He wondered about her.
Why had she found it necessary to become a whore? An
girl. Not as beautiful as a model. Attractive rather, sexy.
Did all women have this potential? Did it lie hidden until circumstances arose? Or was it, like his own polished facets, connected to a specific combination of angles and surfaces?
It hadn?t been necessary for him to come around here tonight. But it had been in the back of his mind all day: he wanted to look in.
Was it coincidence that he had recalled his first experience of sex with such clarity on his way here? At the same time he had been wondering how alcohol and memory interacted. He had a mental image of synapses submerged in brandy; while he stayed sober the level kept dropping and, like a dam drying up, exposed old, rusty objects.
Not all the memories were pleasant, but he focused on those from long ago: the one of the girl with the gold chain around her neck and her name in gold letters against her throat. YVETTE. She was wearing jeans and a T- shirt with blue-and-white horizontal stripes and she had used too much perfume. But it smelt heavenly.
There were odd details that he had remembered this afternoon. They had a gig in Welgemoed against the Tygerberg at the sixteenth birthday party of some or other rich man?s son. They set up beside the swimming pool on imported ceramic tiles. The rich wanker had kept hanging around and asking, ?Have you got rubbers for the feet of the drums?? When he was a distance away, the drummer said, ?I have rubbers for your daughter,? and they all laughed. The rich wanker, one of those men who dress as if they were still sixteen too, stopped and asked, ?What did you say?? The drummer said: ?I said I have rubbers,? but with a smirk. The rich man stood there knowing he was making a fool of himself, but there was not a lot he could do about it.
When they played, the girl was there. She moved at the edge of the big group, half in the twilight. She wasn?t truly part of it. Or didn?t want to be. Sometimes she danced on her own. She looked at him and he noticed her eyes first, big brown eyes that looked sad. Long straight brown hair. Then he noticed her neat little breasts and pretty round bottom and he saw a potential opportunity and began to play to her.
The prospect was nearly too much for him. He was afraid his hopes were unrealistic. He waited until late that night, until their very last break. He went over to her and said ?Hi? and she said ?Hi? and looked at him with that lost smile as if to say I know what you?re thinking. Then the strangest thing happened. She took his hand and led him past the house into the shadows. She opened a door low down at the side of the house. It was a storeroom of sorts. She closed the door and it was pitch-dark. He could see fuck-all. Then she was against him, hands around his neck and kissing him. He tasted alcohol on her tongue and Spearmint Beechies and smelt her perfume. Lust took hold of them in the dark, they kissed and undressed each other with searching hands and he felt her body?he ran his palms over her face and neck and breasts and hips and bottom. They bumped into invisible garden tools and somehow or other found a place to lie, a canvas tarpaulin over some sacks?not soft, but not as hard as the floor. He remembered the smell of turpentine and old paint, but above all, her perfume. The only sounds were their breathing and urgency. She took his dick and put it in her mouth. Lord, he would never forget that. For a moment she was nowhere to be found and then her hand was around his thing and then there was something warm and wet around it and it hit him like a sledgehammer, his dick was in her mouth. The realization of every masturbatory dream. He wanted to see it. He wanted terribly to capture it in his mind, so that he could know what it looked like and remember, but there was no light, absolutely none. He groaned partly from frustration and partly from ecstasy and he stretched out his hand until he found her bush, slid his finger in and felt her heat like glowing coals inside.
Afterwards she opened the door for light so they could find their clothes and dress. He watched her silhouette faintly etched against the little light from outside. That was the last he saw of her. He went back, self- conscious and worried he hadn?t dressed properly in the storeroom. He hadn?t been missed. He looked around for her, but she was gone.
That was all he knew. That night he had lain in bed with a strange melancholy. Her smell was on his fingers and on his body. But the next morning it was gone. Just like her.
While she was in the bathroom, he walked quickly out to his car and fetched the music and the CD player.
When she came out her hair was clean and wet. She made up a bed on the couch for him. She put out a big blue towel for him and said he was welcome to use the bathroom. He said he would like to shower. He was aware of the awkwardness between them. Or was it just him?
Tonight he was going to share a house with a whore. He couldn?t look at her and forced a polite smile.
?Well, I?ll say goodnight, then.?
?Sleep well,? he said.
?You too.? She went down the passage and shut her door. He went to the bathroom. It was still steamy from her shower and filled with her fragrances, soap and shampoo and lotion. It smelt different from Anna?s bathroom. Fuller. Richer.
He undressed and neatly folded his clothes and put them on the toilet lid, on top of his service pistol. He looked down at his body. Naked in a whore?s bathroom. He looked at the chest hairs already turning gray and the middle age slackening of his belly. His penis was in that no-man?s land between indifference and desire, a half- smoked cigar. Not exactly your Greek god. Not exactly seductive in Christine van Rooyen?s eyes. He smiled wryly at himself in the steamy mirror.
He showered using her semi-transparent soap that was the color of red wine, and shampoo from a white bottle. He rinsed off and toweled. Put only his trousers on and carried the rest of his clothes and his firearm to the sitting room. He stacked them in a neat pile beside the couch and sat. He examined his bed. It was a big, wide couch. Long enough. He took out the Anton Goosen jewel case and had another look at it. He took out the second disc of the double set and put it in the player. Earphones on. He switched off the standard lamp beside the couch, swung his feet up and placed the player on his stomach. Pressed Play.
Only once the nine members of the Task Force had grown tired of laughing and jesting and gone on their way did the detective in Midrand get a chance to take the fingerprints of the two suspects. Then he had them locked up in the cells again.
He sat down at his desk and began to go through the evidence systematically. In one of the transparent plastic evidence bags he saw the identity documents that the Task Force men had found in the BMW. He took them out and looked at the names.
