Читать книгу Sex, Lies Declassified - Eva Mazza - Страница 11

John drove up the tree-lined driveway to his farm. He felt uneasy. He had been reassured by his therapist that it was okay to want to know whether Brigit was indeed his daughter. But even he knew the way he had handled this issue with Brig earlier had been totally wrong. Why did he have to fuck everything up by being plain nasty?

His workers were still busy with the harvest. He should have been supervising them, but he couldn’t bear to spend any more time with them than he had to. After last season’s wage disputes he fucking couldn’t look them in the eye without wanting to spit. He had to hand it to his son, Pete. He’s a great negotiator and motivator. He secretly conceded that since his forced partnership with Pete, his son had implemented changes on the farm that seemed to please the workers; even though it affected the business’s bottom line.

He had been advised by Frans that the last thing his establishment needed was bad publicity. “You want the public’s perception to be that of ‘caring white employer’,” he had said, and with Pete at the helm he could continue to stay true to himself. He hated the idea of having to pander to race-policies. He was a wine farmer, what did he know about politics?

His late friend, Lee had been progressive. And it had nothing to do with BEE. He was way ahead of his time. John remembered him and his friends mocking Lee; particularly when he had made Boss Sarel the farm manager. Boss Sarel and the team were now producing their own wine under their very own label called Sarel se Suip. They were the darlings of the Winelands; along with his ex-wife, Jen who was now a sought-after interior designer.

Both Sarel and Jen had made it into the local glossy magazine, Visio.

He didn’t mind seeing Sarel in there, but he did mind seeing Jen splashed across three pages showing off an upgrade of a local boutique hotel and spa, and a picture with her and that fucking Greek immigrant, Myron.

“I’m sick and tired of being the laughing stock of the town,” he had told his therapist Frik, an ou ballie who seemed to understand where John was coming from. He had been referred to another therapist before Frikkie, but they just hadn’t gelled. He liked Frik. Regarded him as a man’s man; a rare find amongst a community of liberal-thinking-limp-wristed shrinks.

“I want to reclaim who I was before this fucking divorce. It’s time I stopped being a wuss,” he had said to Frik.

Frikkie agreed with him. According to rumour, Frikkie wasn’t free from scandal himself. Head of the psychology department and, by his own admission, two things students love: a professor and a psychologist.

“Well, what do you think you need to do?” Frik had asked.

“Stop moping, number one. Just let Pete get on with it and I’ll play ‘baas van die plaas’.”

Frikkie smiled. “Well you are the boss. And… start fucking again.” John liked to think Frikkie was living vicariously through his stories.

“That would be nice.” John conceded.

“Nobody told you to stop.”

John rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Yes, they did. You did, Frikkie. I’m a sex-addict, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean you have to give up sex,” Frikkie said, “then die of blue balls.” They laughed. “Do you miss her?” his therapist asked.

“Which ‘her’ are you referring to?”

Frik chuckled, “Jen, your wife.”

John reflected a moment before speaking, “I do. I must admit. I never wanted the divorce. She did.”

Frikkie looked up from his notes, “Do you think she wasn’t justified in wanting it?”

“Fuck, Frikkie. Are we going to get all deep now?”

Frikkie dropped his notes on the coffee table that served to distance him from his client. He reached for his pack of smokes. They had already established Frik could smoke if John didn’t object. John didn’t, although he himself hated smoking.

“If you could have her back, would you?” Frikkie lit a Camel with a regular match. No lighter. John ran his hands through his mop of hair. He had to think hard about this. Would he?

“No.” John said, stretching his legs. “Too much has happened. Look it’s fucking awkward at times socially. But I’ve got my mates and it will get better with their wives. They don’t like me much but that’s not an issue because they don’t like their husbands much either.”

Frikkie chortled.

“It helps that they don’t know about me and Frankie. That dirty little scandal was buried by our respective families along with Lee. Fuck, sorry, that sounds callous!” John said. “But it’s the truth.”

