Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1)

by Vincent de Paul

  “It’s your life, Susan. Live it or throw it away. Only don’t be a fool, gal.”

  They danced, roistered, and did anything that they wanted. The music in the club blanketed their voices, and it was long before Susan realized that Isabella was dancing with some guy – tall, blond, and with a figure like The Rock the wrestler. She was alone and she used this as an escape to get some air. Everything was turning out fuzzy, cloudy and bleary.

  Susan felt as though she was going to be sick. She was feeling a little hazy, and her head was whirling. She felt as though she was about to collapse. Blooming heck! She was falling, losing consciousness. She let herself plummet down in the midst of the forest of humanity, helplessly let herself collapse, but she never hit the floor.

  Strong hands grabbed her before she reached the floor. She was pulled to her feet and hustled to the ladies. She felt as though she was levitating, losing it, all her muscles going slack.

  In the haze of confusion and blurry delirium she heard a voice say, “Don’t worry about us, ladies.”

  When she could see clearly she found herself bend over the toilet bowl and strong arms holding her by the neck. She had shot out of her body what was troubling her and she felt relieved and unruffled now.

  “How are you feeling now?” a man’s voice asked her.

  “Good,” she said and straightened up. She grinned at him shakily, appreciation plastered on her face. He tenderly wiped her mouth with a wad of tissue paper.

  “I want to get out of here,” she said. “Where’s Isabella?”

  “That’s what I’ve been waiting for the whole evening,” the man said. “Don’t worry about her.”

  The man led her out of the club to where they could get fresh air and get to know each other better.

  He was in his mid-thirties, probably thirty six, average body, six foot, with dark nondescript features; his complexion the colour of African bronze. His eyes were bloodshot, in them potential violence. Amidst the melange of signals that she was picking she saw that the man was kind, loving and caring. He looked familiar, but where had she seen him?

  “That was stupid of you. You shouldn’t take everything they give you here. You’re smarter than that.” His voice was hoarse and almost commanding.

  “Is that why you brought me out here, to chide me? I can take care of myself.”

  “No, no, no. That’s not what I meant. Anyway, let’s put that behind. Let’s know each other first. I am Samson, nice to meet you.” He offered his hand to her and she took it nonchalantly.

  “Susan. Pleasure meeting you. That was kind of you.”

  “That’s my middle name.”

  She laughed at the joke.

  They talked for some time and whoa! They were surprised at themselves to know that they came not only from the same country but also the same home place – Kitui. He was from Matinyani, Kitui West; she was from Mulango, Kitui Central. Small world, ehne? They changed from the New Yorkers they were pretending to be to the neighbours from Kitui, even threw in some Kamba just for effect.

  It was almost midnight when he said, “Let’s get out of here, go somewhere and ball.”

  At that time, Susan saw Isabella emerge from the club being hustled by the blonde guy. Isabella saw her and headed to where they were. Susan tried to put that innocent look and guilt on her face by trying to introduce Samson to her as a friend from the same place back at home but Isabella regarded her saying, “We’re cutting out of here. Something just came up. Pardon the expression. Call me tomorrow, but don’t make it early, just in case.”

  “For God’s sake, Bella...”

  “Perish the thought,” Isabella said and joined her partner, Blondie.

  Susan had never seen Isabella this way. She sighed desperately and turned to Samson to tell him she too was cutting out of there to her place.

  “Yeah, that’s enough for tonight. Let’s get out of here,” Samson said and before she could say anything he led her to a Chevrolet Malibu car parked ten metres from where they were.

  Samson watched her in the passenger seat. She’s beautiful, he said to himself. That’s why he had picked her. He had the feeling that she was doing things she was not accustomed to from the time he saw her. Despite the time of the day and what she had consumed and poisoned her body with, she seemed dewy fresh as a rose petal and her eyes were clear and sparkling. She was without any doubt the most strikingly beautiful girl he had ever met.

  He drove straight on the 5th Avenue, the bisection of east and west of Manhattan.

  “Take the 14th Street. That’s to my place.”

