 
### The Mouse Trap

A Novella

By Vincent Gray

Smashwords Edition 2017

Copyright© 2017 Vincent Gray

This book is a work of fiction. All the characters developed in this novel are fictional creations of the writer's imagination and are not modelled on any real persons. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. All representations and references to existing institutions are fictionalized representations and references for the literary artistic goal of embedding and situating the characters in real history.

ISBN: 9781370573622

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This book is dedicated to:

Melodie my wife and Ruth my daughter

-I still find it hard to believe that you and Vera actually had a thing going when we were still at school.

*You see, there you prove my point. You my own buddy find it difficult to imagine that Vera and I actually had a relationship.

-Yeah but was it a real relationship?

*Yes it was. We were practically going out as a steady couple, even if it was only for a brief period. In reality I was her first love and her first boyfriend. Yet after all these years you still to see me as a pathetic victim of Vera's manipulation and eventual rejection.

-I didn't mean it that way.

*I think you did, but it does not offend me, I know you like to tease me.

-OK, let's be brutally honest, I am not going to spare your feelings, you were definitely not Vera's type of guy and by getting involved with her in the first place you were setting yourself up for the inevitability of painful rejection. Rejection was not even a statistical possibility; it was going to be a dead certainty especially in your case when it comes to a woman like Vera.

*What are you implying?

-I am not implying anything. You are not a bad looking guy, you were and still are a nice guy, if you don't mind me saying so, but you were definitely not Vera's type of man. But I must say, this whole business of you and Vera did intrigue me at the time.

*It happened a long time ago.

-I know it was a long time ago, but how did you manage, in spite of everything, in spite of all the odds, how did you actually manage to hit it off with Vera and become involved in a relationship with her? How did you first meet her?

*Do you remember those social evenings at the Anglican youth guild?

-I do. I must have been the only Jew in the history of Boksburg to attend those social evenings.

*That's where I met Vera; it was at one of those monthly social evenings?

-This is actually quite interesting, because to be honest I don't remember ever seeing Vera at any of the youth guild social evenings. I only first started noticing her at parties and sessions sometime after the two of you had broken up. Where was she hiding herself before you got involved with her?

*She was not really hiding. The reason why you never saw her is easy to explain, this one social evening happened to be her first and only social evening that she ever came to and you were not there that night. Apart from that one single isolated occasion she was not allowed to go out to any kind of teenage social function without a parental chaperone, her parents were strict. Our meeting at that one specific social evening was by sheer chance, it was an accident, a chance event if you like.

-This makes the story even more interesting. A chance event, I like that. The Universe is ruled by chance and not by fate, this is what I believe. There is no such thing as destiny, everything is up for grabs.

*I suppose in a way it is an interesting story.

-I have never heard the full story.

*Would you like to hear my version of the story?

-Why not? I am not in any hurry.

*Well let me start from the very beginning.

-That is actually a good place to start.

*You remember how it used to be, the lights were dim, the music was loud and we as usual were eyeing out the talent, looking for someone to dance with, and possibly to get-off with.

-Get-off! Gee, I have not heard that phrase in years. I wonder where it originally comes from and what it really means.

*It happens to be UK slang; it is a typically English form of sexual slang. It means 'to start a sexual relationship with someone'.

-Can you believe that? Sexual slang from the UK had become part of our very own schoolboy and schoolgirl party slang culture. But I think we have ended up using the word in a very loose or rough and ready manner. In our own minds when we were still teenagers we did in fact go to parties and socials with no other purpose in mind than to get-off with a girl, which logically implies that we actually went to parties or socials or sessions for the sole purpose of starting a sexual relationship with some chick which we happened to hit on at the party. So basically we went to parties in order to initiate sexual relationships with girls. It was true that the phrase 'getting-off' used to flow so easily off our lips in those days. For example: You could ask a friend: 'How was the party on Saturday night?' And generally he would give the following kind of answer: 'It was great man, I 'got-off' with Sally.' In this instance, given the real meaning of the words 'getting-off' with someone, it would have been perfectly in order for one to ask: 'So you started a sexual relationship with Sally?' In all likelihood if that question was asked in Boksburg during that time, the person would have been a bit puzzled by the question, and would have probably answered you with another question such as: 'What do you mean by sexual relationship? I did not fuck her, if that is what you were asking; we just smooched the whole night.' So we could conclude that when you smooched a girl for the whole night at a party, it would logically mean that you have got-off with her, which really means that you have indeed begun a sexual relationship with her. To be pedantic I would say that smooching someone the whole night at a party or a social, or a session for that matter, is equivalent to starting a sexual relationship with that person. And this is why teenagers go to parties and sessions, they want to have sexual experiences like smooching. Teenage socials are nothing more than a cover for sexual experimentation and initiating sexual relationships. It all revolves around sex, and getting-off is all about having a sexual experience. Sex was invented for teenagers.

*So you want to know whether I really in fact got-off with Vera at the social evening that night.

-Yes, exactly, did you really get-off with Vera that night, in other words did you really initiate a sexual relationship with Vera at the social that night or were you merely indulging in frivolous sexual experimentation with a vulnerable sweet young girl, confirming in the process her parent's worst nightmares?

*This line of questioning sounds a bit like a court case interrogation.

-Well I am an advocate. Litigation is my business.

*I will get to answer your question more fully, but first let me set the background scene for the getting-off story. While at the social that night I happened to spot a group of girls standing nearby. One of them was wearing a very short miniskirt and she had really nice legs and quite a bit of boob as well. She catches my eye and she smiles spontaneously at me, of course I smile back. I end up asking her to dance and we spent the rest of the night dancing together, dancing close together right up until the very end. It was only when we started smooching that I first realized that she was very young, possibly only thirteen years old. I put two and two together and came to the conclusion that she was only in standard six, she couldn't have been in standard five or twelve years old. Girls in standard five don't come to youth guild socials. I was in standard eight at the time. Just before the end of the evening I had to go, so I said goodbye and I left her after having smooched her for most of the night. So to answer your question: I left her not thinking about ever seeing her again in my life. I left Vera, after getting-off with her, I left Vera after having a pleasant sexual experience with her, I left Vera after starting a sexual relationship with her, and I left Vera without any plan to consummate the so-called sexual relationship that had been inadvertently initiated by me. I left Vera without any intention of ever seeking her out at school in order to establish a relationship with her. In my mind she was too young. My mom was parked in the street outside the church grounds and she was waiting for me, so I had to go.