So hell-bent were both his children and Clive, Lee’s son, to cover up the affair between John and Lee’s wife, Frankie that they insisted no one should know. John and Frankie were only too happy to oblige; their relationship had gone pear-shaped anyway when Lee was killed. As for Jen, she was happy to blame the whole divorce on her husband’s indiscriminate shagging. A label she had thrown around injudiciously: sex addict.

Frikkie had said he enjoyed his sessions with John. It was a refreshing change from listening to millennials rant on about how unfair life was for them.

“I need some intimacy, Frik.” John had learned this word from his previous therapist. What he was really trying to say is he needed some ass.

“No one said you couldn’t have it. Just be aware of how you conduct yourself, that’s all.”

“Ja. I know. It’s a little bit easier now I’m officially single. I’m not cheating on anyone am I?”

Frikkie sucked deep on his cigarette and blew out long and hard. “Your kids. Don’t forget about them.”

“Well, Pete is a man, so he’ll come to realise I have needs. As for Brig: she may not even be my child.”

Frik squinted at his client through the smoke from his cigarette. “Would it make a difference if she wasn’t?”

“No. No it wouldn’t. I don’t think. To tell you the truth, though, I need to know.” John was pleased Frikkie didn’t delve too deeply into why John needed to know. The other shrink had made him recall his childhood and all sorts of other kak. After that session he never went back.

“So tell her you want to know, that you need to know, in the kindest possible way of course,” Frikkie had advised.

His conversation with Bridget had not been John’s best moment. But he didn’t really have best moments. He had clearly upset Brig and had come home earlier than expected.

John pressed the remote of the garage door and drove in. His two ridgebacks were waiting for him. Loyal companions. “River, Phoenix,” John greeted his boys.

He walked through to the main house. “Gladys!” he bellowed. “I’m home.”

He found her in the kitchen. “Is there anything to eat?” he asked.

“No, John.” He found Gladys to be surlier than ever now that Jen wasn’t there. “You said you were going out for dinner.”

John opened the fridge door. “There’s fokall in the fridge,” he said. “Are you doing the grocery shopping tomorrow or am I on some kind of diet?”

“I’ll go tomorrow if you want,” she said. “It is my day off.”

“Ag, be a darling,” John said as she was leaving, “Call and order a pizza. The number’s next to the phone. A calzone would be nice.” Gladys didn’t move. “What?” he asked.

“Do you want it delivered?”

“Yes, that would be great.” He dropped into the settee and fished the TV remote from under his ass. He didn’t have to change the channel anymore; it was locked on the sport channel since Jen had left. The one perk to being single.

“Gladys!” he called out. “Be a honey and get me a beer, please.”

He heard the back door open and shut.

Bitch! He thought. She blatantly ignored me!

If they had still been married, Jen would have been around to make supper and wait on him. She had taken her wifely duties very seriously. Fuck them all! He could do shit himself. He hauled himself from the couch and headed for the kitchen. He felt like a cold beer.

He grabbed one from the fridge and opened it, leaving the cap on the kitchen counter. The counter brought back so many memories of Frankie. They had shagged on the Caesarstone top. He had knocked off his son’s fruit bowl to accommodate Frankie’s sizzling hot bod. The bowl that had been lovingly created for Jen, and preserved by her since Pete’s primary school days, had smashed into pieces on the tiled floor, but he had fucked his lover with abandon anyway. You can be such a dog sometimes, John! He felt a stirring. He grabbed his beer and walked across the lawn to the tasting room; the same room where Jen had found him with Patty on her knees. Thinking of Patty made John horny.

He climbed down the spiral staircase to the cellar and unlocked his office door, closing it gently behind him.

He started up his laptop and clicked on to his favourite porn site. Unzipping his trousers, he felt for John-John. “Hello, boy,” he said. “It’s been a while.” John-John rose to the occasion. John wrapped his hand around his shaft, stroked it slowly at first then more rigorously. He climaxed with the two women on the screen as his phone started ringing.

