Chapter summary
Sammy enjoys family affection while Sarah, knowing his affair and fabricated Dubai trip, plots revenge.
SAMMY
Tuesday, earlier that morning “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Daddy…” Sarah and her two boys, still in their pyjamas, chorused in excited voices as they woke Sammy from sleep.
It was an early celebration. On Wednesday morning Sammy would be on a plane to Dubai for an economic conference with top CEOs from across Africa, and he would be away for his real birthday on Thursday. Sarah had insisted that the day should not pass unmarked.
“This is adorable,” he managed to say, his eyes still heavy with sleep. He had gotten home late the night before and had barely slept four hours.
The two boys hopped into the bed and planted dry kisses on his face. “We love you, Daddy!”
“You put the poor boys up to this, Sarah?” It was more of a mocking, accusatory statement, and it left her grinning from ear to ear.
“I love you, baby.” He pulled her down for a kiss and called her what he had always called her, his fat baby girl. It was an old joke from their Oxford days, about her appetite when she was still a size eight. Nobody else on earth was permitted to use it. It had grown truer with the years, and somehow he still said it with the same tenderness.
“Daddy, come and blow your candles. Hurry!”
That was how Sammy started his day, in the loving embrace of his kids and his wife. They had been married twelve years, and there was no shortage of love between them. Sarah worked from home as an IT specialist and a serial entrepreneur. She sold everything from imported scented candles to designer perfumes and air fresheners.
Because she practised what she sold, her house smelled like freshly cut flowers, soft and powdery and sweet, with a hint of cream. She was a great home keeper and ran the house like clockwork. Their two boys attended the best Montessori school in Ikeja, within reach of their semi-detached duplex in the uber-rich Government Reserved Area, GRA.
She enjoyed the pleasure of a retinue of house helps: gardeners, cooks, cleaners, and even a graduate driver. She drove a Mercedes Benz and lacked almost nothing.
Sammy, on the other hand, was a top executive at a private equity firm in Victoria Island. As Vice President for Africa and the Middle East, he spent a lot of time in transit between several countries. His family could barely keep up with his schedule. One minute he was right there in the bedroom, bathed in the soft hues of the morning sun and snoring loudly. The next minute he was catching a private jet.
He liked to google his name, and every time he did, he liked what he saw. He was well respected in the industry, and his name was synonymous with excellence and outstanding success. Life had been beyond fair to him.
Although he was in his late forties, he had the kind of face that stopped you in your tracks. He was lanky, with a full beard that gave him an endearing “sugar daddy” vibe, solidified by a pocket full of cash and a charming personality. Everything a woman could ever wish for.
His athletic build was proof that he had beaten back the pleasures of a comfortable life, unlike his slightly obese wife, who had not.
Even though he loved her dearly, she was no longer the glamorous girl he had married. Their sex life, since the two boys, had dwindled like candle flames in the wind. It had not always been so. The second boy had nearly cost her life. Three days in intensive care, and Sammy sitting outside the glass, bargaining with God. Neither of them spoke about it anymore, but something in him had shut that week and never fully opened again.
He was either too tired, in body and mind, to respond to her advances, or simply uninterested.
At first Sarah found his nonchalance worrisome. She could not fathom what had gone wrong. Once in a quarter could not be considered a healthy sex life.
To spice things up, she joined the local gym in the neighbourhood and stuck to the rigorous routine. After the first month she started missing sessions, and the calories she had laboured so hard to lose came back within days. It was just too much hard work to stay in shape for Sammy.
She shopped for new and insanely sexy lingerie. She joined more than one online sex class to prepare for the bedroom, but Sammy was never home long enough to test her newly acquired skills. Soon enough, she resorted to self-help.
She named him Pablo. He was her plastic dildo.
If Sammy was not going to give her some, she would sort out her needs by herself, she concluded.
That was when she noticed that her husband talked in his sleep. She had stayed up late one night, weeks earlier, to finish a Netflix series that had held her spellbound, when he started whispering into the pillow.
“Tobe, darling, don’t play like that. Come here.”
Sarah turned to look at her husband in shock. She cocked her head to confirm that she had heard right.
“Who is Tobe?” she asked herself quietly, as though not to wake him. She paused her movie. There were more important things than movies right there. No one she knew or associated with bore that name.
But Sammy had more to say. He was not quite done.
“Baby, let’s go one more round.” His voice trailed into a faint whisper and slurred gibberish.
“Quickie.” And then he chuckled.
“Bastard!” Sarah spat hot air at her sleeping husband. Her mind raced, touching base with every possibility until it settled on the only one that fit. Her husband was cheating on her.
She did not sleep that night. At four in the morning she lifted his phone from the bedside table. He had never needed to hide anything from her, and the passcode was the boys’ birthdays. What she found there she told no one. She simply began, quietly, to plan.
Now she stood by the bed, clapping with the boys, as Sammy blew out the candles. She smiled the whole time.
There was no flight to Dubai on any manifest under her husband’s name. She had checked.
Loose Ends · Continue reading
Continue to Chapter 14
The story continues in the next chapter.
What stayed with you? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
The featured photograph is used under the Pexels licence. Contextual scene illustrations are original editorial artwork created for this serial; the characters and events are fictional. Featured photograph source. Editorial design by akinakingbogun.com.
Discover more from Akin Akingbogun
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.