Surprise, surprise! My sister-in-law has got a boyfriend. An older man, with greying hair. My sister-in-law, you must understand, is a very straight-laced woman, very religious, very prayerful. She had never displayed any interest in men in all the time I had known her before we began seeing her with this man who was seemingly exciting her so much.
We first met him when he came to visit us at my wife's parents' place. I worked in Mombasa but Ann, my wife, preferred the schools in Nairobi to those in Mombasa so she stayed in her parents' house just outside Nairobi, where she could take our son to a school nearby. I came to visit them once in a while. My sister-in-law worked out of the country and when she came home on leave, would come to stay with her sister in their parents' original home. It had also happened once in a while that when I'm up from the coast, she has come to visit. We will meet in that house and we'll all stay together. She's as tall as, or actually taller than, my wife. Even in my mind its a little difficult to decide which one of them is the more beautiful, but in the family it is held that my wife is more beautiful because she's light-skinned, has a lovely, sunny smile and a nice figure with huge breasts that I much love holding. She looks absolutely gorgeous I agree, but Debbie is also very good looking, with the same large bosom. Her eyes are much larger and sometimes seem to be looking right through you. I sometimes think she's more beautiful than my own wife. The two of them could even pass for twins, though they are actually three years apart.
There was this time she flew in to join the family as usual. We drove to pick her up at the airport and then headed home. Then out of the blues, she tells us that she's got a friend who would come and visit us. She told my wife that she too knew the man; that they had known the man and his family since they were children. My sister-in-law was very excited about the prospect of this guy coming to visit. This caused me to wonder what kind of person this was. This was because we never had heard our sister-in-law talking about any man in her life, although we thought that despite that stiff exterior she probably has had her flings, but she was never really serious about them and never thought of marrying any one of them. So we were eager to see this one who had pierced her armour.
He came for a lunch the two sisters had prepared for him with much giggling in the kitchen. They were very excited about his coming. When he arrived the tallest, darkest man I had ever seen in my life confronted me. He had these rimless spectacles with a greenish tinge to them. Debbie introduced him as Bill. Because of his height he had this way of looking at people as if he's looking down at them, which made him seem very proud and I wondered how my sister-in-law actually got in contact with this man. He seemed too aloof, and too proud to notice our Debbie even though she worked a diplomatic job in one of our missions abroad.
But he greeted us all very cordially. I could see my wife was somehow excited by his presence. I caught her several times looking in his direction when she thought that he was not looking. I noticed those looks as his eyes met with hers. I'll be damned if I did not see a spark flying between the two of them opposite each other at table. I was opposite my sister-in-law who was next to her new boyfriend. I could see there were probably some things happening with the lovers under the table like holding each other's hands, playing under the table, but at the same time my wife was shooting Bill eyes and as soon as he looked back at her there was definitely a spark.
Strangely, instead of me getting annoyed or jealous, I found myself getting excited about what was developing between Bill and my wife. 'Now that is a very strange thought,' I said to myself. I had never thought of anything like that but maybe it was because in my mind he did not present a permanent danger to my marriage since he was so obviously in love with Debbie. I could see there was a powerful magnetism between the two of them but didn't think it really mattered.
Bill was telling us about his new RAV4 that he had just bought, a vehicle which is very good for the road as well as off-road. How surprised I was to discover that Bill loved road trips! Somehow talk turned to the four of us on a road trip. Something shot through me while thinking about my sister-in-law, me and my wife and Bill on such a trip. I was thinking not so much about me and my wife, or Bill and his girlfriend but in a crooked, incestuous way. I had never had such a thought in my life but still we decided that the following month while Ann would be at the coast with me, Bill and Debbie would drive down and then we would take that trip all the way to Lamu, an island in the Indian Ocean.
In the days before Bill and my sister-in-law were to arrive, I seemed to be getting more and more excited and I could see that Ann herself was looking forward to it with a lot of excitement. I wondered what it all had to do with the looks I had seen crossing between her and Bill during that lunch.