The time was past six. The ray of the early morning sun streamed through the blinds of Caesar ’s library window blinds.
He was sitting behind his desk, going through some paper works some of foreign business deals when Dvorak came into the room. He looked up from the paper in his hand. The heavy frown on Dvorak’s face told him something was up. What the hell? He thought.
“Good morning, sir,” Dvorak said. “I’ve got to tell you something. Can I sit down?”
Caesar, now confused, did not understand the strange expression on Dvorak’s face.
“Of course, for Pete's sake, Sit down, my man,” he waved Dvorak to a chair. “What the hells going on Dvorak, you like kinda steamed up?”
Dvorak came over, slid out a chair and sat down. The heavy frown on his face was gone now, only to be replaced with a serious look. He stared at Caesar with painful intensity.
“Sir, what I’m about to tell you is gonna hit you hard. But you’ve got to take it like a man. And before I tell you anything, you’ve got to assure me you won’t get mad,”
A frown creased Caesar ’s forehead. He sat back in the chair.
“Dvorak, what’s all these? You should know me by now, I can take anything,” he said, laughing uneasily.
Dvorak shook his head.
“I’m sorry sir, but this is quite different,”
The seriousness in his voice reached across to Caesar where he sat. He dropped the paper in his hand. Rubbing his jaw, he studied Dvorak’s for a long moment. Yeah! Something’s about to go down. Just what the hell happened anyway? He wondered. He cleared his thoughts.
“Give, Dvorak. I hate suspense. I can take anything,” he said.
Dvorak regarded him for some time, then he nodded. He dipped his hand into his breast pocket and brought out an object. He placed it on the table. Caesar leaned forward in his chair, his blue eyes examining the object.
“What’s this?”
“A pregnancy test tube,” Dvorak replied.
Caesar jerked his eyes up to Dvorak’s face.
“I’m not following all these Dvorak, why would you bring a pregnancy tube strip to me?” Caesar demanded.
“Because you needed to know that the girl in the cell, Selena, she’s pregnant. This right here confirm it,”
Caesar was speechless. His face seemed to crumble. His eyebrows climbed into his forehead and his eyes were glittering like wet pebbles.
“What…..what are you trying to tell me?” He stammered. “Are you trying to bullshit me? Cause you are doing a really good job, pal, if that’s your intention this morning,”
Dvorak shook his head miserably and he went on to tell Caesar everything that went on between him and Selena and how he had discovered she was pregnant.
“You see, I taught her how to use this yesterday,” he pointed to the pregnancy strip. “And I went for it this morning. I wasn’t even surprised when I saw the result because I had seen all the signs already. This just confirmed my suspicions. Selena is three weeks gone. She’s pregnant and she doesn’t even know it,”
His words hit Caesar’s like a horse kick to his belly. He sat there, for a long moment looking stupidly at Dvorak. Dvorak was right. He had warned him but he hadn’t listened. But how the hell would I know? he thought. How would I know it would come to this? Of course, you can’t know because You are stupid fool. Selena has dealt with you. Yet again. Deal with it! A violent rage gripped him. He became mad as fuck. He shot up from his chair and lifted his desk viciously, it flipped over sending the items flying away and scattering it to the floor, “No! No! Nooooooooo, I’m mad now,” he roared, and he lunged across the room to the walls. He began to hit his clenched fist hard on the walls, screaming and screaming, the menacing anger in him pouring into the walls, as he continued to vent his anger on it.
Dvorak sat on his chair, watching patiently as his boss went berserk. He was used to Caesar ’s violent short temperament and anger issues. If this is the best way for him to walk off his anger, then so be it.
Caesar continued on for some time, and when he got exhausted, he moved away from the wall, leaving smears of blood where the wall had been an immaculate white. He stood there, shaking with burned out rage, just the way your body shakes when you are freezing. His face was pouring with sweat. The shirt he had worn that morning was wet and his collar was a wet rag. His knuckles now looked raw, scraped and swollen.
Dvorak, now satisfied that Caesar had got his shit together, slowly got to his feet and walked over to the liquor cabinet. He fixed a glass of whisky, came over to Caesar and thrust it into his hand.
“Drink, you’ll feel better, sir”
Caesar took the glass and numbly lifted the glass to his mouth. He downed the whole liquor at once and looked at Dvorak beseechingly.
The big man sensing his need, refilled the glass again and watched as Caesar tossed the liquor down his throat. He bleached and heaved heavily. Dvorak moved to a mini closet in the room and opened it.
He took out a clean, midnight blue shirt and came over to where Caesar stood.
“You had better changed into this,”
Caesar nodded numbly. He stripped off his shirt and took the fresh, clean one from Dvorak. He began to button up.
“I’ll be back,” Dvorak said, taking the sweat stricken shirt away. By the time he came back into the room, Caesar was already puffing a cigar, a relaxed expression on his face. He cocked his head at Dvorak in a way to say - I appreciate it.
Dvorak replied with a smile.
“So what do you wanna do now?” He said.
Caesar heaved heavily, dragging smoke into his lungs, then he released it into the ceiling.
“I wanna see the face of that bitch!” He seethed out.
“Now?”
“Yeah, right now!” He said thickly.
“Alright, I’m with you, sir”
Caesar nodded stiffly. He crushed out the cigar in an ashtray and moved towards the door, and stalked out of the room. Dvorak followed suit. They walked down the flight of stairs and saw Marianna in the living room. She was reclining on a sofa, a Vogue magazine in her hands. She was wearing short-sleeved dull green Ralph Lauren sweaters, that emphasized her swell breasts, and black slacks that clung to her. She was watching Caesar closely.
