Chapters 13, 14, 15, 16 Copyright

Chapter   13

I opened all the apartment windows, and stepped out onto the verandah to get fresh air. The fumes inside had given me a head rush. I tried to plan my next few moves, and looked across the black void to help me focus. Concentrate. I looked up into the night sky and wondered if any astronauts were looking down, trying to make contact from their broken down space capsules. Could they throw a paper jet into space with SOS scrawled on it? It would take too long. You would just have to sit in there, cramped, with fuck all options. I was terrified of having no options.

I wished I could phone my mother for advice. She was always advising my sisters what to do in times of trouble. I had been on unsteady terms with my sisters for many years. I’m not really sure why. I guess we were a fractured and broken family, and nothing could ever change that fact.

My youngest sister, Gennifer, was bipolar. She was Daddy’s little girl. Spoiled. I guess it was not her fault that she became highly unstable and married fuckheads.

Her only son, Jules, was a psychopath who would grow up to be a gangster hit man. A nasty piece of work. Two metres tall and heavyset. He had a short-fuse temper like his ex-mafia father. He mixed with gangland bouncers, some of whom were implicated in the assisted suicide of a controversial mining boss.  

Gennifer was cut down in the prime of her life by a drug crazed husband with a 44 Magnum. Her skull was spattered into hundreds of fragments. She had visited her local police station the day before, to tell them of her fears; that her husband was trigger happy; that he was a cocaine addict and that he had threatened to shoot her if she ever left him. She wanted to leave him. The police told her not to worry, that she was over-thinking things, to go home, pack her bags and leave. Bad fucking advice as it turned out.

Mommy was in the next room, chain smoking. She seemed to get over the tragedy quite quickly. I could imagine Mommy, sitting on her bed, chain smoking and eating the end of her cigarette ash.
She would wet-lick the tip of her finger and tip the ash ball, then eat the ash that stuck to her finger.
I wonder if she even flinched.

My older sister was the victim of an unloving and bullying father. Sherry was a kind girl. Soft hearted and without a bad bone in her body. Father was mean and cruel to her. Basically, he was a bastard.
An emotionless, uncaring, hurtful, womanising, wife and child-beating piece of shit. But I loved him, even though he hurt me emotionally. He couldn’t hurt me physically. I had learned to absorb pain and think of the bigger picture before I turned thirteen.

He wounded my soul many times over. In the end I forgave him for my part, but never from Sherry’s part.

A picture of my mother floated into my head. Mommy was reading a magazine. I was a little boy then. Only six years old. I had been temporarily suspended from the Holy Rosary Convent. The nuns said I had a black heart. I can’t remember why. It still hurts me today when I think of it. How cruel, to tell a six year old that he has a black heart.  Hairy legged old bitches. 

But back to Mommy. She was reading a magazine. I had a mind-numbing toothache. Mommy was ignoring my pain. She didn’t even look up from her magazine. I was simply a nuisance factor. I threw myself backwards and somersaulted. I was never able to do that again for some reason.

Mommy said, “Knock yourself out, kid.” I ran to my room and dived onto my bed in pain and rage. Then I cried. I cried till the pain dulled. My blankets smelled mouldy. I didn’t like my bed. It sagged. It had urine stains when it came from the second-hand shop.

I felt like an unwanted pet. Like a cat that pissed on the furniture.

I slithered under my bed and found my plastic horse. It was blue.
Why the fuck would anyone make a blue plastic horse? 

Focus, Kevin, focus. I repeated the phrase until my mind cleared.

I had to get away. But I had a car and a motorcycle. The car was too obvious. The bike meant travelling light. Oh, Jesus. No good choices left. I decided to drive the laden Alfa to the outskirts of a small town approximately a hundred miles away, burn it in a field, jog unseen into town, and catch a train back home. Then hit the road on my Honda motorcycle.
Okay. That seemed like a good plan.
Get moving, Kevin.



Chapter  14

I pulled off onto a dirt road and drove about two hundred yards. The stillness of the night was unnerving. It was around three a.m. I had to pick up the pace. I restarted the Alfa, opened the bonnet and sliced through the rubber fuel pipe with my Leatherman-Wave. Fuel spurted out, soaking the engine compartment. Shit. All over my arms as well. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I stood back and waved my arms in windmill style for a few seconds. The engine died. I lit a match, opened the box and then lit the lot. I threw the hissing box into the engine compartment. A loud ‘whoof’ nearly blew me off my feet. I picked up my rucksack and started to run. I ran the first few miles through ploughed lands, parallel to and about two hundred yards from the road. I ran and I ran.

My military training in the paratroops was always good for me in many ways. I had stamina, strength, and the will to get the fuck away as fast as possible and to demolish anyone that stood in my way.

