“I’m really sorry,” he says and I can hear he means it. “I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. Did you need stitches?”
“No. But I hope it won’t leave a scar. And I don’t know what I’ll tell Dave.”
“Tell him you were having a drink after work and some drunk guy smashed a bottle and you got hit by piece of flying glass. It’s the truth.”
“It is that,” I agree. “The real truth is that I don’t know how to be Dave’s wife anymore. Or a mom.”
“You were always a shitty mom. Dave’s a much better mom than you.”
“Hey mister,” I tell him. “I do my best. It’s better to have a mom than not.”
“I don’t know so much. I mean my mom loves me, she dotes on me, and what good did that do? Kids need one good parent and your girls have Dave.”
“What’s your point, JayRay? Are you asking me to leave my family and be with you?”
There is silence. “I thought not,” I say, and I’m like a kid who realizes that Father Christmas is a whore in drag. “Then, why don’t you back the fuck away from my parenting skills? Where are you?”
“A bar.” I can hear JayRay looking around and he sniffs loudly. “I don’t know which one.”
“Come to me, baby. Come on, I’ll make you forget about this crappy day.”
“I am getting fucking older by the fucking minute and all my dreams are gone. I thought that my phone would be ringing like a fucking crazy thing with offers from Hollywood. Stupid, eh?”
“Not stupid. Hopeful.”
“I’m running out of time, Leo. I’m my best asset, my only asset, and I’m losing it. I’m like the fucking fruit basket in the room that no one wants. I’m the rotten old fucking peach and pretty soon the fruit flies will be circling, moving in for the kill.”
“You’ll always be my peachy boy,” I say absently, wishing he’d stop being so dramatic and haul his ass over so I can cheer him up in person.
“I’m a rotten peach,” he says mournfully. “I never had a good heart. I’m rotten to the core. Even my father said so. He said, ‘boy, you may be the apple of your mother’s eye but you’re a rotten peach, just like me.’ He used to sing this song by Elton John, about peaches rotting in the summer sun. ‘That’s you and me, boy,’ he’d say. ‘Rotten peaches, rotting in the summer sun.’”
He falls silent.
“Nice. If anyone was a real peach, it was your dad. Come home to me, baby, I’ll make you feel better. Home is with me. Come on.”
“Okay.” JayRay sounds defeated. “I’ll have one for the ditch and be right there.”
8. BERNICE
I DRINK THE NIGHT AWAY. I drink steadily, red wine, and I chain-smoke cigarettes. I weep, slowly at first and then I howl with rage, my face pressed into a pillow to muffle the sound. I stand close to the open window, looking down at the glittering Vegas Strip and thinking about all the happy people out there. I hope the smell of cigarettes won’t carry into the next room. I’d booked a non-smoking room. I always hated those disgusting and smelly smokers’ rooms even when I smoked, but how could I have known what a disaster this trip would be and that I’d once again need my friend, nicotine?
I refuse to go downstairs and smoke outside. I’m convinced that those terrible people, JayRay and his girlfriend, will be lurking around, lying in wait and, besides, I can’t risk anyone seeing me. I look dreadful. My face is so swollen that my eyes are nearly shut.
I have a vicious headache. Wasps are stinging my eyeballs and I chew a couple of aspirin and smoke more cigarettes and drink more wine. I keep checking my email. I can’t stop myself. I curse Dirk, then I switch to telling myself that I’m better off without him. I know I should eat something, but my stomach feels full of bricks and I know I won’t be able to keep anything down.
I’m aching to go home. I’ll hide in my house and find a way to figure things out. I lie down on the hotel bed, my head pounding, and think back to how I met Dirk. I was the star, the guest of honour. I was the one they invited. The event was part of a book promotion that my agent had set up. Dirk was big into horse racing and one of the rich racehorse owner’s wives’ had a book club, and her husband had thought it would be a treat for the ladies to come out and meet me. I generally avoided those kinds of events like the plague. I’m great with my fans on email and Facebook, but please don’t ask me to actually talk to anybody in person because, really, I don’t have anything to say.
