Henry Onyema
It all began when Harold Kulu arrived at the office, neatly clad in a pinstripe black suit, matching tie and supremely polished shoes, looking like a poster boy for the corporate world. It was one outfit he would have gladly done without, but, then, when you get the job of personal assistant cum executive researcher in a six-pack company like Miranda Consulting, you had better wear the uniform.
Once he introduced himself to the smiling Bianca Ojukwu lookalike receptionist in the posh entrance hall and showed her his employment letter, she signalled one of the two uniformed gentlemen in a cozy cubicle opposite the Plexiglas double entrance door.
‘‘The Chief’s office, Tako. He is the new staff.’’ She flashed Harold a smile which could have easily parted the clouds on a rainy day. ‘‘Hope you will enjoy your time with us, Mr. Kulu.’’
Harold was infected by the warmth she radiated. So infected that he uttered his first unprofessional words in the company:
‘‘With you, Miss Jezie, I sure will,’’ he replied, glancing at her nameplate on her desk. Suddenly he realized the awful faux pax he had committed and opened his mouth. Miss Jezie was sporty; she smiled at his stricken countenance.
‘‘It is okay, Mr. Kulu. I regard it as a compliment. See you later.’’ She smiled pleasantly. Harold breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the powers above and followed Tako across the vast hall to the bank of inbuilt elevators. A soundless, air-conditioned ride in one of them took them to the top floor.
Harold had not been to the company until now. The aptitude tests and barrage of interviews that won him the job had been conducted in a vast business centre in the plush King Hotel in Ikoyi. It was the first time Harold ever went to a hotel for a job interview. Not that he was complaining: he and other applicants got a nourishing meal after the exercise and transport fare. All two hundred of them at the first test. So the process continued as they were whittled down to the final three. The two guys who Harold beat went home with smiles: they confided in the lucky chap that they got excellent references for their good performances in the tests and sensible brown envelopes.
‘‘If you don’t keep this job, old boy, then your village wizards deserve a raise,’’ said the more friendly of the guys confidentially as they parted.
His words reverberated in Harold’s head as he was reverentially ushered into the Chief’s inner sanctum following Tako handing him over to another smiling beauty queen in a pin stripe trouser suit who served as the Chief’s secretary. I will watch my crazy tongue; I will not let my senses go south-south, even if the Chief is a god, goddess or, damn it, Gorgon.
The secretary did not enter the office. She simply spoke into the intercom, got a reply and smiled at Harold.
‘‘Follow me, please.’’
She led him through a door in the far wall. A short, well appointed, invisibly air-conditioned passage ran from the door to a cream-coloured wall. ‘‘Here we are, Mr. Kulu. You are expected.’’
Harold looked at her as if she was nuts. Or perhaps, he was nuts.
‘‘But…where is the door?’’ he stammered.
She smiled, pointed at the far wall and walked back to her office with red carpet steps. Harold stared at the far wall which, from all indications, was just a wall. Jesus, what is going on? He wondered. As he nearly turned back to the secretary’s office, an almost soundless, slight hum tinged his ears. What he only saw in James Bond movies hit his eyes: a perfectly concealed door, painted totally in the colour of the wall, slid out of the wall and opened quietly outwards as if bidding him in.
‘‘Good morning, Mr. Kulu. Please, relax and come in.’’ The voice was calm, reassuring and female.
Only a fear of not believed by his friends if he turned and ran made Harold walk carefully towards the door. He did not look back once he stepped in for he knew his funk would hit the roof if he did. The door disappeared in the wall as soon as he stepped in.
Seated in the overpoweringly large, deluxe office suite, behind a big oakwood paneled desk which had only two PCs and a couple of phones as its sole occupants, was a woman. And what a woman! She was beautifully and gloriously naked.
She was got to her feet, ostensibly untroubled by her unclothed state as the young man stopped, not knowing how to react. He was sweating profusely despite the triple air-conditioning. The look in his eyes clearly indicated that he knew he was in the presence of madness. And what a physical manifestation of madness this was.