  He grinned. “I know, but that’s not where we’re going. You are in my hands.”

  At his place, a cosy well-furnished suite, they took more alcohol, talking of their past lives and their jobs, things that two strangers meeting for the first time would talk about until he saw her stifling a yawn.

  “Lemme show you to your room,” and as he led her upstairs a sadistic, almost masochistically sexual, feeling got the better of him and penetrated his veins before coalescing at his nether regions to something he recognised as sexual desire.

  A canopied bed stood at the centre of the room, a dressing mirror at a corner near the window overlooking the street below, and the undrawn floor-to-ceiling curtains danced a slow waltz to the Manhattan night breeze. The room was supposed to be for his personal assistant, but she had requested him he allow her to stay with her sister who was doing law at the New York School of Law.

  He found himself inside the room with Susan and he couldn’t any longer conceal his feelings. He reached to kiss her and to his consternation instead of relieve she offered her mouth to his. It was hesitant at first but then certain, soft then hard, on the lips then slowly found the tongue. His hands moved from her face, head and hair to her waist, and the gentleman he was varnished when he put his hand on her bottom and cupped the two lumps of her buttocks in his hands.

  He felt her responding, kissing him back. She arched her back up to him giving him much hold of her. Their legs entangled and at that very moment he knew what was coming next. He did not will it to stop, and he did not care what she would think of him when he went further.

  He reached for her jeans zipper and lo! lo! lo! She did not pull his hand away.

  Susan felt as though she were ice thawing away from the warmth of the sun, melting. Heck, she was melting away. She opened her mouth to receive whatever goodies Samson could offer, and at that very moment she felt as though she was floating somewhere trapped in astral body. Whatever she was feeling she did not wish it to end.

  She felt fingers fumbling with her jeans and her insides tingled. She felt as though she was going to explode. She was sure he too was aroused. She could feel him against her flat stomach, rock hard. She was sure it was an erection. It did not need a rocket scientist to tell what was happening to them. All she wanted was a good lay because she was about to explode.

  He decided to take it further. He made to pull her blouse up and he felt her grip on him tighten. That’s it. She wants it, he thought. This gave him the go-ahead.

  He undressed her.

  To reciprocate, she undressed him too, their mouths locked and exploring each other’s rowdily. At last when they were all naked he took her to the bed. He explored her whole body with his hands, mapping out the continents he explored with his touch. At some point she told him to get inside her for she couldn’t hold it anymore, but he kept on teasing her.

  At last he entered her. Her labium opened like a flower bud and welcomed him into her. Although she was not the simpering virgin she was some years ago she felt that she was being ruptured slowly by him, and as though it was some kind of mutual agreement, her inside expanded and accommodated the burgeoning maleness as though it was a key and she was the lock.

  She felt the warm damn burst flood her, and at that time her river banks burst open and she too came. She willed him to be forever there, but he was withdrawing now. She couldn’t let it end so fast, so soon.r />
  When he was outside her and was rolling over, she reached for him, climbed on top of him, straddled him and said, “Enough of the foreplay, let’s get down to the real business.”

  CHPATER 85

  I could not get her out of my head – her statuesque svelte figure, her tar black hair and Madonna visage. I could smell her, whatever I thought she smelt, everywhere as though she had been with me for a decade. I hoped one day we’d bump into each.

  Probably she was a tourist like the others who, according to what brochures said, came from Barcelona and Miami to Israel. I hoped to God she was a tourist ‘cause if I happened to see her again I won’t let her just walk away. She still had my breath with her and I wanted it back. To return it she had to be mine. Just that.

  I was ready to occupy the house that Hanan Ben Shalom gave me at his father’s estate. He drove a two-door Italdesign Cala convertible. He picked me up at my rented house, and drove to his father’s estate in Ramat Aviv.

  An ultra-up-to-the-minute stereo system played romantic blues in the car, and this told me something about him, that if he was not intensely romantic, he was a lover of beauty. Great lovers have their own mystique. The interior of his car was refreshing with a deluxe air conditioner blowing in wisps of cold air. A small DVD player and a visual display unit together with a GPS monitor near the dashboard.

