I drove into her cunt with determination. She squealed her pleasure at every stroke. I was holding her legs up by the crook of my arm under her knees so that her pussy was wide open, available to my depredations. She moaned lustily from a violent hunger. I thought my uncle was a fool for neglecting such a sweet woman. Why had he even bothered to remarry?
You see, my uncle and I had been friends since I was in High school. I cannot tell you what had brought us together despite our disparity in age. Many people commented that we are very much alike in behavior, if not in looks. Surely that can only be genetic! My mother and he are siblings, she being the eldest in the family. Strangely, the first time my uncle and I would have spent a day together was actually a disaster.
He had told me that on a Saturday we would go to watch Formula One racing at Langalanga track near Nakuru. That whole week I was in a lather of excitement. On Friday night, I went to bed early, wanting to rest and refresh myself. But I was awake in the middle of the night. It must have been midnight since I lay awake and tossing for a very long time before I started hearing the cock crowing from three in the morning. Finally, dawn did come and I woke everyone up with the noise I made in my clumsiness. I was to meet my uncle at the junction of the highway with the road towards his home, about two and a half kilometres from my home. The time? Seven.
When I checked the wall clock in the sitting room it was 6:10. My sister had been ordered by my mother to wake up and prepare water for my bath and some breakfast. The sweet girl had my breakfast on the table by the time I came from taking my bath. I dressed in my only pair of trousers, a shirt, and pulled on a pullover; I had heard that the Nakuru area could be cold. Quickly I swallowed my breakfast and set out. I ran all the way despite that buses were passing me; but I had no money to pay the fare. There was a very straight stretch of more than half a kilometre after I rounded the last corner. I estimated I had taken a little over fifteen minutes to get there. It would hardly take more than five more and I could actually see my uncle's grey car parked at the side of the road near the primary school gate. I kept my speed up, the car getting larger and larger as I got nearer. My lungs were working furiously although I was not panting too heavily. My teenage body was in good condition.
I saw myself in my uncle's car on the long journey to Langalanga. It would be the longest journey of my entire life. I felt grateful that my uncle had chosen to go with me, and I hoped my cousins would be there as well. Lately though we had heard that he and his wife were not on the best of terms and this trip might just be his way of spending the Saturday away from home. The distance kept closing and just as I thought I could stop running to give my lungs some rest so that I would not be panting hard when I got into the car, I heard the starter. What? Would he leave me behind when I was within shouting distance? Incredibly I next heard the gear being engaged. My uncle would really leave me behind? I increased my speed to my utmost for the remaining few metres but I could not believe my eyes when the car lurched forward, swung into the road and started off without me.
"Uncle, I am here! Wait for me," continuing to run after the car. I am sure he could hear me. Surely he could see me in his driving mirror! But why did he lie to me that he would take me and then leave me behind after all the running I had done? Moreover, he was all alone in the car as I could now see. The car picked up speed and I could not keep up. I watched as it grew smaller in the distance and finally disappeared round the bend. My steps slowed and faltered. I bent over holding my knees, unaware of my surroundings until a bus hooted at me. I had not realized I was on the tarmac! My body broke into racking sobs. Huge, heavy tears fell from my eyes into the red dust at my feet. I had to drag myself back to reality and prevent myself crying out loud like a girl. What if someone saw me crying? Horror!
I continued walking toward the shopping centre, but without any definite aim. Thoughts were tumbling over one another in my head. What would I tell my mother, or my siblings if I returned without having gone to Langalanga? Would they not laugh at me until kingdom come? What about my classmates on Monday, if I do not have stories of my trip to Nakuru, which I had trumpeted about for a week? Then I thought, 'It was not really my fault that I did not go. I did wake up early. I did run all the two and a half kilometres. I did see my uncle in his car. No, I do not know why, but it was not I who failed.'
Abruptly I turned round and headed for home. My mother, on hearing my story was consumed with indignation against her younger brother. Why should he punish her son like that? Does he think he is the first one to own a car? She ranted and raved for fully an hour until I almost started to feel sorry for the absent uncle. But the pain of my lungs as I finally gave up chase was still fresh in my memory.
Of course my siblings made fun of my failure to go one better than they. As did my classmates on Monday. Each taunt reawakened my pain of that Saturday morning.
My mother must have upbraided my uncle about the Langalanga incident, that he had chosen to enjoy it alone. My sister heard them speaking heatedly to each other when my uncle had come to visit; I was in school. He said that I was late to arrive at the rendezvous and he had actually seen me. He heard my voice calling out. But the fact was that at the agreed time I was not in the car. My mother grumbled at such impatience and asked him if he thought he was a white man. When that story reached my ears, instead of being annoyed I resolved never to be late for anything else in my life, even in school. The other boys did not know the reason behind my compulsiveness to keep time so that I always arrived a few minutes before.
I heard my uncle praise my aunt, the wife of his younger brother. He said that she was the only person with whom he could have a successful rendezvous because she had respect for time. She would arrive earlier than the agreed time. I wondered how she could do that, with five small children to look after, a plot of land to farm, besides her job as a teacher. Surely those duties would delay her so that she would not be punctual? But I heard reports that she was always, ever on time, wherever, anywhere. She thus became my inspiration to win my uncle's approval like she had. If she could do it with so many pressing matters, I told myself firmly, so could I.
It is probably this practice that brought my uncle and I closer so that in later years even after I married we worked together on many projects, principally involving the purchase of land in Masai country and buying shares on land buying and real estate concerns. These joint ownerships cemented the bonds between a man and the son of his sister. In fact when his marriage had began to unravel he would refer to those difficulties obliquely. I even learnt of the final denouement although not by any direct reference by him.
Two years later, I heard that he was wooing the daughter of Felix, the local thatcher who had trained himself to roof in corrugated iron. He had a huge tract of land, which made him one of the wealthier members of the society, as then composed. Rebecca had been in my class in primary school. With her plump looks, full cheeks and rounded forehead she had been good-looking and I had liked her. She, too, referred to me as her 'friend' in our childhood. Of course we knew nothing of love or sex, or marriage. So now I could see that she was about to become involved in our family in a big way. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered whether what I had felt in my very early days was in some way connected with my friend and my uncle falling in love with Rebecca. It was uncanny.
Because his ex-wife was still living the church became stubborn about a wedding and baptism of their children when they came. I had pulled back from visiting my uncle at home when he had had marital difficulties and after she left, but now with my childhood friend there, I found myself much more at ease when I visited. She too seemed to be happy to see me. She would serve me a meal, which I would feel was too big for me. She would take it away only to return with a larger plate. It seemed to me that she wanted the serving to seem that she had reduced it because it occupied less plate space, but she had in fact done no such thing.