-So how did you get to meet Vera again?

*A whole year went by and I had forgotten completely about that night. In a way I wanted to forget about that night because I did not want to be teased about cradle snatching. So I did not really go out of my way to find out more about the girl. In the mean time I fell under the spell of new friends who in their own way were charismatic characters with magnetic personalities, and were nice people to be hanging out with. I became big buddies with Ricky Trust. Alvin Alston was one of the other guys in our group, you must remember him, he was an amazing soccer player. Together, he and Ricky were two unforgettable characters. Ricky Trust was also a good footballer but not in the same league as Alvin. And you must remember Ricky, he was one helluva guy, he was already boxing in primary school, anyway through Ricky's influence I also joined the Boksburg Amateur Boxing Club. After high school Ricky got into the parabats. When his national serviced ended he joined the recces and was in the permanent force for a couple of years. He was also in Angola right in the thick of things. I gather that after Angola he went to America and tried to make a career as a professional boxer. He stays now in California and is running a small building company. In standard nine Ricky and I also started hanging out with all the _skomgatte_ (bad company) and we both went through a wild and rebellious phase. Before hitting out to parties we used to go drinking at the Central or the Masonic Hotel. They were allowing under-aged teenagers into the lounge and bar, it was unbelievable. So I was in with the wrong crowd, mixing with fairly notorious characters. I had become a teenage rebel and I think I was giving my parents quite a hard time. So anyway while I was going through this wild and rebellious phase I happened to be standing in the grass quad, you know the grass quad by the school hall between Blignaut and Vorster's classrooms. And then out of the blue, Wendy Worthington who was Vera's best friend comes walking up to me in the quad. Yes Wendy, that Wendy, with the unusual blue eyes and dark skin tone, yes that exotic beauty. She tells me Vera wants to invite me to her sister's twenty first birthday party and she wants to know whether I would be willing to be Vera's partner. You must remember that a full year has now passed since I first became acquainted with Vera.

-So what did you say?

*I said yes. So she goes off to give Vera the message. Less than three minutes later Wendy comes back and asks if it is possible for me to meet Vera after school at the bicycle shed. It seems a logical place to meet. All our bicycles were parked there.

-Well did you meet her after school?

*Yes, we chatted, she was very flirtatious and it was all kind of weird because I must have been the first and only guy that had ever smooched her right up until the very moment that we became reunited again at the bicycle shed. And I could not help noticing in the clear light of day that she had grown into a really stunningly beautiful and well developed fourteen year old standard seven schoolgirl. To be honest I was really taken aback when I saw how attractive she had become. The fact that we had previously shared some kind of closeness and intimacy must have played a major role in making me the most obvious candidate for her to invite to her sisters twenty first as her partner. I think it was important that we had previously enjoyed an evening of pleasant physical intimacy. She did later confide that she had developed a secret crush on me after that night at the youth guild social. She even said later that the time that we had spent together at the social had been a wonderful and magical experience for her. It was during the initial phases of our relationship that I first learnt of her mother's unreasonable strictness. On many Saturday nights she had laid on her bed in her room crying while all her friends were getting-off with boys at parties and sessions. She would get to hear all the details of their sexual escapades including the joy of getting fucked. It was both surprising and illuminating to hear from her which of her friends had been fucked at the tender age of thirteen and fourteen. In those days we stayed in the last road at the top of Cinderella and she stayed in Farrar Park so I rode with her to her house. It was a Friday afternoon. When we arrived at her front gate she invited me into the house. We parked our bicycles in the yard and then went round the house and entered via the front door. She invited me to sit down on the sofa in the lounge. We sat there in the lounge chatting and I was just making myself comfortable slouching back in the sofa when her mom walks in. Vera introduced me and the mother eyed me out with a wary and very sceptical eye, and I could clearly see that she was not happy with me being with her daughter, and I also got the feeling that she definitely did not like me. I sensed her distrust. It made me feel uncomfortable. I could read her mind; I knew what was going on in her head. Vera quickly informed her mother that she had asked me to be her partner at her sister's twenty first birthday party. It becomes immediately obvious that Vera has dropped a bombshell. Her mother was taken aback completely by surprise. I am very quickly informed by the mother that the twenty first birthday party was going to be a formal adult occasion and that Vera had mentioned nothing to her or her sister about bringing a partner to the party. The mother reminds both Vera and me that Vera is still much too young to be having boyfriends and that it is also totally ridiculous that Vera should even be thinking about taking a partner to her sister's twenty first and anyway all the invitations have already been sent out and the guest list has been finalized, and finally they have not catered for her having a partner. The party was going to be at the Criterion in Benoni which in those days was a really posh joint. That seemed to be the end of story for Vera's plans. Vera became all sullen and she asked her mother if she could at least offer me some lunch. Her mother was gracious enough to allow me to have something to eat. So I end up eating lunch at the kitchen table, and it turns out to be a very prolonged lunch. At about four-o-cock I decide I have to go home, we were still in our school uniforms. As I am getting up to go Vera asks her mom if I can visit her on that Saturday night. The mother mumbles again about not being happy with Vera having male friends visiting her because of her young age. When Vera hears this she has a tantrum in the kitchen and a shouting match then ensues between them. I managed to say goodbye, explaining that I have to get home because it is getting late.

-So what happened?

*Later that night she phones me informing me that I can come visit her on Saturday, her mom says it is OK.

-And?

