“Do you have any brothers and sisters?” she asked him.
“Too many,” he answered. “I have three sisters and two brothers. I’m somewhere in the middle. I grew up on a huge cattle farm in the Bushveld, way up north near the Zimbabwean border. My family still has big farms there. Both my brothers farm with my father. My sisters are also married to farmers.”
“And why are you not farming?” she asked sweetly.
“Farming is very hard—especially in South Africa. The farmers are not subsidized by the government. I find farming boring and monotonous. Only, I can’t say that in front of my family. They will kill me.”
“Are your brothers as big as you are?”
“I am the runt of the litter,” he mocked. “You must see my brothers—they’re huge. And my sisters—they are even bigger.” He was glad to see Amy laugh at his jokes.
The waiter hovered about them. “Shall we order something to eat?” Sauer suggested.
“I thought you’d never ask. I am starving.”
Sauer found it easy to talk to her. He could actually be his own clowning self. She laughed at his stories and begged for more.
Their food arrived and he was glad to see that she had a healthy appetite. After supper they both had dessert. All the while they made some small talk.
The waiter came and asked them if they wanted coffee. Both declined.
“If I drink coffee now, I’ll never sleep,” Amy said.
The waiter brought the bill over and placed it in front of Sauer. Amy reached over for the bill but he picked it up and held it to his chest.
“Shouldn’t we go Dutch?” she asked seriously.
“Never,” he said. “This is the least I could do after disrupting your romantic life so severely.”
“Then I should pay,” she said and reached over the table. Her hand rested on his hand that held the bill. “He would not leave me alone. He kept harassing me. He would come to my work, to my house. He even went as far as phoning my mother. I would sometime go to her house to hide from him. Yet he would follow me there. I was at the point of getting an interdict.” She stopped talking abruptly. “I should pay the bill to thank you for helping him out of my life.”
Sauer stared at her breathlessly. She was so beautiful. “No, I wouldn’t hear of it.” He took money from his wallet and placed it in the bill folder.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly. Sauer couldn’t breathe. His heart was going so wild.
He drove her home without a word. Leonard Cohen was singing his Dance of Love. It was his favorite song. He never tired of it. He parked the car outside her house and walked her to the door.
“Would you like to come in for a night cap?”
“I’d love to, but I’ve got a killer to catch. Besides, I might not behave properly once you allow me inside your house.”
She laughed at this and reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “You are a very special man, you know. Normally I would have to fight most guys off my body by now,” she said.
I know why—I also want to rip your clothes off your body and make long passionate love to you. “My mom taught me never to kiss and tell on the first date.”
She laughed at this.
“Good night Amy,” he said quietly and kissed her on the forehead. He gazed into her eyes for a moment before she went inside and closed the door softly behind her.
She likes me, she likes me…I think I am in love!
On the way home his phone beeped. He read the text message. It was from Amy: “You are indeed very special and I would like to see you again. As soon as possible. Amy.”
He drove home with a song in his heart. She likes me, she likes me!
Chapter Twenty-Two
That night he watched Wills closely as they sat at the table. Mother was carrying on about the sins of the flesh. Wills ignored him completely—nodding, “Amen,” “Praise the Lord,” and “Hallelujah,” at everything Mother said. Young as he was, he realized that Wills and Mother were false and deceitful. Then the scariest thought entered his head: he was on his own and stuck with these mad people.
After the incident in the pig sty, he became a lot more aware of Wills’ movements. He watched him all the time. He made sure that he did not fall into any kind of a routine, as he was sure Wills was waiting for him. Wills did corner him from time to time. Every time, it would happen in one of the sties. His face would be pushed into the shit and mud, his pants ripped off his body. Every time it also became more violent. Before he was twelve years old, he was strong and clever enough to outsmart Wills completely. The last time Wills attacked him in the sty, he swung the feeding bucket around and hit Wills smack bang on the head. Wills crumpled down in the mud and shit. With as much force as possible, he hit Wills again and again with the feeding bucket until Wills stopped moaning.
He ran back to the house as fast as he could. He locked himself in his room and crawled underneath his bed. He did not go to supper that night.
Wills was not going to give up on his young victim that easily. Wills would try to get to him late at night in his bed when he would be sound asleep. Wills did catch him sleeping one night, but he managed to fight him off. After that, he knew that Wills would only stop if he was dead. It was as if he instinctively knew what nights Wills would be coming for him. He started reading the signs in Wills’ eyes.
After a defeat Wills would be furious. The fury would simmer down to a pathetic, rueful creature licking his wounds, only to flare up again in murderous anger. All these emotions would ravage through Wills in less than a week. It was easy to outsmart Wills because he was not terribly bright. The moment he saw the anger building up in Wills, he would take action. He would stuff blankets under the sheets, climb through the window and find a sleeping spot on the warm hay in the cow shed. He would hear Wills rage from a distance. At first he used to be scared, but gradually he became at ease and would slumber off during the rages. He would tug his blanket tightly around him and laugh quietly.
It took Wills a few weeks to figure out where he was hiding.