All the women Harold had seen since he stepped into Miranda Consulting were epitomes of elegant feminine charm which their corporate attires accentuated. This one was a good three inches taller than Harold’s six feet without shoes. She was a solid mass of muscle. They rippled under her lovely tawny skin. This was a woman who punished the weights; her large hands, which looked amazingly appealing, indicated she was no stranger to some violent sport like wrestling or boxing or the martial arts. The broadness of her shoulders was a wonder: strong without being intimidating, yet they radiated a quiet danger. Harold, despite his fear, stared at her long, well proportioned, tapering legs. Their sexuality was just too much for an ordinary man. They carried her muscle-bound buttocks and lower regions with ease. The mountains on her chest screamed for climbing; it was obvious an uninvited climber could be squeezed to the next world between them and thrown off while a welcomed guest would reach the peak of paradise.
Contrary to average expectations she had a pleasant face: big, black eyes parted by a long, firm nose; an almost manly jaw which was surprisingly softened by her large lips. She wore a friendly, reassuring smile but Harold sensed a quiet, controlled aura of danger. Maybe it was his feverish imagination. She clearly did not hold a candle to her female employees Harold had seen in terms of beauty but then none of the others was a female Hulk Hogan.
‘‘Don’t be frightened by my state, please. I conduct business this way. Please, sit down.’’ She waved to a plush visitor’s chair.
Harold remained on his feet, swallowing severally.
She nodded understandingly.
‘‘Haven’t you seen a naked woman before, Mr. Kulu?’’
‘‘Not….i…n this situation, please.’’
She smiled.
‘‘Well, you better get used to it if you will work here. I mean you no harm. I know it is a shock and what with the door. But consider it a way of breaking you into the system here. I apologise, but that’s how we work here. Pretty unconventional.’’ Her voice bore traces of undiluted Cockney.
Harold took a deep breath and sat down. For the first time he became worried about the rapid surge of his penis under his boxers. The Chief went on.
‘‘I am Miranda Jumoke Vaughan, in case you don’t know.’’ She reached in the topmost drawer and pulled out a CD. ‘‘Record of your interview. It wasn’t your grades or demonstrations or other stuff that got you the job. Listen.’’ She slid the CD into the receptacle of the Lenovo PC on her desk, tapped a few keys and the pictures and voices of the three-man panel and Harold filled the screen. She adjusted the computer’s position so that Harold could see for himself.
‘‘Do you consider yourself a maverick, Mr. Kuku?’’ the potbellied panelist asked him with a smile that did not reach his ferret eyes.
A thoughtful pause; Harold answered.
‘‘Yes, sir.’’
‘‘Why, if I may ask?’’
Harold spoke with more confidence than he felt.
‘‘From my background. I scored 330 in the JAMB exam, got admitted to study Law on merit. Two days in Law class, I went to my dean and applied to be transferred to History in the same university. That’s pure craziness as far as Nigeria is concerned. But I knew I never wanted to study Law, though my parents and older brother are lawyers. But again I never believed in all these so-called professional courses. Also, my folks are solid Christians. I grew up questioning everything they believed, faith wise.’’
Miranda switched off the interview and gave him a deep look.
‘‘My kind of person. So your tasks are going to be pretty unconventional. Unusual kind of research.’’
Harold swallowed, cursing his bulging manhood. Miranda was unconcerned, though she saw it.
‘‘As long as it is not criminal, Ma.’’ He nearly bit off his tongue. My second cock-up, he thought. The village wizards are doing overtime.
But Miranda was not annoyed.
‘‘Unorthodox, but not criminal, I assure you.’’
Harold took a deep relief soaked breath. Miranda got to her feet. She walked with the gracefulness of a cat, for all her muscle.
What happened next was unusual research.
She came and sat on the edge of the desk, her hips thrust out too close for comfort. Her clit‘s glorious attack on the nervous young man’s eyes was too much.
‘‘Your first assignment, Harold.’’ The low, sexy throatiness of her voice sent a small man somersaulting down Harold’s spine. ‘‘Suck me.’’
Harold gasped.
