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of the model-agency boss and would be sure to expose the
fact that he has been seen at some nightspot with a
blonde. Gossip columnists have eyes everywhere and
every rag has one who tries to out-scoop others with
some juicy piece of scandal. They don’t give a damn if
they destroy lives in the process. This, however, is not one
of your seedy places. It’s just not upmarket enough to be
frequented by the A-listers, as the press calls them, who
are worthy of being gossiped about.
A jazz quartet is playing and couples are dancing.
Don and Kristin take the floor in a slow dance. She is
comfortably resting in his arms without any hang-up at
all. By now they are both quite intoxicated, so their dance
is only lumbering along.
He drags her back to the bar. She is very carefree now.
The barman serves them two shots of tequila, salt and
slices of lemon after Don suggests they try something
different from the whisky they have been drinking all
along. He teaches her how to drink tequila. She copies
him as he licks the skin between the thumb and the fore-
finger, sprinkles a pinch of salt on the area, licks the salt,
gulps the tequila and squeezes lemon juice into his
mouth. She squirts the lemon all over her face.
‘ Ag, man!’ she says. ‘Why should these Mexicans
make it so complicated?’
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234
She giggles as he cleans her chin with a paper towel.
He’s thinking, I should be doing it with my tongue.
‘It’s simple really,’ says Don. ‘Just remember the three
steps—lick it, slam it, suck it!’
‘What?’ exclaims Kristin.
They both laugh when they realize that the three
steps really sound like something much naughtier.
It is the small hours of the morning when they drive
home. And a good thing too, because the car is moving
at twenty kilometres an hour on the winding streets and
would surely have attracted the attention of the traffic
cops had this been happening earlier in the evening or
later in the morning. Imagine the magistrate of Roode-
poort appearing at the Randburg magistrate’s court as a
witness in a drunken driving case and the revelation as
the evidence is led that she herself was sloshed to pieces.
She is undoubtedly more drunk than he is. He was
smart enough to nurse his drinks while she guzzled hers,
one after another. Don thought it was a sign that she was
getting more comfortable with him. It also indicated that
she was beginning to trust him and felt safe in his com-
pany. And he had thought she had issues with trust.
Maybe this is the time to bring up her past, at this
unguarded moment, when she is still so carefree, before
sobriety brings back her magisterial self-consciousness.
‘The man who loved your bobotie,’ begins Don.
Without even waiting for him to complete the sen-
tence she says, ‘ Ja! He was a whoring bastard. I discovered
too late that he was sleeping with prostitutes.’
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235
‘Don’t take it out on the poor hookers,’ says Don lightly.
‘And guess what? He blamed me for it. It was all my
fault. I was too reserved to engage in adventurous sex, he
said. I kicked him out. Oh yes, I kicked the whoring bas-
tard out, yes, siree.’
‘And you lived a happily celibate life ever after.’
‘You haven’t heard me complain, have you?’
‘Not at all. But I have seen you dress and dance like
the whores you detest. The very whores you aim to
punish with stiff sentences in your court.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘What?’
‘Fuck you!’
Don enjoys this no end. He could kiss her. He would
try if he were not driving. Perhaps she would react by
slapping his face. Perhaps she would kiss him back.
Perhaps this is not the time to entertain such thoughts.
‘You are a magistrate, man,’ he says. ‘A lady, nogal. A
respectable member of the NG Kerk. You’re not supposed
to use that kind of language.’
She laughs drunkenly and says, ‘You’ve corrupted
me, you bastard.’ And promptly falls asleep on his shoul-
der. He nurses the car along Beyers Naudé Drive, staying
in the extreme left lane so that fast cars may zoom past
him without hindrance. He is not so drunk as not to be
mindful of the consequences of an accident. Or of the
chance that Tumi might just be driving by on her way
from some late function. How would he account for this?
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236
He should have called her before he left for their big jol.
He should have invented some urgent meeting that he
had to attend. It was a dumb thing not to call her.
They are already in the yard when she wakes up. Don
parks next to her Volkswagen Golf and the drunken pair
get out of the car and walk to the door. Before they open
the security grille they notice the magistrate’s cat is wait-
ing outside. It got out of the cat flap as soon as Shortie
pushed it in, hoping to get more of his goodies. But he
had already jumped the garden wall to his vehicle.
‘Hey, what’s your cat doing outside?’ asked Don.
‘Your pedigree Himalayan cat kicked my mongrel cat
out of the house.’
‘You’re hurting its feelings, Kristin,’ says Don reach-
ing for her cat and stroking its fur. ‘Cats are people too—
they have feelings.’