But I couldn’t find a way to get out of it, so I called on my friend, Theresa, and off we went.
Theresa had studied psychology at university with me but instead of becoming a therapist, she moved into statistical research and development. We got on fine because we exchanged tales of doomed love affairs over tubs of ice cream and bemoaned the lack of good men.
“I don’t even like horse racing,” I told Theresa, who was pushing up her cleavage while we primped in the ladies’ room. “I am only going because it’s a paid appearance.”
“Not that you need the money. Goddamn, my breasts are small. Heiress, bestselling author, you hardly need pocket money.”
I shrugged. “Amelia insisted that ‘important’ people will be in attendance.” Amelia is my agent. “By the way, your breasts are no smaller than mine.”
“Like that’s any consolation, Miss Flat Chest. I’m hoping that I will meet my rich sugar daddy husband today,” she joked and she shoved her breasts up another inch and I laughed.
The rich wives didn’t seem interested in me, which was great. It meant I could relax and enjoy myself. The suite was well catered and there was an elegance and gentility to the day that I liked. The crowd was affluent and beautifully dressed by local designers and it was a nice place to be. And it got even nicer when I spotted Dirk.
He was built like a rugby forward, big and strong and wide. He had a laugh that came right from his balls, and I instantly wanted him to fuck me. I’m not promiscuous by definition, but I have appetites and as long as there were no emotional ties, I did whatever I wanted to do. I wasn’t sexy by anybody’s standards, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t horny. I was often extremely horny, and while my bedside table was stocked with all manner of toys and personal enchantments, I preferred the real, hot and throbbing, turgid thing.
At one point, Dirk stood behind me while I placed my bet. I couldn’t stop myself. I arched my back, stuck my bottom out and gave his balls the tiniest bump. I wanted to turn around and check his reaction but of course I did no such thing. I pushed my money towards the cashier. When I turned around, casually pretending I hadn’t even noticed he was there, he grinned at me and I knew he knew what I was thinking. I forced myself to breathe in a controlled manner, a trick I had learned that sometimes helped stop my complexion from turning that dreadful tomato soup colour. Breathe out, a little bit in, more out, don’t think about how much you want him.
Later, I couldn’t help myself. I pointed him out to Theresa. “Who’s he?”
“Hot, hey? Dirk Villiers. The skinner is that he’s married to money. She’s a real bitch. He’s good looking, né? I’d like to suck his dick just to get back at her.”
“I don’t see how sucking his dick would get back at her,” I said, wanting to tell Theresa that if there was going to be any dick sucking, that it would be done by me.
“Because she’s viciously jealous. Everybody knows it. She totally freaks out on him all the time. But I’m not wasting my time on Dirk, revenge or not. I want marriage material.”
“I’ve got someone in mind for you,” I said. “My publicist. He’s coming later to join us. You met him at some of my book launches, remember? Ben Sheppard-Smith. He and his wife split up a while ago, they had one of those starter marriages. They were together for a year and then they divorced. It’s not like he’s on the rebound or anything, the marriage was just a mistake.”
“What does he look like again? And why hav
en’t you mentioned him before, in this critically important context?”
“He’s tall and skinny and he looks very British, which he is. And I never mentioned him because you’d have nagged me incessantly to set something up. I thought I’d wait until it happened organically.”
“Organically? What a load of rubbish!”
“Hello, ladies. I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Dirk,” a voice interrupted us and I felt a hot sensation in my belly. My nerve endings tightened with awareness, as if a big-maned lion had strolled into our pride. I willed my face to stay a normal colour.
“My wife is a fan of yours,” he said to me. “Unfortunately she couldn’t be here today. Will you sign this copy for her?”
“Absolutely,” I replied, keeping my voice light and pretty. “And what is your wife’s name?”
