CULT ON THE HILLS

CHAPTER ONE.

He sat there, wondering what his next move would be while stroking his cat Whiskers. Luke had been recently fired as manager in an IT firm in Nairobi. Not because he wasn’t good at his job, he was, but Jane from accounting, who held a grudge against him because he created a better security system for the firm and money could no longer be easily siphoned. Luke was the kind of guy every employer would want. He was hardworking, first one to arrive in the morning and very proactive. He was outgoing, bubbly personality and could always lend a helping hand to anybody and was easy on the eyes. Everybody loved him. Well, everybody apart from Jane from accounting.

She spread a rumour around that Luke had been inappropriate towards her, sexually. She filed a complaint to the administration and threatened that if no action would be taken she’d spread it online and tarnish the firm’s brand. As to avoid this, the board saw it fit to terminate him of his duties with no investigations done of the allegation questioned. Luke lost his job.

Anybody would be heartbroken for losing their job in such a manner but not Luke. He hated his job. He was the first in the morning because what he hated more than his job was the morning Nairobi traffic, the job never had good allowances, the pay was great but who do you think was paying the loans the government was taking? Add the NHIF, transport, savings, NSSF, countless bills and some few coins lost through gambling via SportPesa (well that’s his fault really), he was left with little amounts to go by and he was passed countless times for a promotion as a regional head. Apart from the allegations, he was happy with finally getting out of there.

All of his life he wanted to be a farmer, get a piece of land and grow vegetables and have a few cows. A simple farm life was all he craved for. As he sat on his sofa wondering how he’d get that life, he had a knock on his door. He peeped through the curtain window and it was his best friend Douglas. They had met at a campus party when they realized that they had been dating the same girl. You’d expect, as most typical male species that they’d fight over the girl like two hippos on National Geographic but no, they both ditched the girl and a friendship sprung. Douglas was from a wealthy family. Well, they should be wealthy, his father and grandfather were politicians. Not there’s anything wrong with wealthy politicians but come on, they are politicians!

“So, you guy, I heard you got fired from your jobo?”  Douglas asked as he entered Luke’s house.

“Yeah. You remember Jane from accounting? The one I told you she was into me but I ditched her for an intern at our end year party.” Luke said as he closed the door.

“Yeah I do. Wait, she had been holding a grudge all this long? But you did her bad though. You two had something going on. I even remember how much you liked her. What happened to that?” Douglas asked.

Luke sat on the sofa next to Whiskers.

“At first it was all good. We had something going on and I genuinely like her. She was beautiful, intelligent, a really nice body, funny and I was extremely comfortable around her, I saw it going somewhere. She...” “Wait, did you guys do it?”  Douglas excitedly interrupted.

“Calm down!” Luke replied.

“But yes, we definitely did.” Luke said as he grinned.

“Okay okay, so, she would come over to my place, spend most weekends here.” He continued. “At first, I had told her that I wasn’t looking for anything serious and that I wasn’t willing to let what we had lead to anything emotional and she agreed to that but maaan was I wrong. It all started when the new interns came in. there was this fine young thing that wore glasses and si you know me and glasses aye”, Luke smiled as he let his tongue out smiling.

Douglas just smiled. Eyes wide open, leaning forward waiting on every word that would come out next from Luke’s mouth like a dog waiting on a bone. The topic on girls always had him on the edge of his sit. A sexual escapade or a just one about a dramatic encounter with a girl, he was all ears, you had his attention and he was ready to be served with tea.

“The interns were my responsibility. I had to train them and evaluate how they were doing and if they deserve to work for us. So, I got spend a lot of time with them. The girl in specs was really beautiful my guy, whaat!! Every guy in the office was eyeing her and she knew it because she flaunted what she had. She could swing it in the office. Now the other ladies got a bit jealous, you know, the attention their work boyfriends gave them had now shifted to this peng (beautiful) girl.”

“Weeks had passed and the interns were making good progress, and the girl in specs was struggling a bit with some code we were working on so I had to get on a one on one conversation with her and help her out, you know, as a professional. She stepped into my office and I was just floored by how sexy she looked.”

“You better described what she wore!” Douglas interrupted again.

“I was about to you fool, kuwa mpole (be patient).” Luke replied.

