My Priceless Diamond

MPD- Chapter One

"My priceless Diamond"

Nature bestowed on her long luxuriant jet black hair that fell down almost to her high waist line. Coupled with a pair of honey-coloured pearls of attentive grey eyes that caress and unmask her both at the same time in a chequered sort of way. Her overwhelming power over the other sex, which she surprisingly was not aware of, was something out of this world. When she left her city, Roye in the stone-mixed red soil in the mountainous range that straddle Gama and Asuna zones for the prospect of a respectable means of livelihood in Azuma city; her father, had remarked that she was of those from on-high treading planet earth and carrying their fate in their eyes. Before long, another man was to see beneath her tender sweetness something unimaginable; so powerful that on contact, it surged through one threatening to sweep one off one's feet as it often does.

Now that she was twenty-one, the times appeared to zoom past as deftly as flying boats zig-zagging their ways through the waves on the river. Sometimes, Millicent or Mimi, as she was fondly called by her friends especially, by her boyfriend Jack, who loved her so passionately beyond human description, even more than the memory of his own late mother; titled her head side-ways, lost in thought of how to assist her family's poor financial state as she gazed at them. The thought of her late mother often disturbed her peace of mind. And once she enquired from her father on the cause of her mom's death.... She often got this as a reply;

"She had poured out the residue of her motherly strength to push out into the world and life from her protruding belly before giving up the ghost just an hour later with her palms put together as though in perpetual supplication". That had been a sad period with tombs springing up like poisonous mushrooms dotting the landscape. The Lasa Fever epidemic had taken a huge toll on the population of Roye-city boosting the coffin trade, which your mother fell victim of.. ''The cause of her death was as a result of my financial incapacitated state. I could not save your mother..... I'm very sorry for failing you and your brother" Her father said sadly on tears.

"Rest in peace my best mum,' she always feel guilty for her death.... The both cried bitterly and embarrassed each other in comfort...Even in their silence, they were disturbed as these memories could mean nothing but sadness.....

As usual , Mimi gone out to meet Jack her boyfriend, who just returned from Azuma-city two days ago, after a very long time he left Roye city with no means of communication till now.

"So this is you? Mimi asked with a displeasant gesture.... Quickly, Jack tried everything humanly possible to exonerate himself...

" My love is not what you think! But please I'm very, very sorry for stressing your emotions towards me. I felt hell without hearing your voice, your tender touches, smiles.....is a long story. I was scammed and bankrupted that I had to start life from zero-level. I sold all my valuable property and started a new life from the scratch. All means of communication were shot-down due to my incapacitated state as at then, simply because, I was robbed of all my assets by fraudster in an online business......... "I felt like dying, countlessly. Reckoned! I won't last much longer in your absence. Uncontrollably tears often forced out of my eyes, down my cheeks in thought of a sweet Angel wonderfully put together with a near-olive skin that made you the cinosseur of all eyes; just like the Rose among flowers." Jack said gloomily. Jack thought she was the prettiest creature that walked the earth. To him, for her to be born into this world, heaven must be missing an angel.

"You won't ever pass on. Remember your promise to live forever for me!" Millicent replied with a clouded face of tears. Her love for Jack always forced tears out of her eyes anytime he is sad. This time she tries to checkmate her emotions as she proceeded with a gentle questions.

" How is Azuma-city and her citizens ?" Millicent asked .....

"My journey took me as far as Azuma-city to Mawa town ," Jack said, and his eyes took on a gleam that suggested he was reflecting on far-gone spectacles in the dim corridors of the past.

" Very wonderful experience, I suppose?" Fantastic, he almost exclaimed as the familiar mood of the past seemed to envelope his whole being".

"Sky scrapers as high as the mountains, bright-eyed ladies with alluring smiles on their faces, their hands in your wallet. Giggling girls in hot gowns and skirts promising so much but revealing little. Men with grim faces, others with smiles that oscillated between a grin and a grimace. Their laughter? As rancorous and mirthless as ever. Great crowds moving back and forth in droves. All seeming in a hurry , pushing, shoving and heaving in all directions. With cacophony in the air, the hustle and bustle reached fever pitch during the rush hours. And little children 'talking' English and Pidgin faster than weaver birds. At the bureau de villa, you meet smooth-talking gentlemen in caftans, gold chains and golden teeth. With long hard faces with facial marks, it made them look like wild cats each time they made a great show of trying to smile with flashing eyes that beamed like miniature twin headlamps, they sized you up on how best to cheat you of your dollar, or rather, how best to stick a- knife into your guts if you dared swindle them."

