that was now in its fourth year. One of his trusted security guys had tipped him off, but he had rubbished it as an unwarranted rumor. He was so angry that he fired the guy. He did not mention it to either Dennis or Mercy.
Somehow, he soon noticed that a couple of things were off between Dennis and Mercy who also worked at the firm. They were a little too close. It never bothered him before but after the idea of an affair was planted in his mind, he started noticing things he previously did not.
For instance, when he looked at the phone logs for Dennis’ company-issued phone, most of the calls were to Mercy even though their roles did not require that much interaction. Also, they were always lengthy. On digging further, Derrick started to see a lot more patterns that pointed to a more than a working relationship. Their cars’ tracking systems would put them at the same places when they needed not to be. At times when Mercy had indicated she would be elsewhere with her female friends. With his recent trips out of the country due to expanding business ventures across the continent, Dennis and Mercy would coincidentally be away from the office at the same times. Convinced that Dennis was having an affair with his wife, he secretly hired his former head of security to trail them. When he was convinced that they were indeed having an affair, he set up an elaborate plan to catch them in the act.
He made up a fake business trip to Dakar, he claimed there was an emergency there and his tickets had been booked by the Dakar office. Since Dennis was only heading the Kenyan operations, he had no way of confirming if indeed the trip was legit. He did not even suspect anything.
“It was right there on my face and I did not see it. There was not a single trip Derrick had gone for without me organizing his logistics. I guess I was blinded by the opportunity to have a few days to myself with his wife that I did not see that this could have been a trap. We had become so comfortable with the affair that we thought we were invincible,” Dennis explained. His eyes showing a mixture of regret, not sure if it’s regret for having a four-year affair with his boss’ wife or for being caught.
That trip did not happen. Instead, Derrick had gone to the village and came back with his mother, two brothers, and their wives.
On the same day Derrick had left, Mercy had given his house-help a three-day leave to go see her people. She was so excited and happy. Mercy had always been a nice boss. Not just to the house-help but all their employees. Both Mercy and Derrick believed in Richard Branson’s philosophy of “Take Care Of Your Employees And They’ll Take Care Of Your Business.” Unkown to the house-help though, her going away was creating private space for her lady’s sexual escapades. The guards rarely came around the house unless when doing their patrols, but once someone was already inside the house, there was no way they would see them. Especially if they drove in the boss’ car that has very dark tints.
“Was it not enough for you that you were already sleeping with his wife, did you have to do it in his house and his bed?” I couldn’t help but ask Dennis when he was narrating this story to me shortly before leaving to Dakar for his new assignment. He was in the last days of his two-week leave in Kisumu.
Dennis was a long-time acquaintance. We sort of grew up in the same neighborhood. We were not close pals growing up but we occasionally interacted, especially on our way back home from school. Some of my classmates were friends with him. A couple of times we had played football together on weekends but for some reason, we never clicked. Our meeting on this day was sheer coincidence, I had gone back to the hood to visit an old friend. Dennis had been there for one week to visit his folks and catch up with the hood. We meet at one of the ‘locals.’ I hadn’t seen him in ages and you know how easy it becomes to start up a conversation with people you grew up with, especially if they seem to be doing well. I had asked him what he is up to these days, and that’s when he mentioned he is moving to Dakar. I was instantly interested because I have spent a few days in Dakar myself and coincidentally at that time a friend of mine was trying to hook me up with a media gig in Dakar. One story let to another and with alcohol in the picture, we soon ended up here with him explaining the circumstances under which he is relocating to Dakar.
He kept quiet for a moment before responding to my question. Took a sip of his Tusker lager, stood to stretch his arms then sat back on his seat. He looked further away for a moment then turned his head sideways to face me, biting on his lower lips for a couple of seconds before opening his mouth.
“Dan, for sure I have no idea what got into us. It was her idea, but I did not object to it either. I guess it was the thrill. I mean, we had done crazy stuff before but not like this. The plan seemed perfect. The kids were in boarding, the house-help was away, the guards would hardly notice that anyone else was there as we would go in her car. They had no other workers in the home – they had no gardener, they hired a landscaping firm to regularly maintain their lawn. It seemed well planned out, and I would only be there for a couple of hours.”
Mercy was woken up by the sound of a car driving in. Her husband was not expected home at least in another three days. She was not expecting any guests either. So, she covered herself with a bedsheet and went to the window to see who was driving in. Dennis was still asleep in bed. He had heard her get out but was a little too tired to be bothered. It had been an exhausting morning of marathon sex. Mercy had gotten this PDF Kamasutra book with sex styles from her friends and she wanted them to try out. He says it was more of acrobats than sex. She needed deeper penetration, they were trying out positions that the book said guaranteed that.
