The Senator glances at the clock and then rises from his chair. It is lunchtime, and he has already decided that today is the day he will finally have her. He picks up his phone from the desk and walks to the outer office, where Alice is seated. Alice is his personal assistant. She is not only beautiful, with a shapely figure, but she is also intelligent, confident, and pleasant. She is probably the second-best PA he has had, after Rose. And since she has only worked for him for five months, she might even prove to be better than Rose with time.
Like all the women who have previously served as his PA, the Senator rescued Alice from the jaws of poverty. He met her by chance. He had been invited to a fundraiser in his home county of Tharaka Nithi and Anna, his PA then, scheduled that fundraiser in his diary. Whenever invitations get to his office, it is his PA who sorts them out and discusses them with him before she diarizes them.
Ironically it was Anna who insisted that he would have to make one visit to Tharaka Nithi since it had been a while since he visited the county. The Senator did not see what value visiting Tharaka Nithi would add to his presidential ambitions since he already had the county and the neighboring counties of Meru and Embu locked and sealed. But Anna reminded him that as a politician, he should never take any of his supporters for granted, especially the loyal ones.
Most of the Senator’s PAs tend to be commercially inclined, but Anna was more politically inclined than business-minded, and the Senator knew that she wanted a key role in State House. He reluctantly agreed to make the trip to Tharaka Nithi. Anna did not know that she was preparing him to meet her successor.
That was over a year ago. Anna died just three days before the Senator traveled to Tharaka Nithi for the fundraiser.
*
It is the host pastor in Tharaka Nithi who introduced the Senator to Alice. He mentioned that she was a jobless graduate, and the Senator instantly knew he wanted her to replace Anna as his PA since Anna had died three days before. Alice was wrapped in poverty, but even in that state, the Senator was enamored by her smile and her raw beauty. He expected some resistance from his wife Carol, but there was none. He came to learn later that that was because she had set her eyes on Alice’s husband Bernard. Sometimes the Senator is jealous of that boy, but he doesn’t complain. He sleeps with multiple women, and he cannot fault Carol for finding sexual satisfaction elsewhere.
*
Alice has proven to be an effective PA during the five months that she has worked for him. The only thing he has not tested her on is her bedroom skills, and he has decided that today is the day. Alice has been with him for five months, but he has restrained himself for various reasons, the main one of course being the injury he suffered during his encounter with Anna.
But he is fully healed now. As he passes by her desk, he informs her that they are going for lunch. Her mild perfume and her beautiful smile intoxicate him and he wants her more urgently, but he exercises restraint. He has waited for five months; he can wait for an hour or so more. Whenever they are traveling, Alice goes with the guards in the chase car. But the Senator wants that to change today. So, when they get to the parking lot, he tells her to join him in his car. This will be her position onwards, except when he is traveling with his wife.
As they head to the hotel where they will be having lunch, they chat about this and that. Hotel staff usher them into the Senator’s favorite cottage. He likes it because of the privacy that it affords him. The cottage is a two-bedroom suite that has a separate living room and dining room. The Senator uses it mostly for his daytime romps, but he has spent nights here on occasions where a girl has impressed him enough for him to want to spend more time with her. He spent quite several nights with Rose here before he bought her a house.
*
The Senator endures the meal. The food is delicious. It has to be because he owns the hotel and he would fire the entire kitchen staff if it wasn’t. But food is not what he had in mind for this particular lunch. Mercifully, the meal ends, and the guards retreat to the vehicles to give him privacy. They always know what to do.
Once they have left, the Senator takes Alice in his arms. She resists, but that is not unexpected. Many of the girls he sleeps with make a pretense of resisting the first time. He kisses her, but she begs him to stop. She reminds him that they are both married to other people, and that is when he tells her the truth: her beloved husband Bernard has been having an affair with his own wife Carol.
Although she continues to protest, he carries her to the bed and forces himself on her. Her resistance only makes his desire greater. As he dresses after the act, he tells himself that he is fortunate this time around. Alice is a beautiful and pleasant girl, and he has enjoyed having her. He kisses her on the nape of her neck as he leaves the room, and tells her that his driver Matteo will be waiting to drive her home when she is ready. Matteo is the driver of his chase car. The Senator has a meeting in the afternoon that he would have loved her to attend, but he asks her to take the afternoon off. That is his way of saying thank you and showing her that he cares.
As his driver pulls out of the hotel, the Senator is generally pleased with himself and with Alice. Maybe she will be his third wife. Time will tell. She cried throughout the process, and she didn’t talk to him afterward, but she will come around. At least she didn’t kick and bite him like that wild animal Anna did. Anna nearly killed him when she bit his manhood.
