Fruits of love:

 Simon Jons sighed with pleasure as he saw Joyce Peterson walk through the gate into the Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospital yard. The fifty-four-year-old gardener was glad he had decided to work on a Saturday that twenty-seventh day of January 1996.

After watering the flowers, Simon went to meet Joyce. “You become more and more gorgeous as days go by. I like your beautiful lips and sweet smile,” he praised her as they shook hands.

“Thank you Simon,” she responded with an air of self-importance.

Three months earlier, Joyce’s husband had passed away. He had been suffering from Hepatitis B. This man was a Malawian and had no relatives in Zimbabwe. Since the death of her husband until then, Joyce had been arranging his burial with the Social Welfare of Zimbabwe. It was during this process that she met Simon and got infatuated with him.

They lackadaisically walked towards the canteen, which was empty since lunchtime had passed. As they did so, Simon’s right hand was around her waist. Joyce’s left-hand fingers were making slight up and down movements on the lower part of his buttocks, somewhere where thighs begin to part. All this took place in the eyes of patients and some hospital staff. There was no one to be afraid of since all of those in high ranks were not on duty.

They sat at a table in a corner near the door. At first, they discussed life in general then the talk slowly and smoothly transformed into admiration as well as praise that resulted in love talk.

Simon caressed her smooth yellowish left thigh with his right hand. The left one was around her, supporting her body. His warmth plus the sexual sensation stimulated by the gentle movement of his palm on the upper part of her thigh sent her crazy. She moved her lips on his chin. Soon her lips found his.

Simon’s mouth fit over hers, warm and coaxing. She sighed and relaxed against him giving herself up to the sensation. She felt the sensual power of it all the way to her toes, the impact stilling her breath. She then threw her arms and legs around him and hugged him fiercely.

At the peak of their romantic exercises, Joyce succumbed to her insatiable three-month sexual hunger. She slowly and carefully but unconsciously lay on the floor with Simon following at the same speed, each one’s tongue in the other’s mouth.

Indeed, it was two months after they had made love that Simon discovered a chancre on his genital area. There was fluid forming on it. He went to see the doctor who dealt with sexually transmitted infections. Fluid and pus were collected from the chancre and sent for laboratory tests. The following day, he was informed that he had contracted syphilis. On hearing this, Simon started to hate Joyce. Though she was absent at that time, he uttered all sorts of curses. He now suspected that she had transmitted HIV to him.

By this time, Joyce had a two-month-old pregnancy. She wanted to tell him about this but knowing that she had infected him with syphilis and also that he was a married man, she held back her decision in fear of being killed by him.