  “Hanan, I still have this feeling that this is not what I should be doing. I just don’t know why, but I can’t help,” I said as he joined the traffic on the main road.

  “Trust me, you’ll like it. I can’t let a friend I love like a brother out there, not after what you told me. Remember, I owe you one. I can’t forget what you did to me while I was in Kenya,” he said as his fingers rapped the steering wheel.

  “Quid pro quo is a good recipe for friendship,” I said mirthlessly.

  He said nothing. He focussed his eyes on the light traffic

  Finally the Italdesign Cala came to an abrupt halt in front of a black iron gate. The first thing I noticed was surveillance cameras mounted on either side. The huge gates opened by themselves to colourful well-manicured lawns and a driveway. As the car rolled softly on the tarmac driveway I fixed my eyes on the marvellous gardens on either sides of the driveway. The Garden Eden.

  The garage was a sixteen-port-garage with eight luxury cars parked there: a BMW, two Mercedes sedans, a convertible, two Range Rovers, and two Land Cruiser Prados. Hanan parked beside a navy blue Lamborghini Diabolo that was like a mirror.

  He then led me to a well-cared-for-manor which was approached from a bravura vestibule. I wondered if the narthex was so well furnished how would be the inside of the house.

  “Welcome home, bro,” Hanan said. Bro?!

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The house was magnificently furnished with wall-to-wall curtains, posh sofas and couches, scented candles burning phosphorescently on silver candelabras alongside a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in pale blue gowns and other statues and a sumptuous wine cabinet.

  In the parlour there was a couple that I guessed whom they were instantly.

  He introduced me as “The friend I told you about and the manager at the Aleana Holdings” and paused before telling me, “Ken, meet my parents.”

  The man was robust with streaks of grey on his mass of thick curly hair. He shook my hand unflappably and welcomed me to his home with a this-is-your-home pat on the shoulder and feel at home. He told me his name; Shalom ben Zeev.

  His wife, Jonina Daliah, was all smiles as she told me they had heard a lot about me and that I was welcome to their home. That was it. I was part of the Shaloms. In fact, I was a Shalom now.

  CHAPTER 86

  The house that Hanan showed me was semi-detached, well-furnished and deluxe with a parlour, two bedrooms, a Georgian kitchen, and a study room in addition to a library and gym. Also, there were servants to serve me. It was a few metres from the main house. There was a lido at the back of the house, just below the terrace overlooking the gardens of gardenias, magnolias, geraniums and frangipani.

  It was to be my home for a duration I did not know for sure, and I felt as though I was getting used to being an Israeli.

  Israelis speak Hebrew and Arabic. The influx of Jews from Arab land and Ethiopia led to the Arab speaking Jews, while English is taught in schools up to fourth grade thus a good number of them speak English. Moreover, immigrants from other countries to Israel for jobs led to evolution of other languages like Russian that you would never fail to hear on the streets. So, I was not that off the radar.

  Hanan had told me that he had a brother who was in the police and lived at his home in Central Tel Aviv and three sisters whom I had not yet met. Most of the times Hanan stayed at the family’s estate in Tel Aviv-Yaffo.

  His father, Shalom ben Zeev, was half-Jewish-half-Arab, and his mother was an unadulterated Jew. Their marriage of a pure Jew and half-caste made them have a different view of the traditional Jews, and this saw them as among the secular Jews of Israel. Moreover, they were not just Jews rooted to Jewish customs entirely. They were amongst the minority who were Christians, and making it precise, they were among the less than one per cent of Israel population who were Roman Catholics. Hanan and all his siblings were brought up in the Catholic faith.

  Shalom was a political scientist, an alumni of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a lawyer by profession. He entered into politics in 1977 under the ticket of the Israeli Labour Party and had served in the opposition Knesset (Israeli Assembly) many times. Once upon a time, he was the second hand man of the slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin Ben Harzav. He was nominated to be the Israeli Prime minister in 1999 but he stepped down for Ehud Barak. He served in the governments of Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon before retiring from politics in 2009 when the Knesset favoured Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership voting a no-confidence vote to the present day government where Shalom Ben Zeev was seemingly not decided what he wanted in politics for he had left his Labour Party and joined the new Ariel Sharon’s Kadima.