*I arrived there at 7.00 pm on my bicycle. They have already eaten supper. It was a warm spring evening so Vera was wearing sandals, shorts and a skimpy T-shirt. Her face was made up and the fragrance of her perfume was purposely formulated to drive men mad with desire. On the lounge floor there was a stack of boxes containing various board games including Monopoly. I shook the father's hand and he sat down again in an arm chair and buried himself in the newspaper. The mother put on her reading spectacles and continued reading her Mills & Boon paperback. Vera asked what board game I would like to play. So I realized that this was the game plan for the evening, we would be sitting on the lounge carpet playing board games while her parents watched over us. It was kind of weird, but what the hell, Vera had turned out be an exceptionally sexy and attractive teenager, so I had no problem playing board games with such a delectable creature. We sat on the carpet and played board games for three hours. For fun and a laugh we started with Snakes & Ladders and then we went onto playing Ludo. After Ludo we played Draughts and then after Draughts we played Dominos and then it was 9.00 pm and we started playing Monopoly. At 10.00 pm her parents decided to go to bed but we were still far from finishing our game of Monopoly. Vera begged them to let me stay and play Monopoly until her sister Patricia came home. After much humming and hawing her parents finally relented. Once they had given in she asked if we could play records on the Hi Fi while we continued with our game of Monopoly. They agree that we could play music as long as we controlled the volume. Once the parents were in bed we packed up the Monopoly game and we moved onto the couch. Her sister eventually came back at 12.00. But before her sister came home, at about10.30 Vera tiptoed quietly down the passage to listen if her parents had fallen asleep. From the lounge I could hear that her mom and dad had started snoring.

-And so?

*Well while her mom and dad continued to snore we started smooching while sitting snuggled together on the couch and by the most magical and mysterious sleight of hand her breast suddenly filled my hand like a firm low hanging peach and she let out a surprised gasp which we both smothered with our mobile lips.

-And then?

*From the lounge I could still her mom and dad snoring and my hand made its move. Like a cat that had been laying in ambush the whole evening transfixed and mesmerized by the moving shadow of a fat furry mouse, the same mouse which while not being able to anticipate the swift mobile execution of hidden intentions, soon found itself squirming and twisting under my hand in a state of delicious shock.

-And what happened then?

*The mouse trapped under my hand stopped struggling and with its heart pounding like mad it surrendered with soft whimpers and moans in response to the surprise of its sudden capture.

-No you kidding, you not making this all up?

*No I am not.

-You managed to slip you hand down her shorts to stroke and fondle her mouse.

*Yes I just did it and once my hand was there she just let my hand stay there while it became fully acquainted with the intricate anatomy of her mouse, and while this was going on we continued smooching. My thoroughly corrupted mind was racing wild, I was rehearsing all the logistics and timing that it would take to bang her if I could get into this situation again with her in the future. I figured out that I could bang her in the lounge on the sofa and finish the job in three minutes while her parents were sleeping. I thought to myself, I just need three minutes; I could do it in three minutes. Just three minutes was all I needed, boom, boom, boom, bang.

-I don't believe you. You actually had your hand on her mouse after seeing her again for the first time after a gap of one year?

*Yes I couldn't believe it myself, it was so unreal, and I don't know what had overcame me. And while it was all happening I felt completely out of myself, like if my soul had become disembodied and had wondered off leaving behind my living body to its own devices, to the control of its natural drives and instincts, and in the absence of my soul the senses of my body entered a state of heighted and extreme alertness, like an animal, to any possibility of danger, but the sound of the snoring emanating from her parent's bed room continued unabated as their daughter became transmuted into a stranger whom they would not have recognized as the same familiar face living under the same roof of their home, and neither could I recognize her because she had undergone such a profound and surprising metamorphosis, and then I heard the metallic click and motion of the key in the lock of the front door and my soul which had been wondering though the labyrinth of her home returned to my body and I allowed the mouse to escape.

-This is some story. It is simply fascinating, completely unbelievable, what happened next?

*Well to cut a long story short for almost three months we saw each other all the time, at school and on weekends. Her sister's party was scheduled to take place in only three months' time. So Vera had invited me quite far in advance of the party's scheduled date. The whole business about the guest lists was actually a lie. During those three months her mother sometimes dropped us off at the movies. Vera was still not allowed to go to parties, socials or sessions so we spent Friday and Saturday nights sitting in the lounge with her parents. In order to see each other on Sunday nights we went with her parents to Evening Song at St Michael's and All Angels, which was the church where we first met at the Anglican youth guild social in the church hall. Why I am telling you this? Of course you know what we do with church halls, they were built for parish socials. At the 8.30 am Sunday morning Mass I sat in the church holding her hand. Of course you can appreciate that her mom disapproved of the socials and the activities of the youth guild as it had become known that teenagers would sneak off into the church gardens or into the streets to smooch and pet. And the Anglican youth guild socials had become notoriously popular among non-Anglicans as a venue and as an occasion for free-for-all sessions with no adult supervision. However, whenever the opportunity arose I found myself playing with the mouse. But for most of the time when we were together there was always a parental chaperone keeping a close eye on things. The only time we were ever left alone was when her parents went to bed at 10.00 pm. So from 10.00 pm until her sister came home which was usually between 11.30 and 12.00 we sat in the lounge smooching, talking, playing with the mouse, and listening to LPs on the Hi Fi.

-The mouse? Why do refer to it as the mouse?