He saw the anger in Wills eyes that night, and slipped off to the cowshed just after lights out. As he lay down on the warm hay tugging his blanket around him, mentally readying himself for a peaceful slumber, a brick hit him on the forehead. He knew it was a brick because he found it next to him on the hay the next morning. His clothes were torn off his body. Dried blood caked around his anus. His head was pounding and he felt a massive bump where the brick struck him.
Wills was all smiles for two days. When they did make eye contact, Wills would wink at him and slowly draw his finger across his neck. Yet every night, mother would preach about the sins of the flesh and Wills would ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ everything. Less than three days later the anger was back in Wills’ eyes.
That evening he opened the bedroom window, climbed onto the roof and lay there warily. He heard Wills’ ranting and raving in his bedroom. He heard the bed being thrown over and his closet doors slammed. Then Wills’ voice became distant as he walked towards the cow shed. He fell asleep after that. He was unbelievably tired.
It was Wills’ scream underneath him that startled him. He was talking to Mother. “Now Mother!” Wills bellowed. “God told me to do it now! Open up!”
He could hear Wills moaning and Mother calling to God. A strange thing happened to his body. The same thing happened when he secretly peeked at girls with the big bosoms. He knew it was wrong. He knew it was what Mother refers to as the sins of the flesh. But he could not help it. His penis grew stiff. He touched it softly. It felt wonderful. His grip firmed up and he started stroking himself to Wills’ moaning.
He made himself quite comfortable up in the roof. In the one corner was a mattress that he dragged up there one morning when he bunked school, a few stolen blankets and a fluffy pillow. He had a flashlight, a plastic bottle for water and a couple of books to read. Later he brought up a chair and made an electric connection so that he could have a light. In one corner he buil
t up a cache of canned food that would last him several weeks if worse came to worse.
Every morning, when he could still hear Wills’ snores, he would sneak down, bathe and eat. Then he would go to his bedroom and get dressed for school. He was often the first child at school. That was where his naughty habit started, as he would describe it years later to a forensic psychiatrist.
He never knew what made him do it. It was the morning after Mother and Wills were especially noisy. By now he had figured out what they did. Once or twice he would peek at them through a hole in the ceiling. Mother’s distorted face sickened him. Still, he got a hard-on. He knew it was wrong, but he could not help it.
At the back of the school were the huge trash receptacles. Homeless cats roamed around there all the time. They normally scattered when he approached, quickly running into drain pipes or empty air conditioning vents. He always gave chase. In the beginning it was a mock chase.
Till that one morning.
A scraggly kitten blinded by an eye infection did not run away. He picked the cat up and threw it hard against the side of the container. The kitten struggled to get up. He knew he hurt the kitten badly, so he jumped on it again and again. He could hear bones crunch under his shoes, but he kept jumping. He could not stop himself. He felt strangely elevated afterwards. In the bathroom he stroked himself fast and furious.
After that, he would try and outsmart the cats, but they were too wary of him. He started putting food out for them to gain their trust. After a few days, an old cat did show some trust and was too slow to avoid his grasp.
That lasted for a few months. Eventually the cats were not a challenge for him anymore. Then he noticed that there were two little sisters which were also at school early. They were much younger than him. They would huddle together outside a classroom, talking softly to each other.
It took him less than three days to gain their confidence. On the fourth morning he took them into the bathroom with him. They were reluctant, but he told them that there was a beautiful butterfly against the wall. There was, but not a real one. He had cut it carefully out of a magazine and stuck it high against the wall, well out of their reach. Then he took the girls, one after the other, into a cubicle. He showed them his penis and talked them into taking their panties off. Within a week, he made them touch him, and he touched them. The softness of the flesh between their legs surprised him. He encouraged them to suck him. He returned the favor.
About a month later, he shoved his finger up the older girl. She shrieked of pain and with her sister ran away.
Later he denied everything. Mother sat next to him in the headmaster’s office and fervently denied that her adopted son would steep to such levels. The headmaster chose to believe him for two reasons: he was a star rugby player and Mother was a renowned pig breeder. The little girls were quietly moved to another school.
Once or twice he would be woken up by Wills’ angry bellow from below. He would lie quietly in the dark listening. Listening how Wills vented his anger on the furniture before returning to Mother. Wills never found him. At time Wills’ moods became so bad that he stayed up in the roof for days. He would come down and steal food when Wills and Mother were busy in her bedroom. It was easy to break open the lock of the pantry. He wonders even now how they never noticed that food went missing.
By the time he went to high school, he was taller than Wills. That was also the last time Wills tried to rape him. It was a rainy day. He wanted to feed the pigs quickly in order to get out of the rain. He must have daydreamed because he suddenly felt Wills’ arm grabbing him from behind. He swung around with such force and hit Wills in the face with a full bucket of pig food. Wills’ feet buckled under him and he dropped to the mud. Seeing his attacker weakened, he jumped on him, again and again. Just like he did with the cats. He eventually got hold of a brick and started hitting Wills in the face…again and again. Blood mingled with the mud and feces. Wills screamed like a pig, which angered him more.
