Exploits (7 page)

How do you answer, ‘What is wrong my darling?
’–
‘Oh I'm just so horny that if Gary doesn't shag me soon, I may end up in an institution.’?

By evening, when everyone has left, I get up from my desk. I have sat there all day without moving. I have made as little eye contact with everyone as possible. And I need air! I grab my bag and my flowers and make my way to the staff door. I'm breaking the rule. I'm waiting outside.

This sets off alarm bells in Mr Security Guard, and he refuses to open the door. He grabs my elbow, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. You haven't been yourself today."

Finally, I look up at his eyes and feel deeply touched by his concern. It draws moisture into my eyes.

"I'm fine. Promise."

"Did he ...? You know you can talk to me if you're having problems right?"

Worry seeps through my weak legs.
Great, now he thinks Gary is beating me or something. I have to stop this.

"I'm just not feeling well today. I swear, otherwise I'm fine."

He pauses, waiting for me to say more, giving me the opportunity to look for support. I don't need support. I need Gary.

He releases my elbow and opens the door. I smile, "Thanks."

I walk back to the steps, sit down and light a smoke. He's worried as all hell and opens the door and walks to me. He hands me a slip of paper. I glance at it as I take it. It's a phone number.

"If you need help, phone me."

Okay, now I'm all mushy and feel like I'm seriously going to cry. My lips tremor and my voice sounds shaky, "Thanks."

Please go inside, if Gary sees you I'm going to be in it DEEP.

I put the number into my bag and watch him walk away back behind the door. He doesn't take his eyes off me until I leave with Gary. I consider how impractical his dialling code has made him. I live in Rondebosch, he lives in Milnerton. He is nowhere near my side of the world.

I couldn't wait to see Gary. My anticipation had morphed my body back into an amoeba. I step into his capsule and the scowl paralyses me.

"Who the fuck gave you those?"

Gulp. "A client."

"Why? Does he want to fuck you?"

"No. It's just to say thank you for helping him with an issue." (What a lie.)

"Throw them away." He stops the car next to a trash bin.

"No!"

I never get flowers and don't particularly feel like giving these carnations up right now.

He gets out of the car, stalks around to my side and yanks open the S3's door. I struggle with him as he attempts to yank the flowers out of my hands. I'm
not
giving them up.    

Big mistake
.
Now it's war.

He gets back in behind the wheel and glares at me, "Who is he?"

"A customer."             

His expression conveys I'm retarded.

"WHAT. IS. HIS. NAME?"

I start quivering. I can't let Gary make shit with the clients. I'll get fired.

Whisper, "Mr Pillay."

"A FUCKING SAMOOSA GAVE THAT TO YOU?"

I nod.

"THROW THEM AWAY."

I shake my head. I'm too afraid to speak.

"Get out."

I stare at him, incredulous.

"I said GET OUT."

Wiping away tears, I get out of the vehicle with my bag and my flowers. I watch as Gary speeds away into a blinding sunset. I breathe with difficulty and become aware of the danger I am in. Moving briskly, I begin the long walk to the bus depot.

I got home sometime after eight o’clock. The night cloaked me with depressing black ink, saturating into me with its darkness, so very dark, and I wasn't completely convinced the locks wouldn't be changed by the time I get home.

What was I thinking? Armageddon exploded when I walked in with those flowers. I was a lying, cheating whore, who was secretly dating other men behind his back.

Cue: Atomic bomb. He blew up for hours. 

Cue: Nuclear demolition. The tears a torrent of seeping misery.

Cue: monsoon flood. Is it so hard to believe that someone would give me flowers without fucking me first?

My eyelids are swollen from crying, and I stare at the object of my pain. I now hate those flowers. Giving it more thought, who in their right mind sends flowers as a romantic gesture? (
Here, have something pretty and watch it die. Not exactly a good omen for a relationship
... oh ... and Gary doesn't do romantic.)

Then he goes through my bag looking for evidence of my soliciting. I want to vanish as he gloats, wielding a phone number.

Oh shit.

"Whose number is this?"

"A friend."

He's way too close, pushing the paper up to my nose to emphasise that I can't deny its existence.

"A male?"

I shake my head.

He glares further, I shrink away from the baleful glare. Convulsions begin when he picks up the phone and dials the number. I am so afraid I feel like I'm going to vomit. Gary's outrage is transparent when a male baritone answers the call. I can hear it from here.

Gary disconnects, turning his body to face me, quivering in a foetal position in a chair a few feet away from him. He's radiating waves of aggression. I can taste it.

He picked up his keys and left. I cried all night. I didn't sleep. He came home at around 4 a.m. and didn't even acknowledge me. I stayed in the lounge all night. Smoking, crying, blowing my nose. It was over. And I had done nothing wrong.

Chapter 11

Uncomfortably Numb

I’m dressed for work and about to leave to catch the bus, when he approached me. He still seemed stern, but now exuded mild anxiety.

"Where are you going?"

Duh. Isn't it obvious?
  "To work."

My voice is husky, my throat is raw. I have an evil fairy with an ice-pick doing incessant damage to my brain. Light hurts my eyes. I've tried my best to hide my despair behind make-up.

"Aren't I taking you?"

I stare at him. He's offering me the floatation ring after
the flooding and capsizing of my precarious ship. The dam bursts, and I blurt, "I love you."