*Oh yes the mouse. She referred to it as her mouse. After the second or third time that I was busy with her mouse, she asked: 'Do you like playing with my mouse?' Her question was so perversely shocking and so hilariously funny at the same time. She had caught me out. I could not find any appropriate words to answer her. How was I to answer her that I liked playing with her mouse? She had this wanton Lolita expression on her face and I could also see without the reflection of a mirror that my own face had become fixed in a solemn angelic expression of sublime and pure innocence. All I could say was 'I love you Vera' and she answered: 'I like you too.' I wanted to hear that she loved me not merely liked me. I was busy with the mouse and the peaches precisely because of a deep insecurity. The peaches and the mouse where filling an emptiness in our relationship. They were substitutions for everything that was lacking in our relationship. They were merely physical objects, toys or ornaments to feel, touch, stroke, squeeze, fondle and hold. But I needed the whole person, I desired the commitment of the whole person, which could only manifest itself in demonstrations of loving affection, and this was lacking from her side. Emotionally there was no confirming reciprocation of affection between us. It was missing. It was something that I was profoundly aware of. I was affectionate. But she was never overtly affectionate towards me. I suppose I should not judge her too hard. She was indeed affectionate, she could be very affectionate at times, but it seemed that she was rationing her affection, just giving me enough for me to stay alive. So there were those intense moments when she was extremely affection and loving towards me. However I soon found myself slipping into an uncomfortable and vulnerable emotional state of neediness, and I needed more affection than what I was getting, mainly for reasons of reassurance. But then I could play with the mouse and she enjoyed this, and she enjoyed being brought to an orgasm. And so it was great fun and very exciting for me to get her all aroused and worked up, and it was in those intense moments when she was sexually aroused that she would became more loving and more affectionate. So I had the mouse to play with, and I became very good at playing with the mouse, and she enjoyed me playing with the mouse and also with the peaches, this seemed to have become the focus of our relationship, it was purely physical, just smooching and petting, she was an extraordinarily sexual and sensual creature, she loved sex, but this was not enough, I wanted more, I wanted something emotional. In my mind I knew that her age was a problem. I realized as a fourteen year old she was emotionally immature and I knew that she was an emotional hazard because I knew that deep down we did not feel the same way about each other. I was hungry for more affection, and she just gave me this much affection, and no more. I was the sucker, I had fallen deeply in love with her, I was only sixteen years old at the time, and in a real sense I was a lost and vulnerable soul, but I was still capable of deep and profound feelings towards her. I could not bring myself to ask whether we were going steady, because I was afraid of receiving a vague and non-committal answer. We were doing _Romeo and Juliet_ as our English Shakespeare set work and the teacher made us aware that the characters had to be teenagers, yet the characters were so mature compared to Vera and me. I was so conflicted. There was nothing in our relationship which remotely resembled the romantic passion in Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_. While I wanted a genuinely passionate romantic relationship with her and I was also at the same tine becoming increasing obsessed with wanting to screw her. I knew I could have the mouse even if I could not have her. So it was increasing clear that I could have the mouse, the mouse was mine for the taking, she would let me have the mouse, and I was now planning very seriously to have the mouse, to take possession of the mouse in the only way possible. We had by now in a way negotiated in an unspoken fashion that I could have complete intimate physical access to the mouse. And surprisingly she wanted it; she definitely wanted me to have the mouse. She wanted us to have sex, she wanted us to go the whole way. She was curious enough to want it and she was open about the prospect. It was up to me to take the initiative, everything hinged on that. It was something I had to do. So I bought a small tin of condoms which I carried in my pocket all the time. In fact, while we smooching on the sofa in her lounge they slipped out of my pocket and when I stood up she saw the round shiny silver coloured tin container lying on the sofa. It looked like a large silver coin. She picked up the tin container and asked: 'What is this?' I answered: 'French Letters.'

-What did she say then?

*She wanted to open the tin and wanted to see what they looked like. She was inordinately curious, so I had to show her what an FL looked like, and she then said: 'so this is what a mouse trap looks like.'

-I don't believe it! Did she really say that?

*Yes did. She laughed, she found the FLs hilarious.

-It is hard to believe all this stuff you telling me about Vera. It is so unbelievable! She was really some piece of work. So what actually happened after that?

*Nothing right away, but in preparation for the twenty first I went secretly to Arthur and Murray for dance lessons which my mom paid for. I went for dancing lessons for almost three months. She was just too happy that I was seeing Vera and not hanging around with the bad crowd associated with the Boxing Club. She was glad to see that I was no longer behaving like a wild and rebellious teenager. On the night of the party my mom dropped me off at the Criterion. I was dressed in the tuxedo that we had hired. Vera couldn't dance but I managed to lead her on the dance floor and help her get the most basic steps right. The party was a success by all accounts. Sunday afternoon I phoned Vera and we spoke about the party and school and friends, and that was that. As had become our custom we rode our bicycles together to school each morning. So that Monday morning I rode over on my bicycle to her house on my way to school. I was there at 7.00 am sharp on that Monday morning and as had become my custom I waited for her in the street. When I saw her pushing her bike to the gate I could sense immediately that something was seriously wrong. There was no smile on her face, she gave me an indifferent hello, and she was as cold as a fish. I tried to make conversation but it was hopeless, she had become a total stranger, she was emotionally dead towards me. I asked her what was going on, I asked her why she was behaving so cold and strangely towards me. Her answer was that nothing was wrong and she was just feeling out of sorts. Following this brief exchange we peddled in silence to school. After locking our bikes at the bicycle shed she did not wait for me but walked off leaving me standing at the bicycle shed. At first break I found her and said we have to talk. I told her that I wanted to know what was going on with her. Her answer was that she needed time to be alone and that it would be better if we stopped seeing each other. I was stunned. I was shocked. I blurted out to her: "How can you do this to us?" She shrugged her shoulders and turned away from me. She was the first girl that I had really fallen for in a big way. There had been other girls that I went out with, but with Vera I had become involved with something that was completely and uniquely different.

-So she broke up with you just like that?

*Yes. Privately and inwardly I was emotionally shattered and hurting, I was feeling incredible emotional pain. I hid my feelings, acting nonchalantly and stoically. No one knew or cared that I was in this emotional state of confusion, hurt, pain and turmoil. It soon got around that Vera and I had broken up after going out for three months. It was the longest time I been going out with someone. All my previous relationships with girls were just fickle flings that had the intrinsic property of being fleetingly evanescent like butterflies fluttering from one flower to the next.

-And then on top of your breakup we had the gang fight with the Lebanese.

*Yes there I was hurting inside and nobody cared and Ricky phones me early that Saturday morning after my breakup with Vera telling me to get down to the intersection of Trichardt Road and Commissioner Street as soon as possible, which was right smack in the middle of town.