" You left out their women," she reminded.

" Those one...ha...haa! With oily faces half-hidden behind veils, they perched like vultures ready to devour the carcass."..... Though, there are series of temptations that tried to contradict my love and fidelity to you......... Unknown to me! some girls had been monitoring me, my activities and vowed to get me down on bed. So they tried being friendly with me , sitting beside me during lectures and invited me to parties and their gatherings in order to draw my attention. They even showered me with gifts just to buy over my mind. All these I accepted without second thought, except believing in myself that nothing would happen. After all, I did not ask for them. They brought them willingly.... I remembered it as if it were only yesterday memories of how my shameless friend, Stanley got me drunk as to lure me into indulging in sexual immorality, so because of that, I packed out of his house to be myself, perhaps start life a new before I lose my sanity,".

" The thought of your absence made me uncomfortable each nights before going to bed; and in the morning, it perfected my endeavors......... Even in your absence I had been so faithful for a day to meet my princess. Ever since of staying in Azuma-city, I did not indulge in any form of sexual immorality nor relationship of any sort because of your presence in my heart". Jack said emotionally on tears.

The spontaneous outflow of emotions recollected in tranquility was manifested as Mimi hugged Jack so tightly, with a gentle continuous kisses that expelled the sorrows in Jack life.

MPD- Chapter Two

"My priceless Diamond"

All traces of sorrow seemed to have vanished and his joy had returned as he held her with passion, and looked at her with interest. Jack twisted his hands nervously together on her lap. How to proceed from here? She had fleetingly considered this moment in the past few weeks, months and probably, years of his absence, but she had no idea when it finally arrived, and it found her so helpless.

''There is something I must go and get,' she eventually murmured.

''There is nowhere I can go. I'm home-alone', Jack replied.

He was true to his words. When Mimi returned, he seemed hardly to have shifted position. Without a word, she handed him the letter which she was carrying in her hand.

As Jack slit open the envelope and began to read. The room became so still that Mimi could hear all the noises outside, the sound of the distant sea, the soft breeze stirring the grass and trees into rustling movement, almost as though magnified. She waited patiently until Jack had finished, not saying a word when he looked at her and then back to the letter, which he re-read three times.

There was a heavy silence. Jack seemed to wrapped up in his thoughts, and Mimi did not want to disturb them. Conflicting emotions surged through him. Painful memories of her past absence........ It was a terribly cynical thought, but there was a distinct air of frustration about the letter Mimi gave Jack. Which was unacceptable from Jack's point of view. At this time, tears flooded Jack's eyes.

"You are leaving, Please don't leave me", Said Jack in a sober mood....... "

"You can't accept this job offer and besides Azuma-city is not a safe place for a single pretty ones like you," please!........................... .(interrupted by Mimi)

" I had already spread my hands to embrace my dreams. I have waited for this job appointment for the period of three months now, as to help my poor family and especially, my brother John, who dropped out of school, ever since my father retired from his work .. Honey, my departure doesn't mean that I won't continue to love you or that I'm leaving you, no... I loved you with all my heart and nothing will change that.... So please bear with me, I beg of you..... Please let us not argue on this", Mimi said pleading.

She had packed her bag ready to go. The traveling tickets had been processed already. She was leaving as though on a jet plane, not knowing when she would be back again. Thinking about leaving her boyfriend, she felt so lonesome in the whole wide and wild again. But the force that was dragging her towards Azuma-city was more than a magnetic pull to which she felt helpless.

Homeward-bound from the fields, nightfall was approaching with the speed of a hurricane, with a sense of urgency as though it had a date with fate. The surrounding bush and trees could not but feel its' darkening ambience enveloping the entire landscape . A mirror riverside weak droughts tried unsuccessfully to spiral into an eddying wind, bringing up dust and dry leaves on the footpath as she sinuously manoeuvred her way gracefully through the many turns and curves that compromised the course of home coming. The evening birds had a field day hopping up and down flapping their wings in a bid to catch and devour the insects that were now chirping and chirruping in their numbers. Here and there a branch leaned across the path as though they paid obeisance to the returning queen.