There are women who just like gentle rubbing and a little penetration, then there are women like Mercy who only reach orgasm with deep penetration. Dennis’ was the guy Mercy actualized her sexual fantasies with. Her husband was 18 years older and cared more about financial stability than her weird sexual appetite. Dennis, on the other hand, was only two years older. He was also sexually explorative. They had even tried pegging before. I had to go Google what pegging was after my conversation with Dennis that afternoon and you can imagine the look on my face when I found out. Of course, there was no way a man like Derrick will let his wife “do him” with a strapon.
On this day it was deep penetration day. They had tried Libra, The Plow, Lotus Flower, Torch, Downward Dog, Eifel Tower, London Bridge, Corkscrew, Unicorn, Anvil and by the time they got to Spread Eagle, Dennis was done and out (you might want to Google those styles by the way.).
You can imagine her surprise when she pulled the blinds and noticed her husband’s car. Her husband did not have a driver, he preferred chauffering himself in his Land Cruiser V8, Range Rover Sport or Mercedes-Benz S650. He said, “what’s the use of buying an expensive car and letting someone else enjoy driving it?”
The car drove into the parking lot which was away from her view at the window. She rushed to wake Dennis up.
“You need to get out my husband is here.”
Dennis says he did know what to think. For a moment he thought he was dreaming, but Mercy kept shaking him up. They had the door unbolt. Dennis was stark naked, he quickly grabbed his boxers and put them on. Before he could grab his other clothes they were hearing footsteps in the house. They were coming upstairs towards the bedroom. There was no time. He could not jump over the window because of the grill. He could not fit in the closet either. There was no space under the bed to hide. There was no time to think. Mercy quickly pushed him into the master bathroom and jumped on the bed pretending to be sleeping.
“Where is he?” Dennis heard Derrick ask.
“Who dear?” Mercy responded as if she had no idea what her husband was talking about.
“The ungrateful owner of the shoes I saw at the door when I came in and that pair of trousers I can see on the other side of the bed,” Derrick replied. His tone was calm but firm, Dennis says.
“It’s not what you think hun,” Mercy attempted to explain but Derrick cut her short.
“Cut it. Dennis, I know you are in the bathroom. Come out right now before I lose my cool.”
Dennis came out of the bathroom. He was in his boxers. His shirt half-buttoned. Some buttons in the wrong holes. One of Derrick’s brothers grabbed him by the back of the neck pushing him down the stairs into the living room where Derrick’s mum was waiting with his other brother and their wives. Derrick came down with Mercy. She was covering herself with nothing but a bedsheet. They made them sit next to each other.
“Look at your mother-in-law in the eye,” Derrick barked at Mercy who was hiding her face in her palms sobbing.
I ask Dennis what was going through his mind at that time.
“Man I was feeling hot and sweating profusely that I could not think of anything. My mind was completely blank. I had no idea what they were going to do with us. I was embarrassed to be sitting there naked. They all knew me,” he says.
“He asked me why I had done this to him despite him treating me like a son. He asked me why I had to do it in his own house and his bed. I could not face him. I did not know what to say. I think I blamed the devil.”
Dennis was ordered to get back to the bedroom, dress up and go to the office. He was asked never to contact Mercy again. When he was telling me this, it was about two weeks after the incident and he had heard nothing about Mercy.
Back at the golf club, it was an uneasy lunch for Dennis. Eating with the man who caught you sleeping with his wife the previous day is not something many of us can stomach. Derrick must have been a strong man too to still face Dennis. James the Marketing Director had no idea about all that.
As they ate lunch Derrick informed Dennis that he would be sending him to head operations in Dakar. He asked him to hand over within the week to James who will take over the local operations. He was to then proceed on a two-week leave as the company prepared his relocation papers.
Dennis was surprised at the turn of events. He was being given a second chance he did not even believe he deserved.
“Why do you think he forgave you?” I asked.
“Man, I have no freaking idea. Maybe he is setting me up to go get killed in Dakar. Maybe he is just giving me a second chance.”
That last week Dennis spent clearing was the longest week he had had at the firm. Derrick tried to make it a little bearable by limiting contact with him during that time. They threw him a farewell party the last day. Dennis has been in Dakar for two years now, he even earns more money than he earned in Nairobi. He still has no family of his own.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