-Yes he also phoned me.

*Like you I raced over on my bike. I wanted to get involved in a big gang fight with the Lebanese or the Portuguese or any other ethnic group. I rationalized to myself as I peddled furiously that I needed to experience a violent catharsis to get over my frustration and anger.

-I saw you racing down the road, coming down Trichardt Road like a bat out of hell, bent low over the handle bars, peddling like crazy. You were like a maniac. You skidded to a halt, threw your bicycle down, you left it lying in the middle of Trichardt Road with the back wheel spinning in the air, and you sprinted into the intersection with your fists flaying wildly and you charged into the ruck and maul like a mad man, hitting the Lebanese left, right and centre, with countless blows also glancing off you, you did not flinch, and then the police arrived and they began to club all of us with batons.

*I remember they hit me viciously several times all over my body with their batons and before I knew it my hands were cuffed behind my back and they threw head first into the back of the van, I could have been seriously injured.

-You began crying in the police van.

*I was not crying.

-You were crying.

*No, no, there may have been tears in my eyes but I was not crying. Believe me I was not crying.

-Tears were streaming down you face, down you cheeks, your eyes were red, brimming with tears, I was a bit shocked to see you so emotionally distraught, I could not grasp why you were crying. Even Ricky still asked you what was wrong. And you said: 'she has broken up with me.' So you meant than that Vera had broken up with you?

*Yes I meant that Vera had broken up with me. I didn't realize I was crying at the time. Maybe I was in a state of shock from the fight and being clubbed by the police and also deeply traumatized by Vera's rejection.

-While you were going out with Vera we never saw you or even had a chance to talk to you. At school breaks you hung out with Vera and her girlfriends. It was amusing for us to see you at breaks hanging around with Vera and a bunch of standard seven school girls. You practically disappeared from the scene for three months, it was weird not having you around in our group. We all joked and gossiped quite a bit about you behind your back. We could see that Vera had you under her thumb. And when you and Vera broke up we didn't see you on weekends. At school you were listless and uncommunicative, and you had also became quite aggressive, people walked wide circles around you, they wanted to avoid provoking you and getting into a fight.

*Yeah after our breakup I found myself at a loose end on weekends. I fell into a deep depression and lost all motivation to do anything. In retrospect I realized that I had been suffering from grief. In those days no one went to a psychologist. You had to fix yourself up by yourself.

******

*In our matric year I discovered by sheer co-incidence that we, that is Vera and I, were sitting at different periods and days at the same desk in Mrs Hennessy's history class. We had broken up a year ago. And also a year had passed since we had been in that street fight with the Lebanese. I did something silly. Using my compass I carved a heart into the top of the desk and wrote: I love you Vera. Two days later I saw scratched in angry capital letters the words: WHO WROTE THIS!!! When I read her response my heart went cold and suddenly I was filled with cowardice. I looked around across the rows of desks and caught Raymond's eye. The period for the history class had not yet started, so I quickly walked over to Raymond's desk and said to him: 'we got to change desks I will pay you back, I owe you big time'. Anyway I managed to persuade him to exchange desks. I later learnt that Vera walked up to him during break and in front of every one she said to him: 'You are a stupid, pathetic, fat arsehole, so just fuck off!' Apparently he was completely confused and stunned by this random and unexpected insult coming from Vera. When I heard what had happened I nearly died laughing. I managed to find out that she and her friends had kept that desk under surveillance to see who was sitting there during all the other periods and in a process of elimination they concluded that dear old fat Raymond was the culprit who had declared his love for Vera. He never put two and two together.

-Hell I would never have guessed that she could be so cruel and vicious.

*Yes she could be cruel, I should know. I was a victim of her emotional cruelty. It's a pity you were not with us in Durban after our Matric exams. Funny enough, or ironically enough, Vera was also there too. We had a ball, we travelled overnight down by train and we stayed in a flat close to the beach. Practically everyone was down there, it was like it had been prearranged, as if we all had the same idea for a post-Matric Durban holiday _jol_ (party).

-So you saying that Vera was there as well?

*Yes she had come down to Durban with her sister and her sister's fiancée. Some of her friends were also there, including Wendy and so they formed their own group but eventually everyone from Boksburg High sat together on North Beach. Vera ignored me, she didn't greet me, and she just looked right through me as if I did not exist or as if I was invisible. Then I noticed that she was with Charles Redhouse all the time, they were sitting close together holding hands or lying next to each other on the beach. Charles had earlier joined our group.

-So was she with Charles?

*Yes she was. Charles came down by himself. On our first day at the beach before all the others arrived we found Charles lying on a towel on the beach wearing sunglasses, with his nose painted with white sunblock, his blond hair sun bleached and his body tanned, looking the very image of a Durban beach lifeguard in his EPRM water polo speedo. He was busy reading this massive book called _The Rosy Crucifixion_.

*******

-There was always something glaringly incongruous about Charles. For example, he was always reading those weird books and the English teacher always read his English essays to the class. He always had the highest class mark for English. He could also write the most amazing shit, and I cannot even start to image where got his crazy ideas from. Do you remember there was a rumour doing the rounds towards the end of our Matric year that he had been fucking the English teacher on the quiet even though she had just got married?

*There is no doubt about it, Charles was something else. Remember how early he had matured. In standard six he was over six foot and had this heavy stubble on his face, and he was doing karate and weightlifting. The chicks were crazy for him, and he was already fucking girls when he was standard six and only thirteen years old. He fucked that Portuguese girl who was in standard five and who couldn't have been older than twelve.

-Yeah I remember that Portuguese girl, she was one standard below us when were still in Central Primary School. Her dad owned the vegetable shop across the road from the boat house at Boksburg Lake, there by the robots in Commissioner Street. Yes now that you mentioned her, I remember her in primary school marching along with those big tits. She was that girl that already had such big tits when she was only in standard three. Hey she was also not bad looking at all.