All of a sudden, there came the hooting of an owl as though it was calling for a halt to the carnage below between the birds and the insects. And as if on a cue, the dust triggered off a bout of sneezes that made Mimi's skin to crawl and get covered in goose bumps. Her mood was changing to that of premonition as each ominous sign tried very hard to out-do its predecessor. As she hit her foot against a stone, her already frayed mood switched gears in the fashion of an auto, and swung into outright fear that sent electrical trickles and shivers through her entire being.

" I will be home soon safe and dry, and then there will be dad's out-stretched arms and the usual warm embrace as welcoming salutation." She mumbled to herself.

The hooting of the owl came again and again in quick succession, And instinctively panic took the better of her. She began to trot and later broke into full scale run, supporting her breasts with her cupped palms. Rivulets of perspiration were now coursing down her face and arms. Her chest heaved up and down with each stride as she sucked in the fresh and invigorating evening breeze through her enveloping darkness, the breeze fanning her face.

On sighting the Ray of light that escaped through the windows of her father's house, her fright, like factory workers on the afternoon retreated, giving way to the chirpy feeling of being home in one piece. This feeling was like an age-long rite she had arrived home breathless from her perambulations, Jack's apartment.

There was always that final heart-exploding gallop into the vicinity of her home. But on this occasion, their neighbor's dog was whining persistently like it had an urgent message to deliver. This left a sudden sinking feeling in her. And instead of rusting in for her cup of refreshing water, she panned her gaze in different directions, becoming aware, for the first time in a long while, the mound of earth that marked her mother's tomb. In that instant, she remembered with panic that dad had not honoured all her efforts with his usual welcoming hug.

"Dad!" she screamed. There was no response. "Where is dad?" she wondered aloud. He was not in the habit of straying away from home in the dark ... and ... and... definitely not on a day like this. She dashed into the house and was abruptly stopped in her track. Dad lay on the settee with most part of his body lying lifeless on the carpet. With his hat askew, he almost looked like Michael Jackson in a death dance in his musical video clip, "Thriller". But this was no video, and the man with the hat askew was no 'Michael', let alone 'Jackson'. That was her father, the first love of her life, her hope for tomorrow that now seemed elusive, the only surviving parent of her nuclear family.

With no mother, and now, father, her world began to crumble before her like a pack of cards. "Dad is dead!" she whispered looking around as if addressing an invisible audience. The dog stuck its head into the room and whined again as though on a condolence mission. She snapped out of her reverie; back to reality, sheer stack reality at that. In the manner of professional undertakers, but without training, she deftly arranged her father's corpse straight on the settee, closing his open eye-lids, and set about informing the necessary relatives. The future loomed before her like a fire-breathing monster, and she braced herself ready to confront it, prepared to take her future in her hands. Tears misted her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks like twin stream tributaries ending up a water fall from chin to her chest.... At the top of her voice, she screamed bitterly and her shout of sorrow drew all the neighbors, uncle, aunties, cousins, brother and relatives to gathered and mourned with her.

MPD- Chapter Three

''My priceless Diamond''

A bad night is usually comprised of nightmarish dreams, restless tossing and turnings and a shallow, dissatisfying kind of sleep. Mimi suffered from all three types of discomfort. She didn't fall asleep for hours as she tried to analyse her dad's sudden death. She awoke to a feeling of disorientation. The room was in blackness, and she realized that she must have fallen asleep.

She didn't have the energy to get out of bed, even though the clock reminded her that it was nearly eight and only twenty minutes away from dinnertime. She didn't much feel like eating either.

She remained lying where she was, making no effort to fight off the misery gnawing away at her insides. The thought of her dad filled her with anguish, and the anguish glued her to the bed, because all incentive seemed to have left her.......

When she did finally sleep, her dreams were disfigured with dark, unindentifiable figures and plots which couldn't be remembered the next morning but had an aftertaste of unhappiness and distress. She woke up with a faint headache and dark circles under her grey eyes to find that the clouds of the day before had been swept away by a brisk winter breeze and that the sky was an intense blue, the sun's golden Ray's pouring through the paned, leaded windows and making jagged spears of light on the white counterpane of her bed....

Seven months later, after the burial of his father, Jack visited her.

. ( Knock! Knock!) It was Jack at the door.

She ran out of the bed and flung open the door. Jack stood in the hallway, facing in the other direction, his shoulders broad in the fawn wool of his coat, hands jammed into its' pockets, his blond hair tousled and gleaming in the overhead light.

'Jack?' she said softly and surprisedly.

