The dress

It was a radiant scorchingly hot afternoon the subsequent day. Stella was inside the kitchen of an eatery washing the dirty dishes in the sink sweating profusely. A heap of plates was sprayed on the sink, they were covered in stains and some leftovers were roughly lying on them.

Stella sank the plates in the sink and was scrubbing them. She works as a maid in a local eatery in the morning till four in the afternoon and she rushes home afterwards to her critically ill nine-year-old sister, Lily to take care of her. Lily has been diagnosed with leukaemia and Stella has been having a hard time raising the funds for her treatment.

The kitchen was quite small and very uncomfortable. The electric fan dangling on the ceiling stopped working since two months ago and the ventilation that penetrates in, arrives through the wooden windows.

The eatery manager stepped into the kitchen and he stretched to her a sheet with a list of food items, "Stella, get to the market and purchase every item on that list."

Stella wiped her hands on her apron and held the sheet.

She took off her apron and dropped it on a chair and she grasped her handbag and stepped out of the kitchen. She walked outside the eatery and stood by the road side trying to flag down a taxi.

Peter stepped out of his car. He arrived the eatery since an hour ago waiting to speak with her. He would have stepped inside the eatery but stayed in his car when one of the cooks informed him that she was busy in the kitchen.

Stella's eyes widened in shock looking at him. He approached her and paused, "hi." He grinned from ear to ear.

Stella furrowed her eyebrows, "what are you doing here? Why are you following me around? How did you discover where I work?"

"Your friends at the bar told me how to find you."

"What do you want with me?"

"Your job at Excelsior bar, I want you to quit it. It is not decent for a pretty lady like you. I know of better decent jobs that pays really good."

"You wanna help me in exchange...?" Stella raised her brows.

"Nothing. I just want to help. Is it wrong to help someone. You really need the money but I wanna show you a better way of having it without er- giving your body to any man."

"Do you really think I'll believe you really wanna help me? Who knows, you want me to feel indebted to you so I will do anything you ask of me. You men are all just the same." Stella sighed and turned walking away.

Peter sniffed and said firmly, "soon, you're gonna stop avoiding me. I promise you that." He turned around and approached his car.

*******

It was 7:55pm later that day.

Stella stood at the dining table in her house rubbing jam on a few slices of honey bread and laying the slices on a plate serving her friend, Padma.

Padma grabbed a slice of the bread and munched a piece, "so, what are you going to do?"

"Going to do about what?" Stella pulled a seat and sat down.

"That guy who you said was stalking you."

"Oh, him. I'm not accepting anything he has to offer to me."

"Why not? Aren't you fed up of being a bar dancer?"

"I am but, I don't trust him, " Stella furrowed her brows, "he looks like a play boy to me. He may have several girlfriends out there to chase after a dancer like me. I'm sure he thinks I'm like one of the girls he frollicks with. Can we stop talking about him? Let's just enjoy our breakfast."

Peter sat at the terrace in his mansion clenching a glass of wine. His friend, Hano sat across a glossy Italian table with him sipping a glass of wine. Peter bowed his head scrolling down the screen of his phone glancing at pictures of lovely designer dresses advertised online grinning from ear to ear.

He stretched the phone to Hano's face, "what do you think of this pretty ball gown? It will look so good on Stella."

"You want her to accept you that's why you wanna gift her a expensive dress? I'm certain she's gonna fall for you."

"No, she is not an easy girl which surprises me a lot cause other ladies especially a worker in a bar, do not play hard to get and I prefer a stubborn and fussy lady cause the more she pushes me away, the more I feel challenged to fight to have her. I really love it when they give me a hard time."

"Not for long. You just said that she's a stripper. I'm sure she will quickly accept to be your girl after offering her that dress. No girl can easily resist a wealthy guy who's handsome as well." Hano winked at him.

"I see fire in her eyes whenever I look into them. I'm sure that a dress is not enough to get her to be mine. And since I want her for myself, I want her to quit working as a stripper."

"You are not her boyfriend yet you're already making decisions for her."

Peter's brows furrowed, "well, I don't like any man staring at her body. You should've seen...you should've seen how the men at the bar couldn't take their eyes off her. I don't want them to have images of her on their mind or even envisage her. I don't want any man coming close to her. I'm gonna make sure she is no longer a dancer at the bar."

"You think she's gonna listen to you cause you're gifting her an expensive dress? She might demand for more and more till she's satisfied. She's a stripper cause it pays really good. So, you've gotta give her much money than she's collecting at that bar. You think you can still handle it?"

"When I say I'm gonna make sure she quits working as a stripper, I really do mean it." Peter said firmly.