His admittance takes my breath. Jake wanted me like that?
“As for ignoring you these past weeks,” he continues, “when you told me to leave, I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me, so I stayed away. To top it all, my mother told me you and Gina came to the house asking for money.”
“What? My mom asked your mother to help us terminate the pregnancy, nothing more. I can’t believe you’d think my mom and I would exploit such a situation for money.” I wrap my arms around myself. “You want to know what hurts? That hurts.”
“I’m sorry.” His russet eyes fill with remorse, making them look even more sorrowful than usual. “I said things I didn’t mean, things I shouldn’t have. I was hurt. I felt used. I shouldn’t have listened to my mother, but I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“You used Britney to get back at me,” I say as the insight hits me.
He stares at me with guilt. “Britney was a setup. One of the guys from class sent me a text to tell me you were here with someone else, so I brought Britney to make you jealous, but seeing you with that guy’s clothes on your body freaked me out.”
“I was wearing his hat, and he was making a pass at Nancy, not me.” I motion at my stomach. “I’m pregnant, Jake. No one is going to hit on me.”
“I would’ve,” he says softly, resting our foreheads together, “even if I weren’t the father.”
“Oh, Jake.” How can I stay angry with him? “This is all so screwed up.”
“Did you mean it? Do you want more?”
“I want you to go and do whatever it is you have to do with your life.”
“I want to be here for you and our baby.”
“What will you do in Rensburg?”
“Work at the factory.”
No. Not that. Not now that I know how his father treats him. Hendrik Basson will pay his son peanuts and continue to abuse him, at least emotionally if not physically. It’s a worse fate than the one I face going forward on my own.
“What about the medical aid?” I ask. “Without the job in Dubai, you won’t have one.”
“I’ll speak to my father. He has to pay me enough to afford a private fund.”
I can already tell him what his dad’s answer will be. Staying is simply not an option, not from a financial point of view, and certainly not if I value Jake’s wellbeing. There are no jobs here, no future for him.
“What if I came with you?” I ask.
“I hardly have enough money for one plane ticket. I don’t even know what the conditions will be like there. Besides, I’ll be so busy, you’ll never see me. You’ll be all alone. At least here you have Gina.” He lowers his head to catch my gaze. “We can’t have both, ginger.”
He’s right. We can’t. “You have to go to Dubai.” I look deep into his troubled eyes. “I don’t want you to give up your dream, especially not to work for your father. Besides, you and I both know he’s not going to pay you more than the other workers. He’d sooner pay you less. You’ll never be able to afford a private medical aid.”
“Fuck.” He lifts his head to the sky. “This is checkmate, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’m afraid so.”
He turns his despondent gaze on me, his wild, broody eyes filling with a spark of hope. “Will you wait for me?”
My heart starts beating furiously, freely, reflecting that same hope. “Do you want me to?”
“Yes, Kristi Pretorius. I want you to.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
Crashing his mouth on mine, he steals whatever breath I have left. He kisses me until I’m dizzy and drowning in the delirious lust only he can provoke. When he takes my hand and leads me to his father’s truck, I surrender my heart and body wholly to Jake.
I’ll wait as long as it takes.
Part II
Chapter 9
Four years later
Jake
Smoke fills the interior of the private club in Bur Dubai, the part where the brothels thrive, adding to the haze in my mind. The area is not called Sodom-sur-Mer for nothing. If everyone turns a blind eye to the sex trade, why shouldn’t I? The lights are low and red, a monotone picture in which everyone and everything looks the same. Candy or Cathy or whatever she’s called is draped over my lap. I push her off to cut another line. She shoots me an irritated look but doesn’t complain.
“Go fetch me a vodka and get under the table when you get back.” That’s what I pay her for.
My request doesn’t faze her. She swings her ass in her tight glitter dress as she saunters off to do as I’ve said. I roll a hundred and snort, waiting for the high to kick in and dull my thoughts. The whore on the other side of the table looks at the residue powder and licks her lips.
“Go on,” I say.
She doesn’t let me invite her twice. Licking her pinky finger, she scoops up my scraps and rubs it into her gums.
Candy-Cathy comes back with my drink. She places it in front of me with a sultry look and kneels between my legs. Her red nails walk a trail over my stomach to my belt. She undoes it, unzips my fly, and drags the tablecloth over her head with a grin. Spreading my arms out along the backrest of the bench, I lean my head against the wall. The first swipe of her fingers over my cock is always the best. As soon as her palm squeezes around my girth, my sense of touch is already desensitized. Not even the warmth or wetness of her tongue can bring me back to that first moment. The rest is just a race to shoot as fast and hard as possible. Release is always physical. The aftermath is as empty as fuck. No matter how many whores I pay or how deep I sink into any cunt, my ejaculation is always anti-climatic. I’m left wanting, and fuck if I can say what’s missing.
It’s not the women. They’re all kinds of pretty, whatever flavor I crave for the night. It’s me. I’m incapable of feeling. My life is a monotone layer of red. Whatever little there was inside me before, I snuffed out with my own two hands. I once had a shot at something, but I didn’t make it. Not professionally, and as sure as hell not personally. My life is one big waste. I’m known as the man who lost Yousef-al-Yasa millions in investment, a failure that still burns bitter in my gut.