"How are you coping my love?, Asked Jack.

Mimi walked towards him, each step in torture as she struggles to put up a smiling face. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, her legs trembled in fear. She was taking steps in a direction she had never gone before; she was about to admit to the ultimate vulnerability. She wondered if the man before her , with his soft mouth and captivating eyes, knew that he held her happiness in the palm of his hand...... Jack's presence seemed pleasant as it expelled the sorrow in her life and replaces it with perfect joy. And she mumbled uncontrollably " Thanks for visiting, I love you," she whispered.

The silence was so deafening that she was afraid to look anywhere other than down at her feet. She trembled in terror, waiting for his of incredulous laughter, the sneer of rejection, or at the very least, his departure, the door slamming in contempt. Then his hands were encircling her neck like warm bands, his thumbs forcing her chin upwards until their eyes met.

" What did you say?' Jack asked in a stunned voice.

Her grey eyes were soft, her lips tremulous, ' I ... love you.' she repeated it the second time.

She saw from his face that he knew what it took her to say those words after being in this long period of agony, and she also saw something that made the heart in question suddenly lurch and then begin to beat in strong, joyous surges.

''Gosh! Mimi!' he breathed, and suddenly she was in his arms, his mouth warm and passionate on hers , his hands wildly caressing her cheeks, her temples and running through her dark curls as if he were a starved man, fulfilled only by the touch of her. He lifted his head and looked down at her, in blue eyes blazing.

''I never thought you would say it", Jack replied. To him, it is too early for her to accommodate feelings and emotionals.

Mimi buried her face against his shirt front. Mimi joyously entwined her arms around his neck and tangled her fingers in the gleaming strands of his hair.

' Oh, Jack,' she breathlessly, her happiness mixes with a deep sense of loss. ' We have wasted so much time.'

'. Too much,' Jack said roughly, his mouth descending to her waiting lips. Far, far too much.'....

Moonlight filtered through the curtains of her bedroom and spread of a soft white light over the expanse of bed, illuminating the pale gold of Jack's hair and turnings the curves of Mimi's hip, waist and breast to an iridescent ivory. They lay entwined, Mimi's head on the strong curve of his shoulder, her hand resting lightly on his chest where she could feel the slowing pace of his heart. His skin was slightly damp from their lovemaking, its scent warm and musky. She ran her fingers through his body hair to his muscled waist and then further to the sensual line of his thighs. Jack stirred under her caress. 'Witch,' he said lazily. Haven't you had enough?'

They had made love with more tenderness than she had ever imagined to be possible. Jack's kisses had been deep and sweet; his fingers gentle, skilled and experienced. His touch on her breasts, her skin, the soft curve of her inner thigh had made her moan in agonised wanting. He had known instinctively when to continue and when to desist, and under his hands she had found a passion that went far beyond mere desire. It had made her gasp and ache for him so fiercely that when he was ready, his own arousal at its peak, she had opened for him willingly, eager for that ultimate fulfilment.

'Mmmm,' she murmured , pressing her lips to the strong column of his throat.

'It was the first time for you, wasn't it? he asked.

'Yes,' she whispered.

He ran gentle hands over her cheek. Did I hurt you?'

'No.' There had been some pain, but it had been so slight compared to that astonishing flow of sensation that Mimi had barely noticed...................

In discussion, Jack enquired to know what fate holds for his love, Mimi...

"Now that your dad is dead and buried, what next?" Jack enquired.

" To Azuma-city, of course, though I have lost the previous job appointment due to the long stay here, that was caused by my dad's death, so I have to search for a new job". she answered.

" Where in Azuma-city?" Jack asked?

" I am going to the capital city,"she said firmly........ After a critical argument and analyses, Jack decided to support Mimi's traveling so as for peace and love to reign.

" You will need some start-up finance if you aren't to starve or get arrested for loitering ."He brought out his wallet and gave her $500 dollars and she was highly excited.

" Keep to yourself until you can find a firm footing," he stoop up to go. On his announcement of leaving, Mimi's mood changes immediately, but however she arrested it....

"Won't you wish me God's blessings?" she asked with uncertainty printed squarely on her forehead. It was a desolate sinking feeling, to leave a place where one had spent one's whole life unceremoniously, and with no one to miss or care for.....

"You scarcely need it," he answered as he dusted his buttocks and began to leave." You are one of those who bear their destiny like a diamond necklace, and may the Devil himself take any soul that stands in your way."