*
Anna had been a member of Senator Fredrick’s church, and he had noticed her when she started leading praise and worship. She was passionate about everything she did, whether it was leading praise and worship songs, leading fellowships, or engaging in other activities in the church. The Senator found himself wondering, every time he watched her at the pulpit, whether she applied the same passion in bed. There was only one way to find out. He inquired about her and was told that she had been abandoned by her husband, and left with two young children. He was also told that she was jobless, or technically jobless because she running a small vegetable kiosk even though she had a degree in communications. That made her a perfect candidate.
The Senator has slept with all kinds of women in his life, but he has a preference for vulnerable women. He has slept with female corporate leaders, senior female politicians, and even female pastors, but nothing compares to the feeling he gets whenever he has a woman he has rescued from the depths of poverty. He cannot explain it.
*
When the Senator called Anna into his church office, he knew that he would hire her. At the time he had a very efficient PA called Rose. Rose had served him for six years, doubling up as his main mistress. Rose understood, and still understands, the Senator at an emotional level in a way that even Carol doesn’t. Carol knows this, but she also knows that she has a position in his life that no woman can ever take. Carol has never been insecure about her husband’s wayward ways. She sees it more as a nuisance because of the cleaning up she is often called upon to do when things go sideways than a betrayal.
In fact, Carol encouraged the relationship between her husband and Rose because during the time Fredrick was with Rose, he had fewer casual flings. Rose is a drama-averse woman, and she stabilized the Senator in a way that Carol appreciated. The Senator fathered Rose’s two children, and he was responsible for the break-up between her and her live-in boyfriend of two years. Rose is technically Fredrick’s second wife. He bought her a two-and-a-half acre piece of land in Thika and built her a four-bedroom house, which is more or less his second home. This is of course not publicly acknowledged because the Senator is also a church Bishop.
But driven by the desire to have Anna close to him, he promoted Rose to the position of General Manager within Ruguaru Group and made Anna his PA. He wanted Anna to become his main mistress, although he knew he would still be seeing Rose regularly because he needed her for emotional support. The Senator and his wife Carol have not made love in over ten years.
*
Senator (Bishop) Fredrick Ruguaru’s life is complicated. He is a charismatic preacher and church leader, and even his fiercest critics admit that he looks authentic in his Christian faith. Whenever he preaches, he looks like he truly believes. And this cascades into most aspects of his life, including the political side of his life. He has often been described as a “firm but compassionate and God-fearing leader”. But “most” is a keyword in the description. That is because while he might be described by some as compassionate, there is a part of him that makes him an instinctive predator. In the years that he has worked in the family business, the Senator has closed deals that left even his father amazed. And that says a lot because the old man was a ruthless corporate shark. The Senator knows how to smell weakness and go for the jugular. Almost always, he gets what he wants, and that has been good for Ruguaru Group. And it has also been good for his political career. Unfortunately, it also applies to his sexual life. Any woman the Senator wants, The Senator gets.
*
Senator Fredrick was born into wealth, the only child of a wealthy business mogul called Benson Ruguaru. The Senator’s grandfather, Richard, had laid the foundation for their wealth when he established the Ruguaru Cattle Ranch and started large-scale beef farming. Richard had gone to school during the colonial days and had grown to be a leading economist in the country. In his prime, around the time the country got independence, he was working for the IMF. He was later tapped by the Moi government and worked as a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Finance. He left the government to establish the ranch.
Richard had three children: Benson, Margaret, and William. William became a lawyer and Margaret a biologist, and neither had any interest in farming. It was the youngest son, Benson, who showed interest in their father’s business. After graduating from university, Benson became his father’s apprentice, and he worked hard at the firm mastering every process involved.
By the time Richard died, Benson was running the ranch and had established a meat processing plant within it. He had also established his own businesses, quite apart from his father’s. For instance, he had started building rental houses, and he had mobilized other businessmen to establish a microfinance bank. When Richard died, Benson bought off his siblings and became the sole owner of their father’s ranch and meat processing factory.
Over the years, the microfinance bank that Benson and his friends established grew into a full bank. It currently has seventeen branches across the country, and Ruguaru Group is the second largest shareholder. Benson and his friends also established their own insurance company, which has grown big enough to attract the attention of a South African giant. The South Africans bought the majority stake in the insurance company, but Benson retained significant shareholding worth more than half a billion shillings. Fredrick later transferred this stake to the Ruguaru Group.
As Benson grew older, he realized that while his son Fredrick was brilliant, charismatic, and very conniving, he lacked the patience and administrative ability to run the business. This would have been a big headache for the old man since he did not have any other child with his wife. His wife Agnes had struggled with fertility, and it had been after a lot of struggle that she had been able to conceive Fredrick. Benson had children out of wedlock, but he knew that introducing them to the business would have been a recipe for chaos.
