Kelvin and Michelle were colleagues in a bank. Their first meeting was during their job hunting days. They had come, with thousand others to the bank’s headquarters in response to a paid advertisement for vacancies to be filled.
To Kelvin, besides the fact that she was fair skinned and strikingly beautiful, there was something just different about her from the rest which he couldn’t place his hands on. Michelle only took note of him when she caught him staring hard at her, which made her quite uncomfortable. She made to move out of his view and asked someone close by to make room for her to do so. Since he was within her ear shot, he heard her sweet melodious voice and quickly made a mental note to use that as a cue whenever he decided to make a pass at her. Fortunately they were both among the few that scaled through the first stage of the bank’s written test.
By the time they came again for the second stage of the written test, Kelvin decided to make the pass. Michelle thought it preposterous that he would prefer to chase frivolities rather than face an important and defining moment in his life. She, of course, turned down his request. But this didn’t stop him from giving up the chase until he got a positive answer. He changed tactics and decided to be friendly.
If there was one thing Michelle would rather not do, it was to be anything but friendly with Kelvin. Not one brought up to be rude to people in order to drive home her point, she agreed to speak to him only when it was absolutely necessary, albeit grudgingly. The second, third and fourth stages of the interview—written, oral and medical respectively— were a walk-over for both of them and at the end of the rigorous exercise, they ended up among the chosen few that got employment in the bank.
This was an opportunity on a platter of gold for Kelvin and he did utilise it to the fullest. But Michelle proved to be a hard nut to crack. She was simply not interested in having any close intimacy with him. He was to say the least, not her type. She was contented with remaining just platonic friends with him and told him so in every way imaginable but he would not accept that. After several attempts to getting her to change her mind, he accepted to remain just her friend.
On his birthday, he threw a party in his apartment, invited her alongside some of his other friends and colleagues. After the party, and when everyone had left, Michelle decided to stay back a while to help him with the dishes.
That was to be her undoing. Kelvin raped her and tore her clothes in the process. After the deed was done, he held her close and apologised to high heavens just as she wept profusely. She placed a curse on him; for daring to defile her without her consent—he would never know peace in his entire life.
She took what was left of her clothes and drove home. She couldn’t bring herself to telling anyone, knowing that she might be blamed to have been alone with a man who desired her. She nursed her wounds – physical and emotional – silently, never spoke to him again and refused to accept his apologies.
Of course none of them could tell their colleagues what was amiss when they noticed the coldness between them. Two years after the incidence, it is now time for Kelvin to be married. The news was abuzz in the office but Michelle wasn’t bothered. For all she cared, he could be married to a monkey! She was also less interested in the dates of the marriage celebrations or the venues.
But on one fateful Saturday morning, her mother asked her to accompany her to a brief marriage introduction ceremony of one of her cousins who just relocated back from abroad. The sight that greeted her an hour into the ceremony nearly made her to pass out. Kelvin was the intending groom!
At first he didn’t notice her presence there but when he did, which was at the point when he was to be presented to the bride’s family, he became jittery.
With the wedding ceremony over, Michelle is torn between making him pay for defiling her by telling the story to her cousin. To her, she felt revealing who Kelvin was to his wife, would save marital headache in future.
