Niko’s Eye

Chapter 8.

One look at her and he was trapped in her essence.

It was heaven.

Sheer heaven.

He had seen beautiful women in his days before, but he had never seen such a gorgeous creature coming out of a cathedral.

If he knew that such beautiful women were found in congregations then he at least would have began to attend a few services, if not all. His own thoughts amused him.

Alejandro Dominic smiled to himself sadistically as he ordered his driver to stop the vehicle so he could get a better fixation on his new prey.

She was seated on the granite ridge of the cathedral that overlooked the meadows of the wide valleys of Pitons, St Lucia, and its far side flanked by plateau of loose orange shale and by drifting, sunlit clouds.

Alejandro wondered if she knew how much trouble she had just put herself into. You should have just stayed inside with your God, my bella. With snarling thoughts, as he lowered his deep-set eyes on her.

He was an animal. His manhood was defined by violence, power, status, money, s*x, brutality and arrogance.

And he never thought twice about injecting his venom in the lives of innocent people, especially young women.

His thoughts were interrupted by a voice that seemed to beckon to his new interest.

"Isis!", the voice bellowed. And with that, the damsel returned into the church almost as swiftly as she had came out.

"So her name is Isis." A goddess indeed, he thought to himself as he tapped his forefinger on the driver’s seat in front of him.

He motioned for his driver to continue on their itinerary and made a mental note to attend services next week Sunday.

For breakfast, I just want cold meat, tea, butter, bread, eggs, jam and biscuits but no cheese. Cheese, just like oil, makes too much of itself. It wants the whole damn boat to itself and just gives a cheesy flavour to everything. You can’t tell whether you are eating an apple-pie or a German sausage because it all seems cheesy. There is too much odour about cheese."

I could hear the faint ramblings of my old Mami and smiled to myself. She always woke up so early in the morning and gave everybody the run around about what she wanted to eat, all while sitting in her armchair and downing a malt drink with a Cuban cigar, burning slowly in the ashtray in front of her.

I always thought that the malt drink gave her ammunition because nobody’s grandmother has ever been seen with so much energy at 87 years of age.

I made my bed while the aromas of fried bacon and oats filled my tiny room.

My mind drifted to the black Jaguar I had seen parked parallel to the church yesterday.

It had a powerful engine and completed with stark, tinted windows. Which made it very difficult to miss. It was almost as if I was drawn to the vehicle or whatever or whoever was in it.

My mother called me downstairs and my thoughts were abruptly interrupted.

"Coming!" I sighed heavily and made my way downstairs.

Breakfast was just like every other day.

Isis thought about her father as she poked her fork into the eggs on the plate in front of her. He had been a special investigator for the Pueblo Viejo mine in the Sanchez Ramirez Province in the Dominican Republic and one day he just disappeared after the mine was closed down due to the attack on the mining convoy.

They had believed that he was killed in those bombings but his body was never found. He’d travel extensively, hadn’t been there when Isis was born and if he’d ever sent money, Isis’ mother would place it all in the church.

Aisha Kasmira was a prayer warrior. A perfect exemplar for all Christian women. She had contributed to the building of the St Joseph Christian Church in St Lucia and visited the less fortunate in a Mother Theresa-like manner. And that was why it was so important for Isis to follow in her footsteps. It was a prestigious achievement.

Isis watched her mother fold her napkin ever so neatly and moved her eyes to where it rested, on the dining table on her mother’s right. She knew she’d be told to do the same so she spared herself the lecture and did the damn deed. Isis was bored stiff and had no appetite.

She stared at the stained glass in the kitchen and wondered why her mother had Catholic tendencies if they were in actual fact, Christian.

After what seemed like years, her mother had finally finished eating and she got up from the table and thanked Halima, their house help, before retreating back to her room for prayer.

She behaved like such a mongrel, Isis thought to herself as she stared after her mother who was dressed in a polka dot-printed fabric with long, puffed "bubble" sleeves and Jesus sandals.

"Ugg," she exclaimed, and got up to kiss her Mami goodbye as she left for lectures.

"In the blue plastic bag next to the roses sweetheart."

"Thanks Mami." she smiled back at her grandmother and made her way out of the door.

She found the blue plastic bag just as indicated and quickly looked around before she retreated into the corner of the garden to change from her long, modest cotton dress into a pair of blue jeans and a Nirvana sweater, which she struggled to get past her headwrap.

She stuffed the plastic bag with her less appealing attire into her almost-empty backpack and went around the house, across the street and to the bus stop.