It was the delivery man. “Your Ridgebacks have pinned me up against the front door, Mr Pearce.” he whined. John tucked John-John away and zipped up his pants. He ran across the lawn and around the house to the front door.

“River! Phoenix! Los!” he yelled. The dogs moved towards their master, wagging their tales.

The distraught delivery guy had the box above his head to prevent John’s dogs from devouring his order.

“Sorry, man,” John laughed. “I think they actually wanted to chow my calzone and not you.” The student showed no signs of amusement. John signed the bill and managed to find a crumpled fifty rand note in his back pocket, which he handed over as a tip for “any trauma you may have experienced.” The guy grabbed the money and jogged back to his beaten-up Golf.

John’s phone rang again. He held the pizza box in one hand and pulled out his iPhone from his trouser pocket, retracing his steps to the back of the farmhouse.

“Hello, John here.”

“I’ve got your wallet.” A young girl’s voice on the other end.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“Sorry. It’s Meagan.”

Meagan? Meagan?

“You left your wallet behind. I can pop over after my shift, drop it off.” Then she laughed, “If it’s not past your bedtime.”

John smiled. The waitress from Tokara.

“Actually, it may be past your bedtime.” He was always quick with a retort.

“Touché,” she said. “So. It says that a reward is offered, if found?” Meagan sounded hopeful.

“Sounds extremely exciting, doesn’t it?” John joked.

The young girl sighed on the other end of the phone. “Funny, ha-ha. I’m dropping and going. Don’t get any ideas, gramps.”

John had to admit, he felt a little insulted.

“Don’t flatter yourself. The last thing I want is to spend my night singing Barney songs.”

“You’re funny,” she giggled. “Drop a pin and I should be at you by elevenish.”

He opened the box of calzone pizza and sliced it, grabbed a serviette and another bottle of beer before falling onto his couch in front of the television. He’d shower later if he had the inclination.

This is the life, he thought as he broke a long string of cheese that stretched between his mouth and his hand.

He was asleep when the doorbell rang. River and Phoenix were up and running, making a helluva racket. Ever since Jen had left, they had become barkers. It was as if they were constantly waiting for her return.

John checked his hair in the hallway mirror before opening the door. She stood there, wallet in hand. He noticed her lipstick.

“Hello,” she said. Her outstretched arm indicated he should take the wallet from her.

He laughed. “Come in, I promise I don’t bite. I want to give you something for your honesty, and trouble.”

She stood on the threshold.

“Come in…” He had forgotten her fucking name!

“Meagan.”

“Megan.”

“Mee-gan.”

“Listen Mee-gan. Don’t stand outside,” he said. It was stupid, but he worried Gladys or one of the staff may see.

“Wow!” he heard her say. “You have a beautiful home.”

“Thanks. All my ex-wife’s doing. That’s her thing.” She followed him into the kitchen. “One good thing to come out of my marriage; a nicely decorated house,” he said.

Meagan was unimpressed by this comment. “Oh, it’s a joke, Mee-gan. My kids are major bonuses.” He opened his wallet, counted one-thousand rand, and handed it to her.

“Wow! Thanks,” she said taking the cash from him and shoving it in her handbag before he could change his mind. “That’s very generous of you.”

“No. Thank you.”

“I know what a ball-ache it can be to lose a wallet. Glad I could be of help,” she said. Her eyes dropped to the open Visio magazine and the picture of Jen standing in front of the newly refurbished boutique hotel. “Is this your wife?”

“Ex-wife.”

Meagan smiled.

“Are you stalking her?” she asked.

John smiled sheepishly, “I guess you’ve caught me.”

Meagan seemed to relax. “That is so sweet. You’re hurting.”

John didn’t answer. If angry equated with hurt.

“Divorce isn’t easy.”

“And you know, because?” he mocked.

“Because I went through it with my parents. But they became the best of friends because of us.”

“‘Us’ being?”

“My brother and me. They assured us we were the most important people in their lives and that they would make sure it didn’t affect us too badly.”