In the house Don shoots straight for the toilet. He
sits on the seat and phones Tumi.
‘What happened to you, Don?’ she says frantically.
‘I’ve been calling you all night. I’ve been worried sick
about you.’
‘I was in a meeting,’ he says. ‘I had to accompany the
magistrate to an important convention of magistrates.’
‘At this time? And you’re drunk too. I can hear it in
your voice.’
He is not a good liar. Tumi can sense that something
is wrong. A woman always knows—especially if that
woman is Tumi Molefhe.
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237
‘I’m going to kill you, Don Mateza. I’m going to kill
you with my bare hands.’
Kristin Uys is knocking at the toilet door and asking
why he is taking so long.
‘What did you do with that Boschendal? Surely we
didn’t drink it all before we left,’ she is yelling.
Don switches off the phone, just when Tumi is
asking what the heck is happening. From now on it will
have to stay off. He will answer to Tumi tomorrow. Or
next time he sees her.
‘Forget the Boschendal, Kristin,’ calls Don as he zips
up his pants and fastens his belt. ‘We’ve drunk enough,
don’t you think?’
Kristin has found the bottle which was on the dining
room table where they had left it. She grabs it and runs
to her bedroom, with Don chasing her.
‘Give it back, Kristin,’ he says.
They horse around drunkenly in her bedroom. He
discovers her skimpy ‘whore’ skirt and fishnet stockings
on the floor and waves them around as he dances towards
her. He is re-enacting the sexy dance he once caught her
performing. But this is too much for Kristin. She almost
becomes hysterical.
‘Stop it! Stop it, you bastard!’ she screams.
He holds her in his arms. Her body is shaking vio-
lently with sobs. He undresses her, taking off her blouse
first. She is not wearing a bra because her tiny breasts
don’t need it. She instinctively hides them with her hands.
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238
‘Don’t hide them,’ says Don. ‘They’re beautiful.’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ says Kristin. ‘They’re like a little
girl’s.’
‘They’re sexy. Who says men only go for big boobs?’
‘He hated them.’
He tries to bring some levity into the moment by
asking, ‘The man who loved your bobotie hated your
breasts?’
She pushes him away from her with both hands and
sits on the bed.
‘You think it’s funny?’ she asks.
‘No, no, no! Of course not!’
She can see him now. Barend Uys. Standing in the
middle of this very room. He has bought her a Valentine
present. A padded bra. Now she will look like Dolly
Parton, he says. He loves Dolly Parton and her tarty look.
He wants his wife to dress like her. Tartish. Short
sequined dress and an oversized bosom. Just for him. In
the privacy of their home. In public she will continue to
dress like all decent Afrikaner society ladies in sunny
dresses and big fruity or flowery hats. But the padded bra
is good for all occasions. It makes her look good, doesn’t
she think? It makes her look more desirable. She wears
it, yes. She wears it to work. She is ill at ease in it. All the
time. When she is defending clients as an attorney she is
self-conscious about it. It is not her. It’s just not her.
Barend. He wants her to dress like a whore for them
to be intimate. He goes to sex shops and buys her whorish
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239
make-up and underwear because he says it turns him
on. She wears it to please him. But she feels dirty and
humiliated.
He gets carried away and instals strobes and other
types of flashing disco lights in the bedroom and wants
her to dance like a disco queen. At first. And then like a
stripper. He teaches her the moves. He knows them
because he has secretly visited strip joints. He buys a
video on lap dancing. What next? Will he be forcing her
to watch pornographic movies before they make love? He
never does. He hates pornography. He just wants her to
dance like a whore and then bend over in all sorts of
obscene positions. She is his pornography. She is full of
shame—she is a well-brought up Afrikaner meisie with
Old Testament values. Leviticus values. She prays in
church to be forgiven and regrets she is not a Catholic;
otherwise she would be buying better forgiveness with
her confession to the priest.
It becomes worse when he buys her a whip and wants
her to use it on him. Still she goes along with it. Barend
is her first love. Her only love. She must sacrifice for him
even if it kills her inside. After all, it is in the privacy of
their bedroom. No one will ever know about it. She whips
him. Gently. But he wants to be whipped real hard until
he bleeds. This becomes too much for her. She will not do
it. She will just have to put a stop to everything.
He is disappointed and for a long time they don’t
speak. About it. About anything.
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240
That’s when he starts going for the real stuff out
there in the high-class gentlemen’s clubs of Sandton. To
a professional dominatrix. And that’s when he gets
caught. Not in Sandton but in the dives of Hillbrow. For
he had gravitated to Hillbrow. He had sunk that low.