“Chrizette,” he said, and he slowly spelled it and I signed the book, along with some generic message, hoping I wasn’t making any Freudian slips about how much I wanted to fuck her hunky husband. I also thought that Chrizette was a particularly horrible Afrikaans name; was it a combination of Suzette and Christal? I would bet money on it. Afrikaaners loved making up names for their kids and I wondered if Dirk and Chrizette had any weirdly monikered, daddy-loving offspring. Not that I would let that get in the way of my pursuit of the big man.
“And where is your lovely wife today?” Theresa asked. “She let you out all by yourself? I’m Theresa, by the way.”
Dirk smiled and I felt crazy with lust. I wanted to swat Theresa away, like the annoying insect she was being. I threw her a glance, telling her in no uncertain terms to step down.
“She lets me out every now and then,” Dirk replied. “In fact, I come racing most weekends. I have shares in Piet’s horse as well as some of the others.”
“I need some more wine,” Theresa said, holding up her empty glass and Dirk sped off to grab a bottle.
“Ag no man,” Theresa said, looking at me.
“Ag no man what?”
“You like him in that way. I can tell. You go all quiet and I can feel these weird vibes coming off you. I wasn’t flirting with him, just so you know.”
“Ja, well, he’s attractive for sure. I didn’t expect to be attracted to anyone so soon after Matthias, it caught me off guard.”
“You and your Afrikaner-married men. They’re like your version of a bad-boy rock star. I don’t get it. The Afrikaners are beyond uptight, especially these days, now that they’re an endangered species.”
I giggled. “I don’t think they’d be too happy to hear you say that. And you’re right, I do have a weakness for them, so sue me.”
When Dirk came back with a bottle of wine, I couldn’t help but notice that he let his fingers brush against mine and later, when we were sitting together and he was explaining how best to place a bet, his thigh was warm and reassuring against mine.
And when he asked for my telephone number, because he thought that his wife’s book club might be interested in having me over for dinner and a conversation, I didn’t put him straight as I usually would. I didn’t tell him that only junior authors and losers attended book clubs, and that my books sold themselves thank you very much.
I said I would be delighted and that I hoped to hear from him. I didn’t mention anything about his wife.
When he phoned the following day, the book club was not mentioned. He said he had been trying to find a copy of my first book as a gift for his wife but he couldn’t find one anywhere. I told him I could give him one, no problem, and if he wanted to stop by the house and collect it, that would be fine too.
He arrived that night and we continued the pretense for a bit while Betty served coffee and cake and he made some snarky comments about my collection of African artwork, asking me why I would I buy rubbish like that when I could pay for real art by proper artists. Of course, I had no idea then about the Volksraad. I thought he just was another embittered Afrikaner, mouthing off. I knew I should take umbrage at his comments but I was too horny to think about politics. I put my cup down on the table and that was when he moved towards me, as naturally as either of us taking a breath, and I folded into him, under him.
But he would not have sex with me. At first, I thought this was quaint and charming and even sweet in an old-fashioned schoolboy kind of way, but as soon as I realized he truly meant it, it became annoying and childish. And frustrating. Very, very frustrating. He did astounding things to me with his fingers and his tongue but it was his cock that I wanted, his cock that I craved. He had a stumpy flat cock, shaped a bit like a hammerhead shark. It was lacking in length and it was strangely flattened and I wondered if he was withholding it from me because he believed it would not satisfy me but I knew it wasn’t that. It was his code of honour, his self-directed “fidelity” that was more akin to “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meatloaf, only I was the one who was in hot pursuit.
He said he could not “go all the way” with me. He would not commit that terrible sin against his Calvinistic God, that sin being infidelity. I nearly threw him out that first night. I couldn’t believe his gall. But he returned the following day and I let him in and so it went on.
“Oh for god’s sake, just fuck me,” I told him repeatedly, which I interspersed with: “I don’t care. Don’t fuck me then.” Then, “oh fuck me for god’s sake.” Then, “fine, don’t.”
Dirk explained, ad nauseam, how the soul of the Afrikaner was made up of two aspects: church and state, and they were intertwined. Being an Afrikaner came part and parcel with the Calvinist God and all His rules. To break a rule was to cease to be an Afrikaner and that was unthinkable.