*Yeah she was really nice. A really pretty Portuguese girl. Anyway when he was still in standard six Charles got very friendly with her. He just stayed up the road from the green grocers shop in that big house on the corner in the same street as the Anglican Church where we used to have the youth guild socials. Apparently he sweet talked her into letting him bang her. He used to screw her every afternoon after school. While she was still in standard five she would come over to his home and he would take her upstairs to his bedroom. There was no one home in the afternoons except the maid.

-Yeah that is basically the story. And he experimented with her big time. Her name was Paula by the way. I remember one break how he regaled us with all the kinds of stuff that he had done to her. Charles polluted our minds with his stories of sexual adventure, conquest and persuasion. His endless string of successes as a master seducer confirmed in our own minds that he was the guardian of secret knowledge, the kind of erotic and metaphysical knowledge which gave him sexual power over girls. If only we knew what he knew about girls? He knew stuff about girls that we could not even imagine, he had such profound knowledge and insight into the workings of the female body, soul, mind and emotions, especially when it came to sexual persuasion, there was no doubt that he was the master persuader. I was convinced that he knew exactly how to switch on their willingness to participate in pure raw sex only for the sake of sexual excitement, sexual adventure, sexual enjoyment and sexual pleasure, and for no other reason or purpose. He had a talent for sweet talking. Like an animal circus trainer possessing profound zoological knowledge into the minds and habits of wild animals he could tame and domesticate the human female animal to perform sexual tricks by getting them to do just what he said was only natural for them to do. He said the female body was a walking sexual ornament, every part of the female body had a sexual ornamental function. The female's body had evolved for one purpose only and that was for the sexual gratification of men. He said that Darwin had proven this fact scientifically. He kept on saying that this or that was a fact of nature. The way he put things, everything happened to be a fact of nature when it came to sex. We were only obeying the laws of nature when it came to our sexual compulsions. All other laws, laws based on social norms and conventions, were not real laws because they were not laws of nature, instead they were just arbitrary rules that were not grounded in any transcendental necessity. Everything to do with sex became a fact of nature in Charles' mind. Desire and lust were facts of nature. Everything to do with sex was natural because sex belonged solely to the realm of nature and not morals. Our sexual urges and desires were natural impulses, natural instincts or natural drives, and when it came to girls our urge to fuck them was as natural as wanting to eat when you happened to be hungry, or wanting to drink when you were thirsty, or to sleep when you felt tired, everything was natural. The word 'natural' took on a whole new meaning. I remember that when Paula the Portuguese girl was still in standard six he once said in passing that he could organize a fuck with her for anyone who was interested. How was it possible that he could do this? Do you remember the Hungarian Dominik Szabó? Well when he heard this he immediately without any hesitation challenged Charles to make good his offer. Dominik was not a bad looking fellow, in fact he was quiet handsome in that sort of Eastern European exotic way. To our surprise Charles agrees and the next day we all follow Charles and Dominik at first break when they went looking for Paula the Portuguese girl. They eventually find Paula. She was standing with a group of friends in the small tarred quad. We watched from a distance. Charles calls her over. She walks over to Charles and Dominik to hear what they want. The three of them have a chat, her smiling face becomes intense and serious as she listens to Charles, a slight frown forms on her brow and then we notice that there is a look of concern on her face, she turns her head and looks at Dominik, we see that Dominik has become extremely nervous and unsure of himself, Charles remains relaxed, calm and confident, Charles continues chatting to her, she nods her head every now and then as he speaks, but Dominik does not open his mouth, he remains dead quiet, his face is rigid and expressionless like if he is expecting the death sentence, he just stands there immobilized in an awkward silence while her face now remains fixed on his face, she is eyeing him out, looking him up and down, but Charles begins to smile, we can see that he is satisfied with the outcome, it becomes increasing clear that a breakthrough has been made and Paula now also smiles at a very bashful looking Dominik, and we can see that Dominik looks relieved like a little boy who has just heard the news that he is not going to be punished for any wrong doing. Dominik's demeanour becomes transformed into a picture of angelic innocence and purity. He has survived what has seemed to have been a very public ordeal. He turns and sees us. He gives us a thumbs up sign as he starts to regain his composure. His face which had become flushed from the intensity of the encounter with Paula now returns to its normal colour as the blood drains away from his countenance. We realize that she has agreed, she has consented to Charles' request on Dominik's behalf, Dominik is going to fuck her. The bell rings, break is over, we go and collect our bags for class. I have an incredible hard-on. I think we all have incredible hard-ons including Charles and Dominik. We did not realize it at the time but we had all participated as spectators in the drama of a real sexual adventure which we could never have conceived as being possible until that moment. It seemed that the earth had briefly shifted on its axis, and in that brief moment, we had managed to get a glimpse into some unknown secret reality about what kind of beings we humans really happened to be in truth. But Charles had made it possible. He had drawn back the veil and we had peered into the mysterious depths of some primordial reality which took us back to that ancient last common ancestor that we humans in the depth of time past had once shared with the rest of the animal kingdom. My brain was invaded by thoughts, animal thoughts that were wild and rampant, thoughts filled with vivid mental images, images which had been triggered by the knowledge that Paula was going to be fucked by Dominik after school, these images were engraved indelibly into my brain, possibly for all eternity.

*Are they still engraved on your brain?

-I am not ashamed to say yes. I still have them, they remain wired into my brain, even after all these years. What happened that day in the quad changed me forever, I had witnessed at first hand something that was unthinkable. Something so unimaginably sublime had broken like a shaft of raw light through the mundane reality of the crowded school quad, revealing in that moment, the nature of the hidden truth of what kind of beings we actually were.

*What happened with Dominik and Paula?

