Daddy: Daddy

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21 2 y office was located in a building at Ngvumissi Street in the Bochian neighbourhood. Our firm employed over a hundred of us, comprising managers and senior staff, clerks and secretaries, technicians and errand boys. Virtually everybody in the office knew my father through his frequent visits and the unending jokes he always had ready to share. The female staff in particular liked him for, despite his advanced age, he still looked quite handsome and was equally charming. I gave no heed to this as I was convinced that my father might mingle very well with females but had eyes only for my mother. Even when a buxom middle-aged and quite handsome female started talking fondly of him, I never suspected anything. It was only when I discovered that Dad had come to our office on several occasions without coming straight to my office that I started wondering. Who else would he come to see? It was normal for him to stop and say hi here and there along the way to my office, or to smile flirtatiously at some of the pretty girls, but I though he always came to me right away. When I expressed my worry to one of my colleague, he exploded with a loud guffaw and rocked with laughter for a while. “You mean you don’t know?” he asked. “Know what?” I asked perplexed. “Your father has grabbed a chick here, man,” he said. “He has developed some terrible infatuation for one of the females in this company.” “Which one?” I asked. “Miss Jam,” he said. M 22 Miss Jam was the aforementioned middle aged woman. She was in her late forties and had never had the luck of marrying despite her good looks and the fact that she would have loved to be a wife. She had a daughter who was now married to a medical doctor in a nearby clinic. I did not know whether to believe my colleague about Dad’s infatuation with Miss Jam, so I decided to feign ignorance about the relationship in front of Dad until he decided to open up to me. I got used to the fact that I was no longer Dad’s sole target for visits in the firm. I held on like that for a while, but during one of Dad’s now rare visits to my office, I was overtaken by curiosity and could not help broaching the topic. “Is she not in today?” I asked. “Who?” he asked innocently. “Miss Jam, of course,” I said. “Who else would you be looking for in this joint?” “Yes, Miss Jam,” he said. “Quite a charming lady.” “More charming than mum, I suppose,” I teased. He ignored my statement “So you are already on to our secret affair?” he asked. “What is secret about your relationship with Miss Jam? Who in this firm does not know?” I said. “You two have been careless about the whole thing. You have been acting like two excited school children.” “Are you sure?” he asked. “If I had not blocked it,” I lied, “your promiscuous activities here would have been transmitted to mum.” “I hope you will not be stupid enough to let your mother hear about this,” he said “She would be terribly hurt.” 23 “So you are aware of that?” I asked. “If you cared so much for your wife’s feelings, you should have refrained from wagging your tail carelessly.” “Son,” he said, “your mother is very caring and loving but no longer very exciting to make love with often. She keeps me starving at times. Jam, on the other hand, is a ball of fire. She has revived all the erotic flames in me and made me feel that I am a real man again.” “But, Dad,” I said. “I thought at your age men no longer bothered about sex and just lay snoring by the sides of their old wives each night.” “Then you know nothing about old age,” Dad said. “You need to see your mother in action when she is in the mood. If you could penetrate into the bedrooms of most couples over seventy years of age you would be surprised. If you were thinking of giving up sexual activities by the age of fifty, then you will certainly need a friend to help you along with your wife.” “Anyway,” I said, “I hope your affair...