They say people find marriage partners anywhere. Some meet their better half at church. Others at parties. Others just bump into each other, say, somewhere. In extreme cases others even meet at funerals. Handsome Johnny did not know where he would meet his future wife but he knew he would meet her somewhere.
He was one of those men who are endowed with looks that women find irresistible. And that is where the Handsome sobriquet got appended to his name. Apart from that, he had the other thing that is even more important to women than mere looks: money. So, it was not surprising that women chased after him like dogs on heat.
Despite the attention women showered him, Johnny was not a man who got carried away by women. He had a strict upbringing and promised himself that he would take his time to choose the woman he would marry.
“Marriage is a lifetime commitment,” he would say. “So it is important to choose your marriage partner very carefully.”
Gordon, his best friend, agreed that this was true but thought he was taking rather too long. Johnny was now thirty-five and all his age mates were already married but he was still single and looking for Miss Right. Gordon began to get worried that his friend would never get married.
Of course, it was good news but you can imagine Gordon’s astonishment when Johnny suddenly announced that he had finally found the woman of his dreams.
“I can’t believe it,” exclaimed Gordon. “Where did you find the princess? On Mars?”
Johnny laughed. “Right here on earth, my friend. I met her a month ago in a bar.”
Gordon looked confused. “What do you mean you met her in a bar?”
“Exactly what you think I mean. I met her in a drinking joint at Kamba,” Johnny said calmly.
Gordon smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Get serious, Johnny, this is no joking matter. Where did you meet the angel that has captured your heart?”
Johnny closed his eyes and it was as if he was back in the bar on the day he met her. He had just entered the bar when he saw her. She stood alone with her back against the counter at one end of the bar playing with her cell phone. He was not aware that he had stopped midway to the counter and was staring at her while almost drooling like an idiot.
Of medium height and very light in complexion, she was in a shimmering green dress, which although not so close fitting, revealed in a subtle way an imposing body with jutting breasts tapering to a slender waist and then widening to curvaceous hips. Out of a small hat tilted rakishly towards one eye flowed black hair which framed her face to below her beautiful jawline. He fathomed her age to be around twenty-five.
Something made her aware of his gaze and she looked up. When their eyes met, Johnny knew with amazing certainty that his search for a woman was over. He was even surprised to see that he saw the same thing in the woman’s eyes.
Giving her an embarrassed smile, he tottered to the counter, ordered a drink and hopped on a stool. While he sipped his drink, he turned his eyes on her from time to time, each glance adding up to the store of her impressions he was building in his head.
Johnny noted that she did not have any makeup even on her wide and sensual mouth. Her face, majestically beautiful, had natural smoothness not that borne out of mascara that is so common in many women. Even her fingers were trimmed shot and not painted.
He tried to ignore her but found that this was an impossibility. And whenever their eyes met, he had a feeling that she, too, was studying him.
Now, this was not the first time for Johnny to see a girl in a bar. In fact, although married, his best friend Gordon professed himself as an expert of prostitutes. He enjoyed their company, bought them drinks, danced with them and whenever an opportunity availed itself he would sleep with them.
“My mama always said it’s good to share,” Gordon would defend himself. “All these sweet girls are here to coin money so we should all be good enough to share the little we have with them.”
You would think that being Gordon’s close friend, Johnny was also into prostitutes. Not at all. He enjoyed their company, talking to them and buying them drinks, but that was all. Women were not his weakness. Due to his strict upbringing, his father being a fiery pastor of some fanatical obscure religious sect, he had grown up being told sex outside marriage was a sin. Although he had rebelled and left the church when he grew up, his views on sex outside marriage did not change. He planned to take time to look for his other half and only after he had tied the knot with her would he then have sex with her. So all attempts by Gordon to make him bed any of the girls failed.
However, not even once did he see the girl as a prostitute. What he saw was a woman. He wanted this woman but did not know how to approach her.
“Who’s that girl?” he asked the bartender.
“Joyce. She’s new here. Some woman she is. Comes here but doesn’t hook any man. Don’t know what her game is,” the bar tender paused, winked at Johnny, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Wanna try your luck?”
Johnny smiled. “Guess so. Offer her a drink.”
The bartender served her a drink and she thanked him by clasping her hands together and bowing her head.
“Also ask her if she would like some snacks,” Johnny told the bartender.
The response did not come with the bar keeper. A whiff of subtle perfumed enveloped him and he raised his head like a dog trying to trace the source of a delicious aroma. The girl stood beside him.
“Hi, I’m Alicia,” she said proffering her hand. “May I know my benefactor?”
“I…I’m Johnny,” he stammered taking her hand.
“I’ll accept your offer for the snacks if you say we’ll eat together,” she said with a smile.
“Suggestion accepted,” he replied promptly.
“Barman, offer us the snacks,” she said in a sing song voice to the barman then turned to Johnny. “Let’s go and sit down.”
They went to sit down on a sofa in one corner of the bar. They talked while they drank. The girl was easy to talk to and full of humour.
“The bartender told me your name was Joyce,” Johnny said irrelevantly.
She removed her hat and set it on her lap. “What I told you is my real name,” she said with a smile.
Johnny laughed. “Why did you tell me your real name?”