“She had on this yellow dress that hugged her figure and was just below the knees. Her legs looked as soft as silk. You could practically get turned on just by looking at her legs. Her chest, damn her chest!” Luke exclaimed as he put his palm on his face while biting his lip.

“He cleavage was out but not all extra but it was a professional; cleavage. If I may call it that. You understand what I mean, right?” Luke asked.

“Oh yes I do. I once saw a professional cleavage in my dad’s office and I instantly had a hard on.” Douglas replied, reminiscing on what he had seen.

“From the door to my desk I swear she walked in slow mo. He boobs were bouncing as if she was one of those ladies in Bay Watch. Her face, damn, her face! You know, she had this chocolate complexion, not too much make up and had on red lipstick on her tender plum lips. I don’t even know how many times I licked my lips in those few seconds.”

“Then she comes up to me and says;

Excuse me, you wanted to see me?

Took me a while to regain my composure and then I was like;

Yes, please have a seat. I wanted to talk to you about the code for the accounting system. I had given every intern a task to write a code for a particular function and yours was a bit messy and had some few errors when building and was wondering if...”

“Msee (dude), you do understand that I don’t understand code lingual, right. Si you just say blah blah blah and get on to the juicy parts, I’m dying here” Douglas again interrupted.

“You want the whole story, right?” Luke asked.

“Yes I do.” Douglas answered.

“Good, then chill.”

“I explained to her why I called her and she told me she had some issues understanding the whole code concept and needed help. I was happy that she admitted she needed help and as a professional and someone who understood how the whole code worked, I told her I could help her with it.”

“As a professional huh?” Douglas mockingly asked.

“Yes, as a professional.”

Luke continued.

“For the next couple of days, she would come into my office at lunch time or after 5 and we would go over the code together and every time she walked in, it was always in slow mo. But I always maintained a professional relationship with her at all times.”

“Wait, the other people in the office weren’t talking?” Douglas asked.

“Not really, they believed I couldn’t do anything since they all knew and assumed Jane and I were dating. Only downside was that they thought the intern was being like that to get favors.

So this one time she comes in and you know, she’s been making progress and I noted she could do the work all on her own so it was like my last time to tutor her. After I finish guiding her, she touches my hand and straight to my face, says thank you, giggles and says that I smell nice. In my head I’m having these conflicting ideas. I’m over there thinking if she gave me a professional compliment but I could swear that giggle was seductive and the way she said it, it was just way too suggestive. I stammered for a while then smiled like a fool and just looked at her as she walked away. I’d be lying if I said I did not stare at her ass and guess who caught me staring?”

“No way!! Jane?” Douglas asked excitingly.

“Yes, she caught me staring at her ass. I pretended I wasn’t looking and next thing you know, she came into my office, shut the door behind her and boy did she bring some drama. I explained to her that there wasn’t much going on and that she had no right to storm in like that since her and I weren’t exclusive. Wee, that was a mistake.

For the next couple of days, she was all nice, she still could come over. Gave me that girlfriend type of love. Life was good. Until I found her sniffing around my phone one weekend. Going through my texts. Oh Boy was I furious. She claimed that she didn’t trust me and that I was a major flirt. Which is true but as far as I knew I was single and I could catch me some more fish. That got her extra mad and she stormed out of the house. The next day at work it cold at work. She gave me this looks like she could kill me at any time and I guess everybody noticed that all was not right. Everybody including the hot intern. She started giving me extra attention and eyeing me every chance she got. I tried to maintain a professional boundary but I found myself asking her out for drinks. Which she agreed to by the way.

We went to this joint in town called T2 along Accra Road. My usual drinking place when I’m running away from my workmates. There we are three bottles of beer down and a couple of Jägermeister shots for each of us. She stands up and starts dancing. All eyes were on her I tell you. I just stared at her as she danced all happy. It’s like I saw an angel man. I was catching feelings man, I really was.”

“I always told you Jägermeister shots are the devils’.” Douglas said laughing.