-After school Dominik went home with Charles, and Paula accompanied them. They rode on their bikes together to Charles' home. I followed them to the bike shed and I watched them ride off together to the school gate, my gaze followed them until they disappeared from sight. It felt like I was in dream. This could not be happening. Anyway the next day Dominik confirms that he fucked Paula big time in every manner possible. After that, every time I saw Paula, her shapely legs, her nice butt, her big tits and her pretty face with those big brown innocent doe eyes I feel the grip of an overpowering urge to speak to Charles about organizing for me what he had done for Dominik. But I do not possess the necessary courage. My will was too weak. I did not have it in me to go through with my plan to speak to Charles. Instead I began to have obsessive fantasies about Paula, my imagination was constantly in over-drive as I fantasized in a state of perpetual arousal about all kinds of erotic and pornographic scenarios in which Charles, as the great facilitator, would arrange or stage manage or orchestrate situations, in which I would end up banging her.

*Did Dominik ever speak about his experience with Paula?

-No, he did not. Dominik became the guardian of his own secret. Now obviously the next morning we all wanted to know what it must have felt like to fuck her. None of us had ever experienced what it was like fucking a girl. We were pathetic virgins condemned to abuse ourselves while having fantasies of Paula. Everything about the act of fucking was shrouded in mystery. We did not have any idea of what sexual intercourse would actually feel like. I desperately wanted to know what it would feel like to fuck her. At that stage of my life as a randy teenager the act of sex remained veiled in complete mystery. Charles was the guardian of that secret mystery in which the experience of sex was cloaked. He had the power to unveil the secret and make it a reality for us poor sods who were unable to gain access to sex by ourselves with girls or negotiate sex on our own behalf with girls. This is how pathetic we all were compared to Charles, Gavin and Thomas. The gateway to sex with girls was closed to us. We did not know how to open it. We needed to have the keys to the door, we did not have the where-with-all to get sex, we simply did not know how, we were ignorant, when it came to accessing sex we were hopelessly lost in our ignorance, we lived in a state of darkness and complete incapacity.

*It was with Vera that I first discovered that under the mundane veil of ordinary life there existed another world of tantalizing possibilities.

-That is exactly what I realized as a schoolboy in high school. I realized we were living in a world of shadows like the chained prisoners in Plato's cave. All we had to do was turn around and face the full light of day and we would see the world for what it really was: Nature red in tooth and claw.

*I know exactly what you mean. With Vera I realized that there was another world behind the world of appearances.

\- Like you I have also began to believe that behind this world of normal everyday appearances, things were not what they seemed to be, instead there existed another reality, a reality of another world, an underworld if you like, which happened to co-exist as an unseen state-of-affairs in plain sight right before our eyes. It was an underworld of unbelievable sexual debauchery and depravity which reigned right under our noses in plain sight. I say in 'plain sight', because take for example, at school unless you knew something about the history and reality of Charles' little Portuguese girl you would never have any rational reason to guess that that attractive and highly luscious Latin girl with her pretty face and doe eyes had another side to her life, another unseen side to her nature, in which she was another person, someone over whom Charles seemed to have absolute control. She would do his bidding. Just looking at her with innocent eyes standing there in the quad chatting and laughing with her friends you would never be able to imagine her naked, being mounted by Dominik and others under Charles' watchful eye.

*How on earth did he manage to persuade Paula to allow herself to be fucked by various guys like Dominik?

\- There are some clues which can be used to help answer your question. Charles was human, he said stuff, in fact he said a lot of stuff and if you put all the pieces of information together, information which he disclosed over the years from time to time it is possible reconstruct his sexual biography. This what I have been able to establish about Charles's sexual career, for starters, he had worked through almost the entire manual of love making called _The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight_ by Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Nafzawi with the Paula when she was still only twelve years old.

* I have never heard of a book called _The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight_ by Muḥammad what's his name?

-I am not kidding you. There is such a book, believe me. But forget about the book for the time being. There is a lot of other interesting stuff about Charles which may also explain why he become so highfalutin at times especially when we were in standards five, six and seven. He was desperately trying to project himself as an aristocrat. When we got to standard eight he stopped trying to be an aristocrat. It is understandable, especially when you can see where he was coming from. He grew up in home that led him to believe that his lineage was aristocratic and that he had deep familial roots in the ancient nobility of England. Their house now looks a bit run down, but it used to be a magnificent mansion. It is one of the oldest houses in Boksburg. It was built by his great grandfather Sir Charles Redhouse who was one of the original Randlord grandees. Under the high pitched room above the second story of their house there is a massive attic. It is not the usual attic. It was made into an open plan bedroom with a toilet, shower and bathroom, small lounge and of course a king sized bed, which I don't know how they got it into the attic. The staircase to the attic is hidden in what looks like a built in closet in the passage on the second floor. It was originally used as a secret bedroom by his great grandfather and Charles took it over as his bedroom. He is the youngest of four brothers, and at that time while we were still in high school he was the only sibling still living in the house with his parents who were in their late fifties then. His dad owned an engineering business in Selby at the bottom of the Johannesburg CBD. They used to be quite wealthy. On the ground floor there was massive study and library filled with books. His great grandfather and grandfather had built up a library with a really massive collection of books. One of the books Charles discovered in the library when he was in standard two was The Perfumed Garden. He removed the book from the library and which hid in his bedroom. Also buried in the library bookshelves were many other interesting books including D H Lawrence's _Lady Chatterley's Lover_. While in standard four he discovered more books which had been carefully hidden in the library behind some shelved books. These books happened to be the novels by Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, otherwise known as Marquis de Sade. He devoured the English translations of novels by de Sade which included _Misfortunes of Virtue_ ; _Juliette_ ; _The 120 Days of Sodom_ ; and _Philosophy in the Bedroom_. The books had remained hidden on the bookshelves of the library for several decades. Except for Charles no one else in the family took any interest in the book collection that had been housed for almost a hundred years in their library. For Charles the family library had become a treasure trove and he spent hours in the library reading books and mining the library shelves for the secret mother lode of forbidden literature hidden amongst many of the more innocuous titles. When Paula was still in standard four he introduced her to D H Lawrence and the Marquis de Sade. Out of curiosity she devoured these books and he began to do all kinds of erotic stuff with her including having sex with her. In standard six he began to read the books by Charles Darwin which he also found in the library. This was the reason why he began to speak so much about evolution and the non-existence of God. I remember him declaring himself to be an atheist in standard six.