“Come, baby,” the brunette on the floor mutters.
It’s taking too long. My mind isn’t on her tongue or her fingers. It’s on the disgust in my soul. I need more than a line and a mouth tonight. Shoving her away, I zip myself up and scan the bar until I see the one with the black wig who likes it rough.
C crawls out from under the table. “What’s wrong, baby?”
I slap a bill on the table for her effort and down my drink before striding to the bar.
“Private room,” I say to the woman with the wig.
She adjusts her bra and strides ahead of me up the stairs. We take the first room with a door that stands open.
“You want it rough?” she asks in her thick accent.
She knows I do. That’s what we always do. She lets me spank her pink and hammer her doggy style until her legs cave.
“From where are you?”
“Told you already.” She smiles. “You don’t want to remember.”
I walk her backward to the wall until her body hits it with a thump. Adrenalin surges through my veins. My flaccid cock jumps to life. Something drifts to the surface of my feelings, something within my grasp but so damn untouchable. Every time I reach for it, it shifts a little farther into never. She’s pretty, even with her wig. I home in on her slanted eyes as I fold my fingers around her neck.
“Yes,” she gasps, lifting her chin to give me better access.
I tighten my grip marginally.
“Yes, baby,” she mewls. “Just like that. Do it harder.”
I give it to her, allowing her just enough air not to choke, but her eyes don’t dilate with anticipation or perverse excitement. Her facial expression is a practiced mask. It’s swooning and sugary and over the top. She doesn’t really want this. It’s a job. It’s just a show.
I let her go with a shove.
&nb
sp; She takes two steps to the side. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I changed my mind.”
“That’s never happened to me before.”
“Sorry to be your first. Don’t take it personally.”
“You’ll still have to pay for the hour. What do you want me to do?”
Unfastening the top two buttons of my shirt, I sit down on the sofa, the only piece of furniture in the room. “Take a break. Hang around here. Do what the hell ever you want.”
She’s still contemplating my answer when the door opens and Ahmed enters with a box clutched under his arm. He looks from me to the wig.
“Leave us,” he says with a tilt of his head toward the door.
The wig doesn’t argue. Behind those round, nerdish glasses and slight body lies a lot of power. He’s Yousef-al-Yasa heir, one of the wealthiest men in Dubai, and fuck only knows why he still bothers with me. For all the flak I give him, he’s the only true friend I have.
He kicks the door shut. “When was the last time you’ve been home?”
“That depends on which day it is today.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Then I guess two days.”
He turns over the box and dumps a pack of mail the size of an ant heap on my lap. “Try a week.”
I stare at the paper littering my softening dick. Mostly junk mail, holiday brochures, and a few bills. It’s no secret I have a regular room at the hotel that hosts the private club. I stay here when the colorful multi-layers of my fancy apartment, the one Ahmed pays for that I don’t deserve, get too much.
I pull a packet of cigarettes from my jacket pocket. “Thanks for emptying my mailbox.”
He swats the packet away. It flies from my hand and hits the floor. He stares at me with an expression I’m well familiar with. Disappointment.
“You’re married,” he reminds me, his gaze habitually slipping to my naked ring finger.
“It’s not a real marriage.”
“It’s legal. It’s real.”
I smirk. “It’s not wrong if I’m paying for it.” I hold up my hands. “No emotions involved.”
“Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better, but you don’t fool me with your I-don’t-care charade.”
“Is there a reason you’re here, other than delivering my mail?” No one can accuse me of not being self-destructive. I’m being a bastard, biting the hand that feeds me, but I don’t know how to stop.
He takes a white envelope from his inside jacket pocket and throws it on top of the pile in my lap. My gaze shifts down. The cursive handwriting makes me pause. Something flickers in my chest. It reminds me of my grandfather fiddling with the rusted wires of one or the other machine, eliciting a spark that never quite ignited. It’s been a year since a letter has arrived. I’m amazed she kept them coming for so long, seeing I never replied to one. I’m about to say I’ll add this one to the stash when I notice the broken seal. I flip it over. The flap is torn.
Anger is not a new emotion to me, but it’s mostly self-directed. The kind flowing through my veins right now makes me want to break the glasses of the last person on earth who gives a shit.
“You opened my fucking letter?”
“You should read it.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“You should read it.”
“You obviously did. What the hell gives you the right?”
“Read the letter, Jake. Then go home and get your life in order. If you decide to come back, do it a free man you so can fuck these women without disrespecting another.”
Dropping the box on the sofa next to me, he walks from the room, gently closing the door behind him. It’s the last part that gets to me. A free man.
Alone, I don’t have a choice but to face myself. There’s no one to play the jerk for. There’s no Ahmed I can use as a punching bag by throwing his kindness back in his face. In the privacy of a fuck room smelling of sex, there’s no excuse to not admit the truth. My attempts at sabotaging Ahmed’s friendship is a way of avoiding my own disappointment, not his. One day he’ll realize like everyone else what a piece of shit I am, and that he’s wasting his time.