She looked at him in the eye. “Because my heart told me that was the right thing to do.”
Johnny’s eyes caught sight of a brutish looking man who was trying to catch Alicia’s attention by winking at her. “Your friend?” he asked casually.
“No,” she replied. “That’s what I hate most about this life; the people you’re forced to consort with.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m not here because I like this life,” she said softly. “I’m an orphan. I used to live with my aunt. My uncle wanted to rape me and when I told my aunt, she turned against me, accusing me of trying to destroy her family. I was thrown out of the house and ended up here.”
Johnny did not know what made him say it but he said, “I’ll take you out of this place and make you my wife.”
Alicia looked into his eyes. “You mean it,” she said with disbelief.
At this point, Gordon intruded into the story. “You mean you believed her story? Promised to marry a prostitute you just met in a bar?”
“Why not? Just as she trusted her heart to tell me her real name, I also trusted my heart to believe her story,” Johnny said.
“And then?”
“I proposed love to her,” Johnny said.
Gordon took a deep breath. “You proposed love to a prostitute?”
“No, I proposed love to a woman whom I met in a bar,” Johnny countered.
“A woman one meets in a bar is called a prostitute.”
“And what do you call the man who meets the prostitute in the bar?” returned Johnny.
“Don’t be hypothetical, Johnny. This is a serious matter. I’m surprised you bought the stupid sob story she told you about being chucked out by her aunt. That was all bullshit meant to gain your sympathy.”
“Nope. I know it was true,” Johnny said with conviction.
“Okay, let’s say it was true but that doesn’t justify her being found in a bar,” Gordon said.
“Maybe you’re right but that’s not the point. The point is that I love her and I’m going to marry her.”
“Marry a prostitute?”
“Yes,” Johnny answered with finality.
Gordon was incredulous. “You spend all these years looking for a woman and you end up marrying a prostitute? Why?”
“To you, she’s a prostitute. To me, she’s just like any other woman. I love her and she loves me. My heart tells me she’ll make me a very good wife.”
“Wise up, man. A prostitute is a prostitute. In anything she does, it’s about money, pure business. There’s no love involved.”
“Nope, I know this one loves me,” Johnny said. “She’s there because of problems.”
Gordon laughed. “Whores are whores because they want to be whores and nothing else. The stories they feed you is just to gain your compassion so that they can easily relieve you of your money.”
Johnny shook his head. “You don’t understand…”
“There’s nothing to understand. You deal with a whore on a pay as you go basis-nothing permanent…”
“Not everyone is a whore because they want to be one. Others are forced into prostitution by circumstances. Given a chance they would make excellent wives.”
Gordon looked at Johnny disbelievingly. “Johnny, you know I’m an expert as far as prostitutes are concerned. I’ve experience with all their types, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. They’re incapable of loving. Everything they say is a lie. The only thing they value is money. Forget about her. There are so many good girls out there, why ruin your life by marrying a prostitute?”
“To me the best girl is Alicia. I love Alicia and I know she loves me. I’ll take her out of that bar and make her my wife,” Johnny said.
Gordon’s arguments fell on deaf ears. “You’ll regret this decision,” he said resignedly. “That woman will bring you nothing but grief.”
When Johnny broke the news to his parents and relatives, they also opposed him vehemently.
“There’s no way we can allow you marry a woman of such loose morals,” they contended.
“She’s isn’t of loose morals,” he defended her. “It was just circumstances that made her to be found in the bar. Maybe it was even God who sent her there so that I could meet her.”
They all agreed the girl had bewitched him and they must therefore find a witch doctor to break the spell. But all the witchdoctors they consulted failed to break the spell. “She has very strong juju,” the witchdoctors justified their failure.
Johnny’s marriage ceremony to Alicia was heavily patronised by both his friends and relatives. They all wanted to see with their own eyes the bar girl, as they called Alicia, who had stolen Handsome Johnny’s heart. Most hoped against hope that some other man Alicia had known in her other life would appear and cause a scene and therefore break the unfortunate marriage before it went far. But Alicia, at ease and all smiles, in a white wedding dress, was the perfect bride.
“I hope you’ll not regret this decision,” Gordon, who was his best man said. “You know people have made bets that this marriage won’t last a year tops.”
“I’ll prove them wrong, buddy,” Johnny said.
To most people’s disappointment, the wedding ended without the slightest glitch. Johnny and Alicia settled into married life. There were a lot of visitors to their house. Most of them were Johnny’s friend and relatives. They came frequently. Their fake smiles masked the real reason for their visits. They were there to witness first-hand the problems they thought Johnny would face with Alicia.
But Alicia proved to be a very good home maker. She was a great cook, kept the house spotlessly clean and conducted herself impeccably well in public. She was the epitome of a good wife and they all came to envy the way she was devoted to Johnny. They had thought she would be cheating on him but she did not. She became a devoted Christian and together they became born again Christians. She later became the leader of the women’s guild of the church and Johnny a church elder. They were blessed with five children and their family was taken as a model family in the community.
Sad to say Gordon’s family broke up after he found his wife in bed with a man in their matrimonial home. But not even once did Alicia cheat on Johnny. When Johnny told his story at the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage, it was a testimony of how a person love and trust of another human being can change that person into a good person.
End.