He doesn't miss a beat this guy. One moment of weakness, "One condition."

I nod. Name your price, I'm going cheap.

"You destroy those fucking flowers."

I nod and agree. He smiles the evil ‘I'm going to do bad things to you' smile. His demeanour instantly morphs, and he's happy as a junkie on a high.

How do men manage to plot a flower execution between 4.00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m.? He took me straight to Chapman's Peak drive and pushed me to the edge of the
rock overhang, overlooking the ocean with a sheer drop. Waiting for me to throw them. I stare at the pretty flowers in my hands and hesitate. It seems such a waste to destroy the ceramic bowl too.
Can't I keep the bowl?

He rips them from my hands and hurls them like an expert baseball pitcher, "For fuck's sake woman!"

I feel pretty sad about their extreme death. I don't feel right. Something inside is missing. I'm feeling oddly emotionally numb, and return to the transportation capsule to go to work. Sullenly, I observe the early morning divers pulling on wet-suits as he noisily throttles past them, drawing attention to us. I sink down in my seat, embarrassed.

With less than two minutes before reaching the destination he wiggles his eyebrows at me and gives me that instigating grin, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

I look back at him, blankly.

He looks meaningfully down at his crotch. I stare at it and debate with myself internally. This means the game's still on. I sigh and adjust my safety belt to lean over.

I left him high and dry in that vehicle as I walked to the door to enter the building through the staff side entrance. He would be so pissed, and today, I just don't care.

Mr Security Guard takes one look at me and bolts out of the door.
Great! I guess the make-up doesn't successfully hide my puffy eyes.

"Jesus, what happened?"

Ha! Um ... you are sweet, but somehow I don't think you'd understand.

"He didn't like me getting flowers. We had a fight."

This guy is sharp, I'll give him that. Oh, and for the record ladies, don't tell another man you've had a fight, when what you've really had is an argument.

"He phoned me didn't he?"

Unwilling to confess to that, I simply look at him, pondering how to answer.

"I stayed up all night worrying about you after that."

Fuck. He knows.

"I'm sorry. I was too scared to phone you and explain. He found the number in my bag and thought the worst."

Ooookay
, that didn't sound too good either. Shit this slope is slippery.

"You look like shit."

Thanks a lot.

My mouth morphs into a generic smile, "I didn't get much sleep."

He examines my arms and stares hard at me, "Are you okay?"

Well now, where do I start?
No
.
I'm not okay
. But I know what you mean, so that makes the answer yes.

"Of course I am."

You can look at me as doubtfully as you want. My heart is torn to shreds over unfair accusations. I don't know where the hell he was for at least eight hours, and I'll never find out.

I didn't sleep, I didn't eat, but
hey
, I'm
fine
. My body is unharmed so you can just STOP thinking that. He's a lot of things, but he's not that.

We have an eye clash. He's challenging me with his expression. I'm defiantly staring back. Finally he moves out of my way and opens the door for me.

I walk to my desk and pretty much behave the same way I did yesterday. As I am now well aware 'I look like shit', I don't particularly feel like having other people noticing that too.

I'm engrossed in the adding of numbers and balancing of investments when I become aware of the blue uniform standing at my desk. Startled, I look up into Mr Security Guard's worried face.

"Do you still have my number?"

I shake my head. He smiles and hands me a new one.

"Hide it properly."

Okay, I'm going to cry. This is so touching. He hardly knows me and he wants to save me.

I take the secret code to his phone from him, bury it under some paper, and scoot as fast as humanly possible with my head down for the ladies. He saw the tears. I hide inside a stall and cry as quietly as I can.

(In hindsight I have to thank him. His sympathy, gave me strength he will never know.)

* * * * *

Night falls, and I wonder if I'm supposed to catch the bus and just don't know this yet. I've been having a silent stand-off of ocular clashes with 'my hero' all day and now he's got his arms crossed glaring at me. He wants me to 'fess up. I have nothing to 'fess up about. It's my life. It's my pain. I don't want to share it. I finally run out of paperwork and fold my hands on my desk and stare back.

"Stefanie, I don't like him."

Well now, that's your problem not mine
.
I remain silent.

"No one should make you this unhappy."

Thanks, I appreciate that. How do I change that though?
My eyes stare into his and I feel tears threatening, again. Damn it!

He can see it, and gets up off his chair and starts walking toward me, when Gary's blond head appears at the door. He immediately gets the wrong idea which is plain to see from his expression.

Oh God. These two are about to have a confrontation over me, and it's all one big misunderstanding
.

(I will never understand men.)

Mr Security Guard squares his shoulders and unclips the clip that keeps his gun in the holster. He walks to the door with unveiled aggression. Whoa! Shit! Gary squares up too. He's ready for a stand-off.

I grab my bag, panicked.

The door opens marginally behind the security chains and I almost want to laugh when my hero talks through the gap, as if to a stranger, "Can I help you?"

"I'm here for my woman!"

"Sorry, who are you looking for?"

Oh, this is delicious.

"STEFANIE!"

Waaahahaha, this is classic.

"I'll see if she's ready to leave."

Hahahaha, and he closes the door on Gary and bolts it! I am the only person here, in full view.

My problem? I see the humour in this and want to laugh. But they're both deadly serious.