“Sweet,” John said. “No matter how good your intentions, it doesn’t always work out that way.”

River had placed his nose in Meagan’s crotch. She squealed.

“River!” John commanded. River slouched away and sat on his bed.

“Ridgebacks are notorious crotch sniffers,” Meagan volunteered. She had her money; he had his wallet. It was time for her to go home. Instead she was browsing through the magazine.

“Can I get you a drink?”

She ignored his question. “Your wife’s very pretty. Is that her boyfriend?”

“Ex-wife.” John corrected her for the second time. “Yes. Total asshole.”

John moved towards the bar and poured her a glass of Chenin. She hadn’t answered his question, but it seemed rude not to at least offer her a glass of something. He hoped she liked wine. She took it.

“Cheers,” she said, then noticed he didn’t have a glass. “Aren’t you drinking?”

“I don’t exactly want to creep you out by assuming we’re drinking together.”

She smiled at him. Phoenix had moseyed up to her and she scratched his head. “You’re not creeping me out. Pour yourself a glass. I can’t drink alone.”

He did as he was told, and returned to the kitchen with a scotch in hand.

Her phone had beeped a message and when he joined her she was busy texting back. It always fascinated him how millennials managed to type with two hands and so dexterously. He said as much.

“Mmmm,” she responded, only half listening. “My boyfriend wants to know where I am. I said I’m with an old man having pre-drinks. This will at least save me on a bar bill.”

John suddenly felt out of his depth. “Cheers,” he said lifting his glass to hers. She clinked hers against his then leaned over the kitchen counter. Butt sexily pushed out. He could see she had a g-string on under her white pants. She noticed him noticing her. His eyes shifted back.

“So how old are you?” she asked.

“I’m not sure I want to tell you how old I am.”

She shrugged. “Probably rude of me to ask.” She rummaged in her bag and brought out a make-up purse. She unzipped it and took out a plastic bank bag. “You want?” She shook the crystals in the bag.

“What’s that?”

“MDMA,” she said.

“Fuck no!” John said, trying to hide his shock.

She shrugged. “Oh, ok.” She was about to open the bag and help herself when John stopped her.

“Whoa!” he said. “None of that here. Jesus! You’re drinking then driving. Something can happen to you under my watch.”

“Your watch? Oh my God! Since when am I your responsibility?” She chugged down her wine. “Can you pour me another?” she asked.

“I don’t see why not. I do own the wine farm.”

Laughing, she said, “Tell me about your kids.”

“They’re not kids. I have a son and a daughter.” He spoke from the bar, loud enough for her to hear.

“I met your daughter, remember?” She was behind him now. She took the glass from his hand. “God, can we sit somewhere, please? I’ve been standing the whole night.”

John gestured for her to take a seat. She chose the armchair. Jen’s.

She glugged down her second drink.

“Calm down.” John cautioned. “It’s not a cold drink.”

“I’ve got to go soon. My boyfriend’s expecting me.” John sipped on his scotch and watched her with interest. “Shew, that second one did the trick.” She seemed to relax into the chair. “Do you have music?” she asked.

“Why?”

She rolled her eyes the way his daughter often did. He got up and changed the TV channel to the music channel. “My wife took the sound system. She was the one into music.” Meagan didn’t seem to care what was playing. “You mean ex-wife,” she teased as she got up off the couch and began to sway drunkenly from side to side in the middle of the lounge.

“Come dance with me.”

John put down his glass hesitantly. “I’m not much of a dancer.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“I’ll just sit here, if you don’t mind. Sip my scotch…” John said.

“Suit yourself.” Her eyes closed. She was in her own world. Was she dancing for him? John remained seated on the couch. He carried on drinking, ice clinking away while he watched Meagan’s hips move to the rhythm of the song. She freed her hair from her pony and shook it over her face. A strand stuck to her red lipstick, but she didn’t notice. In fact, she didn’t seem to notice or care that a stranger was watching her dance.

Fuck me! thought John. For the first time ever, he didn’t know what to do.