Day 15 - Teresa's side of the story

That first date with Shawn was not the last and three months later I found myself at a small ceremony signing a marriage certificate.

Wow, I can hear you say. You're right. It was too fast and too crazy like a lot of things in my life.

The marriage was brief. The real Shawn came out and I didn't like him.

No that really isn't the truth. I shouldn’t tell lies against a dead person. Yes, we had our fights but Shawn was a nice man. God rest his soul in peace. He killed himself a week after I left him for the investment banker. Just jumped out of the apartment window on the 15th floor.

Poor Shawn. Didn't he know that I would never trust another man after my high school sweetheart got me pregnant and bolted? Couldn't he understand that I would never really give myself fully to a man? Any man? Surely not after my heart was broken so brutally.

Well, I guess I never told him. The guy still appears in my worst nightmares on a regular basis. In fact one day when we were with David in the camp at Masai Mara and he had to rush to my bedside, I must have been screaming in my sleep. And when I opened my eyes I almost had a coronary because I though David was Shawn, back from the dead. They did have that small resemblance. Same height, almost. Same good looks. Same devotion.

Of course David didn't understand and I didn't tell him.

So back to that night in that hell hole. After David said yes, I did something rather strange.

I asked him to hug me. I really do believe sometimes that I am mentally insane.

Why did I do it? Was it to tease him further after that look of desire I had seen in his eyes? Was it to feel the power women feel over men in these matters? Or was it the look, something akin to that of a scared alley cat caught red handed, that he had when I felt his rising manhood press against me and reminded him that our agreement was that there was to be no sex.

I'll probably never know, because I hardly understand myself.

But despite everything things did not really go according to plan. I would never have believed that I would start developing feelings for David. But I did. Feelings I had never had before for a man, not even my high school sweetheart.

The man reached a place in my heart that no other man even came close to.

The whole thing puzzled me and I wondered what had brought it on. David was a nice person. Very protective. And I guess the fact that there was no sex between us, gave us time to develop the relationship in a way that would not have been possible, did we go the usual path.

That day in the game drive, I had made up my mind that I would abandon the whole stupid plan and go back to the lodge and make love to my husband and give myself to him forever, in sickness and in health in plenty and in lack…

Especially after that gentle tender kiss he gave me that had my whole body trembling. I never believed it was possible for any man to make me feel like this.

That’s the excitement that was in my eyes when we saw that lion kill that gazelle with so much agility and precision. That also made me fall in love with the African wild all over again. The place where I had unexpectedly found true love – at last.

I even started wondering what David’s children would look like when I bore them. I was past 38 but these days even 45 year olds were having babies. Modern technology was wonderful sometimes. It seemed to me for a moment that nothing would be impossible as long as we had each other. Me and David.

Then in one stupid rush moment, I decided that one more test for David was in order. What came over me, I will never know.

I decided that if he asked me not to go ahead with my crazy plan, I would obey and stay. If he didn’t I would go ahead with the plan. The One million dollars I stood to lose if I chose David also floated temptingly before my eyes.

With that kind of cash, I would be able to find myself a dozen David’s if I wanted them, I lied to myself.

In that moment of hesitation, I made my quick and wrong decision and slipped quietly out of the tourist van with David destructing the others as we had planned all along. I was to regret that decision for many days and weeks.

More so because here I was held captive in a small dark mud hut in the middle of nowhere. All I knew for sure were two things. That I was somewhere in the Mara. And that the people who held me captive would have to kill me because I knew too much.

It seemed that the lie I had told David about coming to die in the wild in Africa was going to happen for real.