Owens was tall, well over six feet, light-skinned and slender. He had a big voice, and a manner that could be called rough; his language filled with a phraseology all his own. The boldness of his expression would have made some feel insulted as he did not hesitate to speak his mind. But his friends knew that he held no malice in him, no matter how rude he might have sounded.
His family history was tragic to say the least. While he was still in college his father had died suddenly. This had caused great shock as it was so unexpected. He was a very quiet person and very gentle. After a lull of only a few years his younger sister committed suicide by setting herself alight. His brother was found on his bed with his throat slit and the knife still in his hands. Hardly had the village come to terms with these events than his elder sister died in hospital. It was said she had taken an overdose of the drugs given by the doctor for her condition. In the same year his mother, a headstrong woman seemed to give up the will to live and expired. Thus in the space of ten short years he was the only surviving member of his family.
Well, almost. Jean was his cousin, daughter of his mother's sister who had died young when Jean was still a baby. Thus she had been taken into the family and grown up with Owen and his siblings. In school when other boys had made suggestive remarks about Jean they would earn a healthy clout from him for their trouble. But it was an undeniable fact that she was very good-looking, one that Owen could hardly have been unaware of. Indeed recently when a businessman's son had come courting his sister-cousin he had felt a stab of jealousy, although she had not made clear whether she liked the man or not.
Their life continued on a very even tenor. After work they would watch TV after dinner. Often she would go to bed leaving him still glued to the screen. In the mornings she needed to get up early as her workplace was on the other side of town; this meant changing buses. This early retirement gave him opportunity, one evening, to watch a noisy blue movie, and which left him steaming. He thought he heard Jean's door creaking but was not sure. At breakfast she asked politely what he had been watching. Although he liked her (or maybe in spite of it) he could not tell her.
A few nights later Jean had an unusual look in her eyes as they had their dinner. He noticed that her clothes that day had been rather bold and she had changed into a light blouse that was teasing even to his eyes. She seemed to touch him rather more (and more tenderly, he thought) than usual in conversation. She retired as usual but about an hour later came to fetch a glass of water. Owen, engrossed in his movie did not notice her until she sat on the sofa next to him. He pretended not to be shocked at having been caught in the act. He decided to play it cool and made comments about what was going on in a matter-of-fact way and Jean, as smart as he, answered in the same vein. In the business-like way they had adopted she let him know that she had found him watching the dirty movies and that she did not blame him.