“I do not doubt it one bit. Then she takes my hand and drags me off my chair. Next thing I know; she’s whining on me. I could feel her every swing against me. I was trying the best I could to not get a hard on but the lil’ man had a mind of its own. It was so sexual man. She danced like we were the only ones in the club dancing and for a while I thought so too. Grabbed her waist and pulled her completely in and started to kiss her neck. She was okay with it the first few seconds then she pulled away. It felt like I had been woken up from a dream.

I open my eyes and guess who I see, Jane!!

Her face was just filled with fury.”

“What was she doing there?” Douglas curiously asked.

“I used to take her there and she loved the place.” Luke replied.

“Then why go there if there was a chance of bumping into Jane?” Douglas asked, pointing out a more logical move Luke could have used.

“If you were to see this girl, trust me, that would never have crossed your mind.” Luke answered, trying to justify himself.

“I totally get you there.” Douglas said.

“So, I just stood there, looking at Jane as she walked away. I knew I had hurt her but I was way too tipsy to even care about it. We continued drinking and I called her an Uber and she went home.”

“Wait, you didn’t go with her to your place?” Douglas surprisingly asked.

“Apana, lazima nicheze chini kama gentleman (No, I had to play it cool like a gentleman). I went home knowing very well the coming week was going to be hell.” Luke continued.

“So, the following week we had our end year party. Jane was completely avoiding me throughout the week and honestly that did not bother me much. Friday was when the party was to be held starting at around 3pm. So, had to be sending the interns to help out with the planning and organizing the whole set up. We could steal glances with the intern and it felt so wrong yet so right. The many times I undressed her in my head that day, wee, countless.

Next thing you know, it’s 3. People start filling up the hall, bosses walk in and by 4:30 pm they had finished with all their speeches and it was time for people to start drinking. I walked towards the table where the interns were. You know, to be all chatty with them but my main goal was to talk with The intern. I was a cool boss to them I’d like to think since I told them to drink up and some got a bit too excited with the alcohol and they became prey for the other guys in the office. Even the ladies were fishing for the male interns, it was exciting to watch. For my intern, she curved them all. I felt so lucky my guy. She later on came to where I was and we got to talking. She laughed at my jokes man and you know how stale they can be at times but she genuinely laughed at them.”

They both laughed.

“Jane saw us and you know, right now she is drunk as hell. She walks towards us and starts putting her hand on my chest and kissing me on the cheeks. I try to push her away but she doesn’t bulge. She holds my hand and puts it on her ass. Now mind you, people start looking at us and over there all embarrassed. The intern excuses herself and I get all mad because I was close to ask her to come home with me. So I take Jane to a corner and try to get through her drunken ass that we are over and she shouldn’t do that ever again. She starts throwing a tantrum then says that she’d make me regret doing all that to her. Long story short, that’s how I lost my job.”

“What about the whole accounting thing and creating a security system?” Douglas asked in confusion.

“Yeah, that was just a rumour Jane spread around so that guys wouldn’t really find out exactly why I got fired.” Luke answered.

“What about the intern, did you smash that?”

“No, by the time I was done with Jane, she had already left.”

“Bummer”

“Yeah but she’ll be coming over tomorrow.”

“Yaaaas. Get that.”

They both laughed. Luke then stood up and walked towards the kitchen. “You want something to drink?”, he asked.

“Yeah, just give me bring me some water since I know your broke ass doesn’t have any other drink.” Douglas jokingly said.

“I have juice in the fridge but water it is.”

Luke came back holding a glass of water in one hand and a glass of juice in the other and set them on the table.

“So, what do you planning on doing now?” Douglas asked.

“I’m thinking of getting into farming. I’ve always wanted to get into it and I see this as an opportunity to finally get into it but I don’t know where to start, how and where I’ll get land, farming equipment and a place to stay.”

“Wait, my dad was beating me up for not utilizing the land we have in Tetu. It’s in the highlands and the good thing is, it comes with a three-bedroom house. It’s about ten acres of idle land and he had already bought every farming equipment so as to lure me to get there. I could tell him that you want to muse that land. Doubt he’d be against it since he likes you a lot.” Douglas suggested.

An excited Luke replied, “I’d really love that man.”

“So I’ll talk to him when we meet up in a few. Speaking of which, what time is it?”

“It’s 4pm.”

“Shit. I am going to be late to meet with him. I have to go.” Douglas springs off from the chair and hurriedly leaves the house.