  Shalom ben Zeev left politics since then but occasionally hosted get-togethers with his former political allies albeit he could never go back to the life he had left behind.

  One evening, Hanan and I were having a walk in the compound. He had picked me up from the office and told me to take a break and have some fresh air with him. We toured his father’s plantations, some kind of an induction tour.

  Dusk was approaching when we got back. As we neared the family house I saw something that stopped me on my tracks. I was sure of what I saw. I hoped my eyes were playing tricks on me, but quite on the contrary they weren’t: a McLaren F7 was pulling up at the garage and my heart literally skipped a beat. I did not wish it to be like this. Not here, not yet.

  Hanan did not miss anything. He was watching me.

  A debilitating wave of consternation swept over me and my concentration to what Hanan was saying turned to the vehicle.

  Then she stepped out; the girl I had seen at the mall. The first thing that struck me as she locked her car with a remote control key and walk away was her beauty and gait once again. She looked as though she were one of the paintings of Caravaggio. She had the eroticism, dramatic beauty, and output of Caravaggio’s paintings you see when you enter the chapel of Cerasi in Maria del Papolo in Rome. Hanging her auburn buckskin reticule over her shoulders she headed to the main house via the narthex. She saw us in time before I could excuse myself from Hanan and head to my house; simply put, before I could run away, and came to where we were standing.

  She and Hanan hugged passionately, and when they let go of each other Hanan turned to me to introduce her. “Ken, meet my sister Shirli. Shirli, Ken, my best friend.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Shirli,” I said stretching my hand to shake hers. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Pleasure to meet you too, best friend,” she said, and I hated the tinge of sarcasm so much that I prayed to my African gods to strike her dumb. She definitel
y remembered me. Hanan was watching us. I think he intercepted all the signals and expressions on our faces and the tense pleasantries we exchanged.

  “Is there something I am missing here? Shirli? Ken?”

  “Not really, Hanan. It’s only that your best friend here is savvy minded.”

  Jeez, the little imp of an angel has nerves.

  “I am sorry,” I said. “Forgive my manners.”

  She excused herself and as she walked away I fixed my eyes on her little butt. Hanan’s voice brought me back to Earth, and on Hanan’s face was that keep-away-from-her look.

  Keep away from her? Not really.

  At last Hanan let out whatever was bottled inside him about his sister. He blankly told me to keep away from her.

  No Hanan, I can’t, even if it costs our friendship.

  CHAPTER 87

  Shalom ben Zeev had businesses, estates, premises, and landed property in Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Haifa, and Jerusalem. In Tel Aviv was the Aleana Holdings, a private investigation agency, a hyper-salon and a five hundred acre coppice where his home, vineyard and orchards were. His family of seven – five kids and wife – lived in Tel Aviv. His children managed his businesses in Tel Aviv-Yaffo and Tel Aviv.

  The first born was Hanan followed by Shamir who was in the police force then the triplets, Shifra, Meira and Shirli, in the order of their birth. Shifra and Meira kept their hair short, mostly bob-ish that reached at the shoulder blades while Shirli kept hers long. She habitually pulled it into a do-it-yourself tress. Shifra had a facial birthmark, a fade bindi that made her look like an Indian. That’s how they could be differentiated from each other.

  His father, Zeev Herzl Ben Shalom, was a member of a clandestine movement known as Aliyah Bet that was organized to bring Jews to Palestine. Shalom Ben Zeev was born on 14th May 1936 shortly after the Arab revolt which was agitated by the rise of Nazism which led to the fifth Aliyah where his parents were among the quarter million Jews fleeing Nazism holocaust. His parents called him Shalom, peace in Hebrew. His brother who was sick by the time he was born died shortly afterwards of some tropical disease, making Shalom the firstborn in a family of three – his sisters, Adina and Ranit, came six years later at the dawn of World War II.