Eventually he got up, left the bloody Wills in the sty and carried on with his chores. He had to break into the pantry for a week after that as Wills told Mother God knows what. At least Wills never ever came near him again. One day he saw Wills in the veldt with a black child. There were no workers on their farm. They all stayed in a village a few kilometers outside of town. During school breaks some of the neighbors’ workers would bring their children to the farm with them.
At first, he enjoyed his new found freedom. Free from Wills prowling around him all the time, he was in charge now. He could sleep where he wanted and do what he wanted. Soon he became bored. He realized that the excitement of trying to outsmart Wills everyday left him yearning for an adrenaline rush.
That was when he first started looking for new prey. He started stalking the neighbor’s eldest daughter, by accident really. He walked through the veldt one day and saw their dilapidated farmhouse. Everything looked dead quiet. He did not think that people lived there. He peeked through all the windows. The house was bare, except for the minimal furniture around. She sat on her bed, reading. She only wore a loose T-shirt. Her legs were slightly apart. He immediately got a hard-on.
Her name was Heidi. He never knew her last name. He’d seen her at school a few times. She was not in his grade. She was a few years older than he was. They were very poor. She did not have a mother, just a drunken father. Mother always said that Wills and he should never mix with them as they use alcohol. According to Mother, that was one of the biggest sins one could commit—drinking alcohol.
He started stalking her. It was easy. There were no dogs to announce his presence. He could openly stand at her window and watch her undress. Often late in the afternoon he would follow Heidi down to the river and watch how she bathed herself. They had no running water in their house. Her breasts were nicely rounded and her nipples stood erect when she walked into the cold water. He felt a strange surge in his loins as he watched her. Transfixed, He watched her as his penis became rock hard. At first he felt alarmed because he was sitting in the open veldt, yet when he touched it felt so very good. So he kept on touching it, rubbing harder and then softer until the pleasure became unbearable. It was such a nice feeling to have.
The next afternoon he was at the river long before she arrived. He started stroking himself as he watched her undress and bathe herself. He climbed up in a tree so that he could have a better view. He started stroking himself faster and faster, drowning in the intense pleasure it gave him. With the fast stroking, he somehow managed to lose his footing. He hit the water pool with such force that it took his breath away. Then the cool water calmed his body. When he surfaced he looked straight into Heidi’s horrified face. He tried to swim away as fast as possible but she called him back.
“What were you doing up in the tree?” she asked. “Are you watching me bathe?”
He stopped and faced her. He paddled slowly in the deep pool.
“Come here,” she said, still naked.
He swam over to her. She stood in waist deep water. A few feet from her he stopped and stood up. He was much taller than she. She smiled at him sweetly. “Have you been spying on me?” She stretched her hand out at him. He walked closer, looking at her amused face. His eyes slit down her wet body. Her breasts were beautiful. The river lapped her inner thighs. She was not angry at all. As a matter of fact, she enjoyed the attention.
“Do you want to come and play with me, Henry James Harper?” she whispered. He never asked how she knew his full name. Then again, everyone knows Mother. Everyone also knew that he was adopted as a baby by the Harper family and that his adopted father died when he was four. Like everybody else, he was told that the old man stumbled and fell and his head hit a rock. He bled to death. A worker only found him late that afternoon. His old man’s body was cold by then.
Henry looked at the gorgeous creature in front of him. He nodded his head at her question.
“Come, let’s go lie on that big rock in the sun so that we can get dry.” He took
her outstretched hand and followed her to the smooth rock. She spread a towel and sat on it. Her hand patted lightly on the towel next to her. He sat down, half ashamed of his erection. She looked at it and smiled at him. Then she went down on him.
That afternoon she taught him things about his body that he never knew. She also taught him about her body. They lay on the rock next to the river until the sun started to set, listening to the river flowing by. Then he walked her home. Outside her house, he grabbed her and squeezed her breasts and bottom. She groaned with pleasure. He smelled her neck and hair. She gently pushed him back. “Tomorrow,” she said simply.
The next afternoon he had rugby practice like he did most afternoons. He walked down to the river as soon as he got home. She was already there, waiting for him. She was laying on the same rock, and as she saw him, she waved him closer. He was sweaty and dirty from rugby practice, but that did not deter Heidi. She received him like a long, lost lover. Afterwards, they played in the water to clean themselves. They walked home in near darkness.
From then, virtually every afternoon they met at the river and she would guide him deeper into the ‘world of the sins of the flesh’, as Mother still preached every night. It became his new obsession. He would rush home from school, scarf down his late lunch and then rush down to the river, leaving his homework for later. Wills was scared of him now. He towered over Wills and made him do all his chores as a payback for the years when he was the smaller of the two. Wills accepted his lot and left Henry well alone.
It took Henry two years to get bored with her. Their screwing became monotonous. They had done it everywhere—in the water, under one of the big the trees when it was hot and on the sandbanks in the winter. They even did it once in the garage on Mother’s ancient, Toyota pick-up’s hood. He would plunge deep into her as he watched Mother and Wills wash dishes in the kitchen. Heidi never seemed to get enough sex. She wanted it as much as he wanted it. She was game to try anything.
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