Instead of fucking me, he practically drowned me in superb wines, Belgian chocolates, glittering jewelry, the best fragrances, massive bouquets of flowers, and bath salts. He took me out for long lunches and we ate and drank from noon until late evening, satiating our lust with the inadequate substitute of fine dining.
Following which, drunk on Chardonnay and gluttony, he took me home and left me alone with my longing and my anger.
I threw him out of my life more times than I could count and he sometimes stayed away for a while but never for very long. Arguments were swept under the rug and we fell into each other’s arms, Romeo and Juliet, breathless, fuelled by the sturm und drang of it all.
We had a year of this on-again, off-again, violently passionate, love-driven, hate-filled frenzy. We were never calm, we never rested together, it was all cravings, addictions, and madness, and I kept thinking that I would win and that Chrizette would lose.
But before I left for Janette’s Daytime Reveal! we had another row and it felt different from the others. We were both tired of the situation. He hated the fact that I was leaving him to promote my books. Although he couldn’t and wouldn’t commit to me, he did not want me to be out in the world, talking to people, flirting, he said. He was a jealous man, which I, at first, took to be a measure of his love for me, but it wasn’t. It was a measure of his sense of ownership.
Nevertheless, I hated leaving him too. I was convinced that he would realize that he didn’t miss me at all. So both of us, armed with tired but sharpened swords, faced off in that final battle with vicious intent to our blows.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him about Chrizette, tell him that his precious wife was hardly opregte herself. Although, at least she was keeping it in-house, sleeping with the Commandant-General of the Volksraad, Gerit Venster. The Commandant-General was a short man with a groomed, bushy, little Hitler moustache, a Führer-styled beetle-black pomaded haircut, and the same downturned mouth of self-importance.
I knew saying anything about Chrizette would be the death warrant to our relationship. Instead, we threw stones and rocks and knives at each other, and I kept that nuclear warhead to myself and he finally stormed out, telling me it was over for real.
I told myse
lf he would come back. He always had in the past. But he didn’t and I cried on Betty’s shoulder, packed my suitcase, and flew to Vegas, staring out the window of the plane at nothing, and biting the skin around my cuticles until I drew blood. Then I sat on my hands, not wanting to arrive at the show looking like a self-mutilating freak with raw fingertips.
And then, the silence after the interview on Janette’s Daytime Reveal! The bastard. He would have known how much I needed him.
I down valium with red wine on the flight home. I’m relieved to fall out of a taxi and find myself finally safely at my front door, fumbling to get my key into the lock. My first thought, as I stumble inside, is that the alarm hadn’t beeped to let me know to disarm it and I freeze. I tiptoe cautiously into the living room and am immediately convinced that I’m about to be murdered in my own home, because there’s a man on my sofa, a huge man, and he must be there to kill me. But my scream falls silent in my throat when I see that the man is asleep and as my thoughts settle with clarity, I realize that the man is Dirk.
He’s fast asleep and he’s snoring loudly. He’s wearing old track pants and a wrinkled T-shirt and he’s barefoot, and the nakedness of his feet and the awkward paleness of his ankles is slightly revolting to me in a way I can’t understand. Surely I must have seen his feet before? I try to focus and I know I am still drugged and numb from the pills and the wine but I can’t figure out what’s going on.
What is he doing there in the middle of the day? What day is it? Had I given him a key? Oh, yes, I had, and I gave him the alarm code too. Oh, brain, come on, think! What day is it? Friday? No, it’s Saturday. So why isn’t he at home with his wife and ever-important children? I sit down on a chair in the living room and that’s when I see his phone on the coffee table alongside a mess of newspapers, a pile of pizza boxes, and a filthy beer glass that is nearly empty. The floor is littered with beer bottles — ag, for fok’s sake, he knows where the kitchen is! If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a mess. Where, for god’s sake, is Betty? I know I should be delighted to see Dirk but all I can see is the trash in my living room, piled high like a rubbish dump. How long has he been here? Judging from the remnants of food and drink, he must have moved onto my sofa only hours after I left.
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