By the time I got back to my apartment in downtown Johannesburg, dawn was rising over the concrete horizon. I was cold and smelled of sweat, petrol and adrenaline. I stepped into the apartment, resisting a strong urge to shower.

The cockroach was still lying on its back. So that shit about them surviving nuclear holocausts was only urban legend.

I picked up my camping backpack and left. I rode slowly out of Johannesburg, taking an indirect route eastwards. Eastwards towards Swaziland and Mozambique. I would decide later. For now, every mile of tarmac rolling under my wheels gave me an increasing feeling of freedom and invincibility.

I kicked up the revs once I was clear out of the city. The Honda was singing a glorious melody, and I felt that perhaps things would work out well after all. I started to sing to myself.

Four and twenty years ago
I come into this life
son of a woman and a man who lived in strife
He was tired
of being born
and he wasn’t even selling
door to door
Morning comes the sunrise,
And I'm driven to my bed
I see that it is empty
And there's devils in my head.
I embrace the many coloured beast.
I grow weary of this torment
Can there be no release
And I find myself just wishing
that my life would simply cease

It was a Stephen Stills song that I had mangled, and loved singing in the shower from the first time I ever heard it sometime back in 1970. Often I misheard lyrics and substituted words.  So what.
 This song encapsulated my life. It was written for me.

I pulled into a large holiday complex near to a T- junction, where one chose to go to either Swaziland, or Mozambique.  It was big enough to melt into, and small enough to keep a check on developments.

I paid for a week upfront, in cash, from my Butterfly Bar stash. I counted my money and locked it in the room safe. Then I went and parked the Honda behind the utility rooms where it would not be easily noticed. I paid the old night-watch man a small fortune to wash her and watch her for a few days. He was delighted about the cash, but still asked me for cigarettes. I needed a friend, so I gave the old bastard a few more coins to buy smokes.

I showered to cleanse my body. Then I ran a deep bath and lay soaking, trying to cleanse my soul. Closed eyes. Trying to think. Trying to make sense of the senseless. Trying to force my inner demons out where God could see them and smite them. But what if he had bad aim and smote me as well. Was there such a word as ‘smote?’ or was it ‘smited?’ Better to leave God out of the equation at this point. For me, God posed more questions than he could provide solutions. Where was God when that Hitler bastard wanted to rape me? Where was God when Gennifer’s husband pulled a 44 Magnum on her? Where was God when you really needed him?

I lay in the tub, sweating. I wanted the poison to leach from my brain, down my spine and out through my skin.

I was essentially a good person. A kind person.  All I ever wanted was to love someone and be loved in return. I wanted to be married, to a pretty girl with a ponytail and she would smile and touch my face. We would have pretty blonde children and go on picnics to the zoo. We would ride our bicycles, like a real family, through the park. We would park our bikes and spread a blanket, to eat a packed lunch of roast chicken sandwiches with individually packed bottles of mayonnaise and Branston pickle.

The picnic blanket would be black, so that you could see the edges clearly against the bright green grass. On the blanket we would lay a gingham table cloth, with matching serviettes. We would have a bottle of champagne. The children would have litchi juice.

Our first born would be Steven. A strapping boy. He would be the apple of everyone’s eye. He would help old ladies to carry their heavy grocery bags. He would be polite and never fight. Not unless he had to, but if he did then he would be a tornado. That thought mulled in my head for minutes. I changed it. Decided I didn’t like the name Steven.  In fact, Steven seemed to be a bit of a ponce. I went back to my headspace. Steven’s new name was Butch. Nobody fucked with Butch. Yes. Butch would work. I lay in the bath and planned Butch’s life down to the finest detail.

The bath was long and wide. The hot water supply was seemingly endless. I watched steam form condensation on the ceramic wall tiles and then rivulets, running back down into the bath. The process was ongoing. Like the circle of life. Birth. Death. Rebirth. I was bathing in the circle of life.
I was being cleansed of sin.

I would find my Barbie wife. We would perform the cloacal kiss and we would have our Butchie boy.
I need to explain that the whole intercourse performance didn’t really appeal to me in the way it did to other people. I liked the chase, the hunt, the kill.

Having sexual intercourse was extremely personal. You had to look into someone’s eyes and give away your inner self, your inner emotions. You had to expose your soul and your truth. Women would take advantage of you, abuse your kindness and then ultimately ignore you.

They would ignore me just like Mommy did. Cold-hearted Mommy. Why didn’t she love me?




Chapter   15

The warm water enveloped me. I felt safe. An unborn foetus in its mother’s womb.
I lay soaking in a pleasant dream state for nearly an hour.