But Benson also realized something else: Fredrick had found a solution to his weakness in the name of his wife Carol. While Carol lacks the charisma of her husband, she is equally intelligent and is a very effective administrator. When Benson noticed her abilities, she was practically running the operations of the church that Fredrick had established.
Benson appointed Carol as a manager in the family business and started entrusting her with more and more responsibilities. Benson had two mistresses and four children out of wedlock. After the fourth child was born, he got a vasectomy, seeing it as a way of securing the future of his children. He took care of all his children, even the secret ones. While he was not faithful to his wife and therefore had no moral standing to judge, he recognized that his son was more reckless with his sexual life.
*
Fredrick, for all his religious zealotry, was a sexual predator even as a young man. He started having sexual intercourse with house assistants when he was 12. One house assistant alleged that he had raped her when he was 17, and Benson had to buy her silence. Benson knew that this kind of recklessness was not good for business, and that is why he brought Carol on board.
When the time to appoint Fredrick to the company’s board came, he appointed both him and his wife. Both of them are extremely hardworking and intelligent, and Benson knew they were good additions to his team. But Benson knew that Carol was better for the stability of the business, and he knew that his son also knew that. Carol is coldly efficient; she has a ruthless streak that she masks with a façade of sweetness. This showed in the first scandal that Fredrick was involved in as an adult. He impregnated his church secretary and she threatened to expose him. Fredrick wanted to force her to abort the baby and would have bungled the matter, had his wife not stepped in. She told Fredrick to back off and let her handle the issue. No one knows that she did, but a week later, the girl and the church’s bass guitarist announced their engagement. They got married two months later in a colorful wedding and now have three children, including the one who was alleged to be Fredrick’s.
Benson recognized this and that is why, when he made Fredrick the Vice President of the company, he made Carol the Executive Director, which effectively made her the CEO, just by another name. When Benson died, Fredrick became the Group Chairman, but he ceded the Managing Director’s title and role to his wife. Benson had been both the Group Chairman and the Managing Director.
*
The Senator had problems with women, but Anna was probably the nastiest. The problem with Anna was that she saw herself as a gender activist, and The Senator failed to recognize that as a problem. She wanted the job but did not want to sleep with him. Carol knew this and when he hired her, she warned him not to try to sleep with her, even if she showed willingness. Fredrick agreed and he did not make a move on her for a year. He continued seeing Rose, even though she had her own office now with her own secretary and was not by his side every minute. The Senator and Rose would go for lunch together regularly. There is a cottage in a hotel owned by Ruguaru Group that the Senator uses for carnal activities, and that is where he and Rose would go. This arrangement seemed to work for the Senator, and Carol was relieved.
At some point, however, he became impatient, and without alerting Carol, he took Anna out for lunch and forced himself on her. But Anna did not give in without a fight. She fought him hard with kicks, scratches, and bites, but the Senator overpowered her and raped her. Just when he thought he had conquered and subdued her, Anna turned around, grabbed his manhood, and sunk her teeth into it. As he writhed in pain, bleeding, Anna dressed up and fled. She went straight to the police station to report the rape. The Senato swallowed his pride and called the guards to rush him to the hospital. He was stark naked.
Carol was called by the guards as they rushed the Senator to the hospital. She was also called by the OCS after Anna reported her husband. The OCS knew that Carol was the one who took care of stuff like that. Besides the fact that he wouldn’t dare to antagonize the most powerful man in the country, he knew Carol would pay him handsomely for the information.
Carol arranged for Anne’s murder. The guards that she used to kill the girl did not even tell the Senator what happened. But he is a smart man and he must have suspected that Carol was behind Anna’s death. But he has learned over the years not to ask questions because she was cleaning up his mess. Carol is his best friend. While the romance in their marriage died a long time ago, and they seek affection and sexual satisfaction elsewhere, they trust each other completely. Fredrick knows that if there is one person on the planet who would give her life for him, it is Carol. And the feeling is mutual.
Carol wanted them to skip the Tharaka Nithi trip because it came just three days after Anna nearly bit off the Senator’s penis, but the Senator insisted he wanted to go. The damage had not been too severe, but the organ was bandaged. He could go about his business with the help of painkillers, but he could not engage in sexual activity.
They made the trip to Tharaka Nithi, and that is how they met Alice and Bernard.
*
After dropping Alice at her house, Matteo immediately calls Carol. He calls her first because it is his job to do so, but also because he hopes that this effort will save her life. If Carol manages to convince her to drop her stupid idea of going to the police, then she will not have to die. He describes what had happened, and how he ended up alone with Alice.
“Are you taking her to the police station?”
“No, madam. I refused to do that. I have dropped her at her house and now I am headed back to the office. But might take an Uber to the police station.”