“What’s the noise all about?” She said to Caesar .
“What do you mean?” Caesar said stiffly.
“I heard you shouting a while ago. What’s happening Caesar? What are you up to?”
“None of your business!”
Marianna smirked and tossed the magazine lazily onto a table. She got to her feet and came over to where Caesar was. She stood in his front, her green eyes looking at him suspiciously.
“You know, I've been observing some things in this house for some time now and I’ve been keeping quiet along” the. She said in a low voice. “Sometimes, in the night, when I come out and I pass through your room door, I hear voices from your room. There’s someone in your room. I believe it’s a woman” Caesar and Dvorak exchanged glances. “I’m very sure of it.”
“Your hearing senses must be deceiving you ma’am” Dvorak said carefully.
“I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to my brother” She said curtly without even looking at him. Without even raising her voice. Her eyes still fixed on her brother, she went. “I know you are keeping a woman in that room of yours and I’m going to find out who she is. I want you to understand something. No matter how slick and smart you are, always know that there’s someone always two steps ahead of you.
A black hate came into Caesar’s eyes, his mouth working, he took hold of her wrist and jerked her roughly to him. She gasped, her green jaded eyes, filled with fear.
“You don’t lecture me, I lecture you,” he snapped at her. “Listen to me, you are also part of the problems I’m going through right now. You are like a monkey on my back. You are cramping my style. If I have my way, I would have loved to fix you. At Least that’s less of a load on my back. But painfully I can’t. So please, I don’t want any more problems from you. Stay the hell away from my room unless you want to come to some grief. Right now, I’m one hell of grief. You stay away from me, and grief stays the fuck away from you, got it?” He released her hand and she flinched from him.
“You brute! I hate you,” she said fiercely, tears welling in her eyes. “I hate you, Caesar !. I hate you so much!”
“Yeah, you just continue to nurse on that, my love,” And he pushed past her, and went out of the house. Dvorak did not even give her another look as he followed his boss.
When they got to the cell, Selena who was sitting on a chair, brooding, looked up when the cell door swung. Seeing the deadpan expression on Caesar ’s face, an unusual feeling of a prickle of fear washed over her.
Caesar turned to Dvorak.
“I want some moments alone with her. Go back to the house and keep your eyes on Marinana,”
Dvorak went out of the room, gently closing the cell door behind him.
Caesar stared for a long moment at Selena, then he placed a clenched fist on the table, and leaned forward at her.
“You bitch! How could you?” He snarled.
Selena looked at him, confused. Thinking it was one of those anger release moments of Caesar, she leaned back into the chair and folded her arms across her breasts. Then she gave him a sultry look.
“Caesar, I’m really tired. If you are here to torment me, then you are wasting your time. I’m sorry but I keep up with your tantrums,”
He leaned over, putting his palms flat on the desk.
“You don't even know what this is about dont you?” He “I don’t, alright. If there’s anything you want to say to me, say it, damn it! I’m tired of you pushing me around,”
Caesar scoffed and took out the pregnancy strip from his pockets. He thrust it to her face.
“Do you know what this is?”
She looked at him and recognized the stuff Dvorak had given to her the other day and had come to get from her early that morning. She nodded at Caesar .
“Yeah, Dvorak gave it to me this morning. It’s a kind of body reader or something right? Tell you stuff about what’s happening to your body?”
“Yeah, it does. The only problem is that it’s telling us something about you that it’s supposed to be,”
“What the hell are you talking about?” She asked, a perplexed frown creasing her forehead.
“Look at you, dumb fuck! I never realized how dumb you are until now!” Caesar lashed out at her and he flung the pregnancy strip at her. “That’s a pregnancy test strip! Congratulations, bitch! You are fucking pregnant, bitch!”
It was almost as if he’d kicked her in the stomach. She backed away from him a few paces, her eyes went wide. She shook her head in bewildered despair.
“This is all lies. This can’t be true,” Her voice trembled badly.
“I’m saying that ain’t a body reader or one of those bullshit Dvorak cooked for you. He played a fast one on you and you fell for it. He gave you a pregnancy test strip and right there is the result of the little test you carried out this morning. Don’t you understand? You are pregnant, Selena. Three weeks gone,”
Selena felt tears running down her face.
“How……how?” She said breathlessly, her throat dry. “That’s impossible! It’s just doesn’t make sense,”
Caesar ’s face screwed up.
“How? You dare ask me how?” He seized her arm in a grip that made her shriek, the evil look on his face frightening her. “You fucking bitch! I was. Ready to give. You the world. But I can say you belong to the dogs. You let that wolf bastard get knocked up, right?”He was staring at her with a painful intensity. “You spread your goddamned legs for that dog and he knocked you up with a little present? You think you are in love right? You think this so you loved him right? Don’t worry, you will be shocked when you find out what kind of animal you are in love with?” He said without raising his voice and with a vicious slap he sent her sprawling to the floor. He pointed at her. “I will make you unhappy, Selena! I’ll watch you suffer when you discover the monstrosity you spread your legs for! I’m here to tell you that you are going to have a really bad time, my pretty. I will relive in your pain and anguish, just the way you’ve been basking in mine” and he stormed out of the cell, leaving her there on the floor, quavering, her face a ghastly, melancholic expression of the sorrow that was bound to come.