Three sharp knocks on the room door brought me rapidly out of my trance. I panicked, trying to plan an escape. There was no back door. No side windows. No escape route. I wondered if they were pointing rifles at the door, like SWAT cops. Dressed in camouflage outfits, with kevlar jackets, steel helmets, nervously poised. I wondered if they were excited, like predators about to move in for the kill. I wondered if they too were a bit scared. I wondered how many they were ... what their names were ... if they had wives and children ... if they had pets ... probably they had dogs with macho names. Would they give me a chance, or would they simply go for a fatal shot?

“Maid service.” It was a woman’s voice. My heart rate slowed from around two hundred beats per minute down to one hundred. My self-preservation mindset moved from Defcon 5 to Defcon 2.

I shouted back, “Hold on. I’ll only be a minute.”

I wrapped a massive towel around myself and, still behind the bathroom door, I called out, “OK, you can come in now.”

I heard the front door open, and heard a female voice humming softly. I heard the room door shut. I breathed quiet and shallow, listening intently and trying to identify the movements on the other side of the bathroom door. The door was a hollow core type. Cheap and lightweight.  It wouldn’t stop a potato thrown in anger. Who throws potatoes? Why did I think of potatoes?

I heard the sounds of sweeping and the clattering of items in the small kitchenette area. She was still humming.

I peeped through the bathroom door keyhole. The chambermaid was a curvy, young African woman dressed in a crisp pink uniform. She had a pleasing body shape and long lithe legs. She wore a tight fitting headscarf, also in crisp pink.

She turned around. Although I had previously never fancied black women, this lady was something quite special.

She leaned over to pull off the bedding. Her dress rode high up and I saw her firm thighs exposed. She leaned further and I caught a glimpse of pink panties stretched over her bulging womanhood. My chest started heaving. My mind was racing. Focus Kevin, focus. Stop.

I felt my pressure against the tight towelling. Sane thoughts were leaving me. I stepped out of the bathroom. The young woman was startled. She said, “Sorry sir. I will come back later.”
I said, “No’, you can carry on. Do what you have to do. No problem.”

I could see she was uncertain, perhaps even slightly afraid, but decided to do as the guest suggested.
She carried on making the bed, seemingly not knowing that every time she leaned over she was putting herself on display for me. I liked it. I liked it a lot.

“Anyway, my name is Danny. What’s your name?”
She said, “My name is Beauty, sir.”
“Your name suits you, because you are very beautiful.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Please call me Danny. Not sir.”
She giggled nervously and resumed making the bed, obviously uncomfortable with the interaction.
“How old are you, Beauty?”
“Me, I’m twenty years old next month.”
“Are you going to have a party?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I haven’t got the money for a party.”

“Beauty, I’m going to give you one thousand rand, so that you can have a party. You must have a party.” I was going to break down all her possible resistance with a wad of cash. I wanted to see her naked. I wanted to smell her body. I wanted to smell her cocktail of fear and hormones.

She looked at me in a mix of amazement and bewilderment. I opened the safe and counted out a thousand rand. I walked slowly towards her, right up close to her. She had the bed behind her and could not move away. I held the wad of notes against her breast and simultaneously sucked my stomach in, causing my towel to slowly drop to the floor.

Beauty looked down at the wad of notes. I saw her focus shift to my erection. Then she looked me in the eyes and said, “Thank you, Danny.”

I gently pulled Beauty down onto the bed. She didn’t resist. I started to kiss her cheek, moving slowly towards her full, ripe lips. She didn’t resist but at the same time she was not too enthusiastic. 

I put my hand on her breast and kneaded it gently. She began to moan softly, perhaps in protest.
I kissed her full on the lips. She began to respond by kissing me in return, but more like greeting pecks. I started undressing her. She looked at me with pleading eyes. “Please can I go, Danny?”

I said, “Not yet. We have to finish the deal. We have to make love. We have to love each other.”

By then I had her uniform open.  I put my arms around her and unclipped her brassiere. Her eyes followed mine and my hand movements, almost trance-like. I had my left arm around her, holding her left shoulder firmly. I slid my right hand down into her panties and into her groin.
That’s when she resisted.

I felt her warm, moist folds and pushed my index finger into her. I thought she would like that.

Beauty tried to sit up. She said, “No. We can’t do this. Please let me go.”
I pulled her back down and forced her legs apart with my knee. She tried to sit up again and started to scream. I punched her on the left temple, leaving her temporarily dazed. Holding her arms on her chest, I pulled her one knee up and felt myself enter the being of this dark beauty below me.

I sat on Beauty, watching her slip slowly back into consciousness. As she again became aware of her circumstances, a low animal-like sound came out of her, gaining in volume and pitch. Jesus. Was she mad?  The entire resort would be at my door in minutes. I put my hands over her mouth to stifle her screams. She bit deeply into my hand. I grunted in pain.