As she was walking to the bus stop, she was opening the clasp of the only necklace that she owned and put it on. Along with a pair of hoops, some lipgloss and one final check in her small vanity mirror just in time for the bus to stop in front of her, exhausting smoke from its pipes.

"Come on, I’m wearing white Nikes Giorgio!"

Giorgio was the bus driver and Isis’ very good friend. He was a very attractive man but he was a dropout, which had him resort to bus driving.

"I’m sorry, mi coraçon. I didn’t see you there!", he called back.

All the other students were already getting onto the bus.

But Isis huffed and opened the front pouch of her backpack and took out a small bottle of cologne, sprayed herself back to life and carefully placed it back into her backpack before hurrying onto the bus.

She was unaware that the main zipper of her backpack had slipped loose which had in turn, opened her backpack, allowing the blue plastic bag to fall out of her backpack and onto the pavement.

The bus doors closed and she smiled at Giorgio. She waved and mouthed a ’morning’ at her fellow peers and proceeded to her seat on the bus, totally unaware...

Alejandro.

After twenty-five years of examining female beauty, Alejandro was convinced that Isis was a first.

She left him rock-hard at first sight.

All he could dream about was her beautiful hue of coffee arabica skin, her perky breasts and Pygmalion-worth hips could be seen even under that silky, ruffled dress she wore. Cafe au lait, cream of Africa’s cream.

He wondered if she was Barbadian, Dominican, Haitian or African, Ethiopian to be precise. She seemed like a rare mixture of every nation on this earth. If that was possible.

He rose from his office chair and paced up the room, with clenched jaws and a rising bulge in his crotch. He rubbed his temples and pondered.

He needed to make her his.

For heaven’s sake, she was the reason that God put Adam in a coma, he thought to himself.

"Under her cleavage, is the promised land. Her perpetual beauty transcends time and season and in her womb, shall Africa’s future lie!", he spat out. And just then, was a soft knock at his door.

"Oh for crying in a bucket, come in!"

The terrified employee started off by popping his frowning forehead into the door and when his boss gestured for him to come in, he still thought it unsafe.

"Pablo, f*****g get in. I don’t have the time of the day. As you can see, I’m extremely occupied. Right.

After Pablo had shown him paperwork for the examples of the mining resources for the Pueblo Viejo mine, he let out a sigh of relief as the door closed. What a pestilence.

He sank into his chair, leaned his head back and placed his hand on the aching annoyance in his pants. He bit his lips in frustration and closed his eyes. I won’t masturbate. I can’t let a mere woman have such a powerful hold on me. I am Alejandro Xylon Dominic.

And with that, he flung his eyes open, picked up the office telephone and called for the secretary.

As soon as she walked in and saw the look on his face, she smirked and slowly approached him, dropping on all fours as he began to unbuckle his belt...

Isis.

Isis walked around the varsity to all of her next classes with her eyes glued to the ground, hoping that she might just spot the blue plastic bag that was in her backpack.

Why would a plastic bag of clothes disappear out of my backpack and even if so, why would I just randomly find it on the campus grounds?

She thought hard while nervously biting at the skin around her fingernails. And how the hell am I to get back into the house in these jeans?

Isis sat in Chemistry class, idly staring outside of the window when she caught a glimpse of something familiar.

A black Jaguar.

She sat up in her chair and squinted her hazel eyes, accessorized with thick, black, round frames.

The exact same one she saw the last week Sunday. With the same feeling of attraction following through...

"Miss Kasmira?", her thoughts were blurred out by her lecturer’s prompting.

"Huh?"

Mrs Robinn let out a thin smile and repeated her question, "The number of moles of a solute present in 1kg of a solvent is called it’s what?"

Isis bit her bottom lip and let out a breath.

"It’s molality?"

Mrs Robinn smiled broadly and nodded her head, only to follow it up with another question.

"And which is the most electromagnetic element amongst sodium, bromine, fluorine and oxygen?"

Isis lightly tapped her chin with her forefinger and confidently chirped out, "Fluorine."

Mrs Robinn walked up to Isis’ table and gave her a solid high-five.

"You may now go on with your daydreaming Miss Kasmira, " she said, with a warm smile.

Isis removed her spectacles and placing them in her backpack, she replied, "With pleasure."

The other learners began to scoff and tease.

One word she clearly heard was ’hail mary’.

She knew this was because of her strong Christian background and some of the clothing she used to wear on campus.

Even though she tried to change her appearance, the names stuck like a cactus to a baby’s bottom.

She sank back into her chair and slowly diverted her gaze back to the window, only to find that the black Jaguar had disappeared. Great.