For a long time she blames herself. She should have
been more accommodating. He gave her the chance to be
accommodating before he went to brothels. She should
have been more flexible. Couples play sex games all the
time, don’t they? They play doctor-nurse and are not
ashamed of it. You read about these things in women’s
magazines and you know that in the privacy of their bed-
rooms upright citizens spice up their sex life that way.
She shouldn’t have been so stiff, she tells herself. But
that’s just how she was brought up. She knows she
shouldn’t be blaming herself, but she still does.
After the divorce she is all alone. Empty and angry.
One consolation is that the new South Africa arrives and
she is appointed a magistrate. As part of redressing the
white-male-dominated apartheid past, black men and
women of all races and people of every sexual orientation
are appointed to the judiciary and she is one of the bene-
ficiaries. Yet she is still empty and angry. Until she takes
to wearing the whore costume that Barend bought her. It
is a way of punishing herself. Her body desperately needs
the humiliation that comes with the costume.
Her body is shaking with sobs and sighs and sniffles.
Don Mateza holds her tightly to him.
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‘When I saw you dance I didn’t see any humiliation,’
he says. ‘I saw joy. It was glorious.’
She gives him a teary but knowing smile.
‘Ah, I see,’ he says. ‘Instead of humiliation you found
that you actually got some thrill from it.’
‘It has become a habit,’ she says, her voice full of
shame, ‘especially when the day has been stressful.’
Don kisses her all over, which at first she tries to
resist.
‘You won’t need it any more,’ he says. ‘I promise, you
won’t need it any more.’
She responds to the kisses and submits completely.
They kiss passionately. Then he peels the remaining gar-
ments off her body. She is sprawled on the bed helplessly.
In the courtroom surrender is not an option, but here on
this bed she wants to be taken. He kicks his shoes off and
cannot rip his clothes fast enough from his body. He
notices that she has closed her eyes tightly, as if she does
not want to see what will be happening to her.
He dons his studded latex.
He spreads her golden tresses on the pillow and they
frame her oval face like the rays of the sun. He is between
her open thighs and they are hot like the fires of hell. He
inserts himself in her. She is ready for him. She has been
ready for a long time, although she did not know it. He
slides in and out her trembling body and in no time mus-
cles stiffen and angels sing hallelujah!
Or could it be demonic voices?
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242
The next morning Kristin Uys is attacked by pangs
of remorse when she wakes up, not only in the same bed
as Don, but in his arms.
‘What did we do?’ she asks, pushing him away.
‘Was it that forgettable?’
‘You took advantage of me in my moment of weak-
ness,’ she says. ‘We shouldn’t have done this.’
But Don silences her with a long kiss. Once more she
submits. Once more they make furious love.
Shortie has his share of remorse as well. He is at the
kitchen table with Ma Visagie and a maid in pink and
white overalls is serving them breakfast of bacon, eggs
and toast. Although Ma Visagie doesn’t care that much
for breakfast, her son begged her to sit with him because
they need to discuss Stevo’s case.
‘From now on I’ve stopped harassing that magis-
trate,’ he says. ‘I’m gonna be killing no cats, Ma.’
‘Tell that to Stevo,’ says Ma Visagie.
This does not feature as one of the most important
things in her life. She thought it was a silly game anyway
that the boys were playing with the magistrate, and if
Shortie now wants to stop, it is his business.
‘You tell him, Ma,’ pleads Shortie. ‘Please tell him. He
always listens to you.’
‘I’m not gonna tell him nothing. It’s between you and
Stevo.’
‘It’s wrong, Ma,’ says Shortie emphatically, as if
someone has argued that killing cats is the right thing to
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243
do. ‘We are the Visagies. We don’t go around killing
nobody’s cats. Not so, Ma?’
Ma Visagie does not answer. Her mind is occupied
with more important things—how to make a livelihood
without the resourcefulness of Stevo, especially now that
the police are watching the family like hawks and they
have to lie low with their pimping activities. Her silence
worries Shortie. He really wants his mother’s approval.
‘Come on, Ma! We are the Visagies!’
‘Of course we are the Visagies, boy,’ says Ma Visagie
impatiently. ‘Who else can we be?’
‘So you must tell Stevo.’
‘You don’t think he knows that?’
‘It helps no one to kill cats,’ says Shortie, as if to con-
vince himself. ‘We must leave everything in the hands of
Krish Naidoo. He’s a good lawyer. Stevo will surely be out