I let go with my injured hand. Beauty grabbed at my face. She scratched my chest, drawing blood.
She sucked in a deep breath, and let rip with a bloodcurdling scream. The scream had hardly left her mouth when I had my hands around her throat, shutting it down. Stopping the scream. I pressed my thumbs in deep and hard. I saw absolute panic and fear in her eyes. Pleading eyes. Terrified eyes.
Sheer terror. I liked that.

Beauty’s struggling became subdued. Her eyes began to close. It was time. I climaxed. My semen arced through the air onto Beauty’s chest. I was proud of my trajectory. I was more talented than an Olympic archer.

I continued squeezing until I was spent and Beauty was past tense. I thanked her and lay next to her, drifting in and out of contented sleep, for some twenty minutes.

I woke up, startled. Beauty was starting to stiffen and I had to get rid of her. I cleaned her body with the sanitizers she had brought into the room. She looked so neat and perfect when I had finished dressing her.

 I smeared a dab of floor polish on her neck to disguise the bruising that had become apparent.

I sat Beauty upright on a flimsy metal dining chair and tied her to it with the pull-out wash line.
 I wanted her body to ‘set’ in the sitting position.

I packed my bags and got ready to move, waiting nervously while the daylight hours slowly turned to nightfall. Why does trouble always seem to follow me? Why can’t I have a normal life? Why must this shit always happen to me? Life is so unfair. All I ever wanted was a Barbie wife, and cute blonde children.

I walked to the night-watchman, gave him two cigarettes, and asked him to get me another packet of cigarettes from the convenience store located on the opposite side of the complex. I told him to buy a pack for himself and waited till he was out of sight.

I rode the Honda back to the room, parking just outside the door. I tied my baggage on the carrier. I hauled Beauty outside and put her on the pillion. I tied her legs to the bike frame and her torso around my luggage. I tied her arms with her hands on her thighs. I put my helmet on her and she looked quite natural. Her head hardly moved, as rigor mortis had set in firmly. Taking care not to cause Beauty to wobble, I pulled off and slowly drove out the complex and onto the main road towards Swaziland.

I had cruised some fifteen miles when I saw a dirt track leading off the main road, into what appeared to be forest land. I drove along the track for approximately fifty yards then cut the lights and the engine. I listened for any sounds of civilisation. All I could hear was the buzzing of insects and a far away dog-like howl.

I untied Beauty, and hauled her over my shoulder into the darkness. There was sufficient moonlight to follow the track, which had a ravine leading off one side. “This is it, Beauty,” I mumbled to her. ,,
I laid her on the ground, removed my helmet and pushed her into the ravine. I heard the rustling of her rolling body for several seconds and then there was silence. The cicadas restarted their shrill buzz, a signal that all disturbance had ceased. I walked back a few yards, stopped and urinated into the long grass.

A few minutes later I was back on my bike. Trying to focus. Should I go to Swaziland? Should I go to Mozambique? Where will I stop running? When will I stop running? Should I instead go to a city and try to blend in under an assumed name?



Chapter  16

Thoughts of Karma-Jane crept into my mind. It’s all that bitch’s fault, I thought. All her fault. I shook my head slowly. That was a lie. It wasn’t her fault. There were others before her. All bitches, though.
All trouble- making bitches. Fucking bitches. They all tried to ruin my life.

But Karma-Jane could have been the special one. I even opened up my feelings to her and she literally kicked me in the teeth and called me a crazy bastard. Fuck her. My mind clouded. I could see Karma-Jane in front of me. Her slender, graceful, beautiful neck, with two very cute freckles on the left side. She also had light freckles on her nose and cheeks. She had a gorgeous face and perfect teeth. Her breath smelled like caramel toffees.  She was strong and proud. A good runner. I was amazed at how fast she ran. I wondered if she was a proper athlete.

My mind was in overdrive. I could see Karma-Jane in her tight running shorts. Light blue shorts. Tight in the groin. A white vest, with her nipples like buttons. Dark blue Nike trainers. Hair tied back in a ponytail. The starter’s gun fired. She took off like a cheetah. Her strides got longer and longer, her legs began to stretch until they were longer than her body. She tripped and rolled into a ball and lay on the ground like a crumpled heap of laundry. Then she just melted away. I picked up the ball of clothing and smelled it. 

It smelled like fabric softener. Pine-scented fabric softener. Just like the plastic sachet that Sheila Levy kept under the front seat of her silver BMW convertible. Or, as Sheila insisted, “a cabriolet, not a convertible.” A spoiled little daddy’s girl. A bit of a cow actually.