With Love, Elena

7

As soon as Charles got to his gate, he was shocked to find Beatrice and some policemen in his yard, his parents trying to console the distraught young woman.

The smile he had been wearing since he left Vaal City dropped off his face immediately.

"CHARLES!!" Beatrice yelled as she ran to him, hugging him tightly. "You're ok! You're Ok!"

He gently let go of her. "What's going on?" he asked as he walked over to his parents, Beatrice trailing behind.

"Where have you been, Charles? Three days! Three days you've been missing!" his frustrated mother said.

"I...I went to visit a friend-"

"The same female friend Beatrice said you were meeting in town?"

"Yes. I just over indulged myself and lost track of the time. I was supposed to come back yesterday but..." Charles shrugged. He was a grown man for crying out loud! He could leave whenever he wanted to and could return whenever he wanted to. And Beatrice had no business sticking her nose in his business.

His father pulled him to the side. "Charles, we've got to talk," he said with a stern face. "Some rumours have been making their rounds around town that you've been bedding a nigger."

Charles looked at his father. "What makes people say that?"

"For one, someone saw you chasing after some woman in the street. The receptionist at the Seasons Hotel has been going around town telling anyone that would listen that you even paid for her hotel room! Imagine! A nigger in the Seasons Hotel! One of the best hotels in this area! I know this ain't true, right, boy?"

Charles only chuckled uncomfortably. "Rumors, huh?"

"And have you heard the story about that bimbo that put an advert for a wife in the morning paper? Apparently he found someone and they are very happy!! More men are putting their own adverts for wanted wives and Osam is making quite the money now that he publishes some of the responses  from a couple of women."

His father pulled a cutting from a newspaper and showed Charles. "That's a reply to the letter of the first fellow to advertise himself."

Charles looked at the clipping and as he read through it, his face began to contort with fury. Osam had published one of his letters from Elena where she had enclosed some very colourful details of all the sexual activities she was willing to do with him. The letter he had received after writing out some of his fantasies for her on a night when she had had him heated over the phone.

He immediately walked to one of his cars, got in and drove away.

He knocked on Osam's office door and the ginger man looked up, grinning when he saw his friend but his grin faltered when he saw the expression on Charles' face.

"You went through my personal stuff in my office," Charles spat. "And you had the audacity to publish my letter in your newspaper...the one letter that we both know was just for me and Elena's eyes."

Osam acknowledged his mistake. "Charlie, the reader's wanted to know how you and Elena ended and I just wanted to prove to them that you had finally found each other and were happy! I know I shouldn't have gone through your things but I was desperate and nobody knows that you're the one who was advertising for a wife! I protected your identities."

Charles slapped the newspaper clipping on Osam's desk. "You violated her privacy. You even showed the 'just for your eyes only' part in the newspaper! Now she's going to think I had something to do with this and I was finally trying to build something good with this woman!"