‘‘What?’’
‘‘You heard me, Harold. Get to work.’’ She reared up on the massive desk and spread her legs.
Run! Jump! Push her away! The voices screamed. In all his thirty years Harold had never been so blatantly assaulted by a female predator. But what shocked him was the upsurge of his atavistic rawness at that moment; the almost shredding of his shorts’ fabric by his crazy manhood. For crying out loud, she was no beauty but she oozed his darkest erotic fancies at that moment with her burning eyes and displayed sex.
‘‘I won’t kill you if you refuse,’’ she said softly. ‘‘But I want it like mad, now.’’
Harold jumped to his feet, turned. The door was already in sight.
‘‘You see, no coercion.’’
The voice behind him was silkily cool. He turned back. Her posture had not changed. Primordial sexuality overwhelmed him. Ignoring even the blatant whiff of danger, he fell upon her. Miranda gasped as his lips took her to Nirvana.
The next hours were full of sexual gluttony. Her screams were feral; her muscles nearly ripped out of her skin; she virtually yanked off Harold’s clothes when she felt he was too tardy; she took charge. The rhythm was fast and furious like an African samba. Their hips gyrated and locked, clashed and counterclashed. No style was too dirty. Harold could not have enough of her breasts and she gave him both of them and some. Their doggy bred Alsatians, not puppies. Their 69 was the war of the mouths on the organs. Orgasms and squirting flooded the cushions. When things went totally crazy Miranda led him into a room bereft of anything except ankle-deep exquisite Persian rugs.
‘‘You are a sex devil, Ma,’’ Harold whispered in her ear as he grabbed her boobs from behind and dug a finger in her womanhood.
‘‘Yes! So come into….’’ She never finished for her employee got her on the rug and the War of the Roses, Lagos version, continued.
They slept off almost two hours later.
When Harold opened his eyes it was almost 4p.m. Miranda was seated in a plastic chair she had brought in, fully dressed in a decent suit that concealed her muscled charms, sipping from a can of Fanta and eating a very large meat pie. Her face glowed with satiation and the smile on her face was beatific.
‘‘Hi, loverboy,’’ she said cheerfully.
Harold jumped up.
‘‘Na wa. Am I dreaming?’’
‘‘No, darling. The bathroom is over there.’’ She indicated. ‘‘Freshen up, join me in the main office.’’
Harold had a long bath in a state of wonder and thought. As he dressed up he realized how ravenous he was and smiled his gratitude when Miranda handed him a sealed plate of Mr. Biggs rice and chicken and a big bottle of juice. She had a plate for herself. They ate in amiable silence. Miranda cleared everything and took up her position behind her desk, every inch the CEO.
‘‘You must be wondering what all this is about?’’ She smiled.
‘‘You executed your first assignment in flying colours. A plus.’’ She could not help smiling at Harold’s broad grin. Then her face became serious.
‘‘But, please, don’t get any ideas, Mr. Kulu. You are here to work. And no love or romance fancy shit, okay?’’
Harold got the message. He was no slouch, either.
‘‘May I ask a question, Ma?’’
‘‘Go ahead.’’
‘‘Why did all this happen? I don’t think this is standard practice for new staff in consulting firms.’’
Miranda stood up and focused gimlet eyes at him. Harold met her gaze calmly. The worst thing she can do is fire me, he thought.
‘‘I will tell you in due course. Hope you won’t be a boy and go blabbering to your beer parlour pals about how you screwed your boss on your first day. Not that I care, but it diminishes you.’’ Harold was no fool. Her tone gave the lie to her words.
‘‘I need my job, Ma.’’
She smiled, reached in her drawer and drew out an envelope.
‘‘Bonus for doing a good job.’’
Since Harold was not the type of man who spat salt out of his mouth he accepted the envelope gratefully and left courteously.
When the door disappeared into the wall Miranda put her head on her desk and cried over the nymphomania which had blighted her life.
Henry Chukwuemeka Onyema is a Lagos based writer, historian and teacher. He just published his first novel ‘In Love and In War.’ Email: [email protected]