I flick the pristine envelope over and back, over and back. Alone in a room with only myself and my black soul, I slide out the thin sheet of paper and unfold it. No photo drops out. There’s no picture of a boy with strawberry curls and blue eyes. Not that I’ve ever seen a photo. I only felt the outline of the photograph through the paper, imagining what he looks like in my head. The pinch in the dead cavity of my chest is more than disappointment. It’s fear. I scan over the words, each letter neatly shaped like the handwriting of a schoolmistress, but I can’t make sense of the meaning. I read it again, and then all the red in my world turns black. Something I didn’t know I had, the last anchor tying me to a reason to exist, drifts away.
Kristi wants a divorce.
Chapter 10
Jake
A steady beat falls like a hammer in my skull from all the vodka I drank in the plane. I’m bloated and dehydrated. Checking my face in the rearview mirror of the rented car, I see nothing of the symptoms I bear, nothing of the decay from drug, cigarettes, and booze inside. My face is freshly shaven, a business-class luxury paid for by Ahmed.
After four years, this godforsaken town has changed little. The towers of the brick factory still dominate the flat skyline, sending billows of smoke up in the air. The house I’ve been renting since I got my first paycheck sits on the other side of the lake, as far away as possible from the pollution. I follow the GPS directions and pull up at a raw-brick, flat-roof house that looks exactly like the pictures the estate agent sent. There’s a rock garden and a birdbath with a ceramic frog in the front.
Cutting the engine, I clench the wheel. I didn’t prepare anything to say. I have no idea what I’m doing, only that this is the only thing standing between living and putting a gun to my head. I flick the rearview mirror down and use my fingers to comb my hair. There’s no time like the present. I quit stalling and get out of the car, ignoring the stammering of my heart. I ring the bell and pull my cuffs straight while I wait. As the seconds tick on, I start to sweat.
At last, an elderly woman opens the door and peers through the security gate. “May I help you?”
The wrinkled face and gray hair stun me. It takes a moment to find my voice. “I’m looking for Kristi Pretorius.”
“Who?”
“She lives here.”
Her brow scrunches up. “I think you have the wrong address.”
“Sixty-eight Brandwag Street?” I stretch my neck to read the number on the wall.
“That’s us, but there’s no one by that name here. It’s just me and my husband.”
“Maybe she moved?”
“Wouldn’t know, sir. You’ll have to check with our landlady.”
“Who’ll that be?”
“Mrs. Basson.” She points with a crooked finger toward the hill. “Lives up there in the big house. I can get you her number.”
“I’ve got it. Thank you.”
I’m down the step before she’s even closed the door, uneasiness eating into my gut and chasing me along like a dog barking at my heels. I don’t have to think about where to go. I head straight to the trailer park.
It’s late summer. The day is warm with that tad of melancholy that hangs in the air like a prelude to pending loss as dusk arrives earlier and winter crawls closer. The sun is soft, the light a clean yellow that cuts wedges through the green lawn of the park. My heart jolts when their trailer comes into view. Shattered pieces of memory push to the surface, cutting deeper than bone. This is what I left behind for fame and glory. What I’m returning with is failure and degradation.
Parking at the big gate, I walk down the dirt road. I’m expecting desertedness and a playback of memories, not the woman kneeling in the grass in front of a flowerpot or the boy sitting in the swing. I slow down. Long, strawberry-blonde curls fall in a veil over her face. Her arms a
nd legs are naked, the dusting of freckles like pale stars on her creamy skin. She’s wearing a pink T-shirt and frayed denim shorts with green gardening boots. In contrast to the snug T-shirt and shorts, the boots are bulky. The picture forms a beautiful image of vulnerability and innocence, like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s shoes. When she stretches her back and throws back her head to wipe a garden-gloved hand over her forehead, the dying sun catches her hair, making it glow like rose gold around her face. Her cheeks are pink with a healthy shine, and the huge, blue eyes that dominate her face glitter with vitality. The whiteness of her eyeballs has always amazed me, how free they are of spidery red veins. She’s thinner, but still rounded in all the right places, a vision of wholesome prettiness, of a voluptuous woman and soft heart and all the good things bad, rotten people like me shouldn’t admire or crave, not even from a very far distance. She still hasn’t noticed me. It’s fucking dangerous. She needs better security.
She finishes planting the orange cluster of daisies and sits back on her heels to admire her work. The whole path is lined with pots overflowing with cheerful daisies. The lawn is watered and mowed, complete with a white-picket-fence border. My attention goes back to the boy in the swing. It’s impossible to ignore the pull in my soul, the ache that spreads into a bruise that bleeds deep. He looks just like his mother, minus the eyes. The eyes are definitely mine. The swing creaks as one pole lifts off the ground, making my gut twist. I walk faster without thinking, reaching out to steady the pole.
She jerks at my presence, her gaze turning wide as she freezes in her crouched position. Our eyes lock, and recognition slowly sets in. She shoots a worried look between me and our child, her fear blossoming into a stunning, wild panic. Her eyes wordlessly beg me, her clenched jaw saying she’d fight me to protect her child if she has to. She’s a good mother.
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