“Okay, good job Matteo. Thanks for letting me know. I will take it up from here.”
*
Carol is in her office at Ruguaru Towers when she gets the call about the latest source of her stress. She curses her husband in her heart. Why can’t the man just have one mistress? If only he had stuck with Rose, her own life would be less complicated. She wouldn’t have so much cleaning up to do.
Carol knows that she underestimated the strength and willpower of that girl Alice. When her husband agreed to hire her that Sunday morning in Tharaka Nithi, Carol was not disturbed. A shy, rural girl would not present any resistance to the Senator’s predatory instincts. She was not the type of girl who would have the courage to go head to head with the Senator, unlike Anna who displayed stubbornness and independent-mindedness even when she was an impoverished girl in the church.
Alice appeared to be an eager-to-please girl who would take off her clothes quickly when the Senator asked. She was wearing a wedding band, but that has never been a problem. When Carol learned that Alice’s husband was the well-built young man seated next to her, Carol knew that she had also scored. Her driver and lover of three years had relocated to South Africa three months before, and she had not found a replacement. Unlike her husband, she just doesn’t sleep with anyone. She chooses her lovers carefully. Her new driver is competent, but she didn’t “feel” him. But with Bernard, it was love at first sight.
It took Carol just a month to realize that she had been mistaken about Alice. Bernard is everything she thought he was. He is an enthusiastic lover, and he satisfies her even more than her previous lover. He is energetic in bed, but more importantly, he showers her with the affection that she doesn’t get from her husband. Benson has found the perfect balance between her and his wife Alice, which is important for appearances.
But with Alice, Carol knows that she miscalculated. Far from being a naïve, shy, rural girl, Alice quickly has grown to be a confident, independent-minded young woman. This suits her office perfectly, but Carol has known for months that it would be a problem when the Senator got well enough to want to sleep with her.
As part of her preparation, Carol spoke to Bernard about it. She told him to be prepared to share his wife with the Senator. That, Carol told him, would cement their positions in the Ruguaru empire. And anyway, if Alice was busy with the Senator, their chances of getting discovered were lower, so it would be a win for everyone. Carol figured correctly that Bernard’s ambitions would prevail over petty jealousies. He quickly agreed to talk to his wife, although he expressed doubts as to whether Alice would agree to sleep with the Senator. He told Carol that Alice is quite rigid about her spiritual beliefs.
“In that case don’t talk to her about this just yet,” Carol told him. “I will tell you when to do it.”
*
That time has come.
Carol’s first action is to call Bernard, who is in his office at the church. She goes straight to the point.
“Please talk to your wife about the issue we discussed a while back. It is that time.”
“I know,” Bernard replies. “She has already called me. She wanted to report the Senator to the police, and wanted me to take her.”
“And?”
“I refused, of course.”
“That is not enough Ben. Talk her out of it. It is to everyone’s benefit.”
Even as she speaks, Carol knows that Bernard will not help. She will have to go for a plan B. She calls a guy called Frank. Frank is the ultimate assassin, and Carol only uses him for high-stakes business or political jobs. But she has a bad feeling about Alice, and that is why she engages him. She explains to him who she wants gone and gives him directions to the house. She also describes what Alice looks like.
“When do you want her gone?”
“Now. Get there as fast as you can. I don’t want her to leave the house. And please make it look like a suicide.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, madam. I know my job. I will be there in ten to twenty minutes.”
*
Frank is in the house he was told fifteen minutes after the call. He is fortunate because he gets to the door just as the girl is leaving. He has gotten her just on time.
“Who are you?” the girl asks, fear written all over his face. These are not houses where people get random visitors, and Frank’s physique is intimidating. The girl turns around and starts rushing back inside. She wants to lock herself inside, but Frank reads her intentions quite well. As she dashes inside, he is right behind her. He grabs her and covers her mouth just as she is beginning to scream. He closes the door and then tightens his hand around her neck. He is a large and strong man, and it takes just a few seconds before she becomes unconscious. He drags her to the balcony, where the beams of the ceiling are exposed. He removes a rope from his knapsack, makes a noose, and ties it around her neck. He hangs her on the ceiling beams, which he reaches easily because he is a tall man, and then gets a stool and places it under her feet so that it would appear as if she used it to hang herself and then kicked it away.
She is unconscious but not dead. But she will be dead soon enough. Frank calls Carol immediately after he gets into his car. The car is parked about a kilometer down the road.
“It’s done. Your girl has hanged herself.”
“Good.”
A few minutes later, he receives a notification of a cash deposit from his bank via text message. Smiling, he starts the car and disappears into the Nairobi traffic.
[THE END]
On Sunday I will tell you the whole Ruguaru story in the novella, The Senator.
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