*This skeleton biography certainly explains a lot about the genesis and development of Charles's sexual proclivities and also his early sexual precociousness.

-Like Charles, Thomas Black was also sexually precocious, screwing and banging twelve year old primary school girls when he was in standard six. But he came from a white working class background. He grew up in Boksburg North which as you know was a rough place for anyone to grow up as a kid. With Thomas you also have your underworld co-existing behind the apparent appearances of normality and purity.

*Same story with Gavin Cocklespur, he too was sexually precocious at an early stage, he was also banging primary school girls when he was in standard six.

-So there you go, we now have three truly exemplary agents of the underworld, adding weight to the idea of an underworld of transgression, which is all pervasive, and which also seems to actually exist everywhere. It is both immanent and omnipresent, lurking behind the most innocuous and pure appearances that fill our daily perceptions of reality.

*If you remember we were all part of the same group of guys whose lives had a very real underworld dimension while we were still in standards six and seven. We were also to some extent exemplary agents of the underworld. This was inevitable, because their private and personal underworlds leaked into our lives filling our minds with fantasies, causing us to be in a constant state of sexual arousal while at school. We hung out together during breaks looking at girls and talking about girls constantly. Instead of being pre-occupied with our school work we were pre-occupied with girls. It is possible that we had an overdose of hormones. We could have been boys with abnormal levels of testosterone in our blood. It could be that as schoolboys we had also segregated into different groups according to the levels of testosterone in our blood. Our group most probably had the highest level of testosterone, so we became the bad boys in the school. Maybe we were trapped in circumstances not of our own making, I don't know. Maybe we also made bad choices with regard to our friends. Maybe we chose to hang out in bad company, we could have even been naturally bad, and you know how the old saying: 'birds of a feather flock together'. There is no denying that we were in a very unhealthy situation, which had an impact on our mental lives. It is possible that the company we kept did indeed have a negative effect on our mental health without us being consciously aware of it, who knows? You and I might still be mental, we could have a lot of stuff wrong with us. But then again, it is all water under the bridge, it couldn't be helped, in the end, for better or worse, we all fell under the spell of Gavin and Thomas, and we were also influenced by Charles. Maybe we were just too weak willed. Maybe there is no such thing as free will. Maybe our wills were being shaped by externalities over which we had no control.

-There may be some hard and stark truths in what you saying. Our self-diagnosis does not paint a pretty self-portrait. It definitely does not represent a very edifying autobiography of the life of our minds or consciousness. It is not something which I would like to write about. These things are best kept secret. It is best that they go to the grave with us. I can tell you that now, mark my words, you definitely don't want to know who you really are or who you have been. Let people think we are good guys, well balanced people, who in are charge of their lives.

*In many ways we were only on the margin of all the action, but still it was impossible for us not to become privy to their escapades with girls as they told and retold over and over the stories of their numerous underworld adventures of teenage sex. In the end their underworld narratives of teenage sexual adventure contaminated our own minds while we were still at a very impressionable age. It conditioned how we viewed girls. It was impossible not to have unimaginable sexual thoughts and fantasies about girls. We could not escape from having our morals corrupted and it was difficult to prevent our sense of reality from becoming blurred. And the reason for this was that there were no counter-balancing narratives. There was only one dominant narrative which ruled our lives as teenagers, we were indeed living in a very broken world when you come to think of it.

-You right about that. We did not cross-examine anything, we just accepted what had become the received and accepted wisdom of the schoolyard on all matters of sex and girls. We only heard one side of the story regarding the nature of human sexuality and we took it as the Gospel. Actually during our time in high school there were two complementary narratives, the raw and the sophisticated. On the one hand there were the raw views of Thomas and Gavin on the nature of human sexuality, and then on the other hand, there was the sophisticated picture painted by Charles. Charles connected all the dots slightly differently and came up with very a different version or picture of basically the same thing, the two views were generically the same, two sides of the same coin if you like. They were just packaged and presented differently, but at the end of the day there were no contradictions between the two views, their views were completely aligned, there was only a difference in articulation. Deep down or in essence, Charles the aristocrat was cut of the same cloth as Gavin and Thomas when it came to what they basically believed about human sexuality and women, they were singing from the same hymn book, there was only a difference in tone and melody, Gavin and Thomas were vulgar and crude, Charles was cultured and had a sense of decorum or propriety, in other words he was not offensive, but I can tell he was more dangerous to women. Also if your recall, Charles was never part of our group, he drifted in and out. I often got the impression he that looked down on us. Even at school he was an intellectual snob. He did not want to stoop down to our level of rawness and crudity which happened to be the characteristic flavour of the underworld which belonged to Gavin and Thomas. When Charles was not holding court with the guys he preferred to be with some girlfriend under a tree somewhere in the schoolyard, someone he was grooming to be fucked, rather than mingling with the buccaneers, under the flag of the Jolly Roger, as we became known at school in those days.

*What you saying about Charles is only half true, he did like to confess and brag, and he could also be raw and vulgar, but he was selective with regard to his audience in the school playground. If you recall he did have his loyal satellites and acolytes like the Hungarian and others who were like the Hungarian.

-Thinking of those days, I am now more than convinced that Charles, Gavin and Thomas actually did have a very bad influence on all of us while were still at such an impressionable age with raging hormones and constant erections. They put all kinds of ideas into our heads about girls.

*They also opened our minds and imagination to the possibilities of all kinds of sexual adventures that were there to be enjoyed by the daring and the brave.

-But still, they remained openly obsessed with sex, to a level that was extreme and unhealthy. They turned my mind into a sewer of sexual fantasy. They thoroughly corrupted me.

*Do you really think they had such a bad effect on us? You don't think that this obsession with sex was normal for teenage boys? Do you really think they had a negative influence on us when it came to our views about girls?

-Yes I do. You should know, you were also part of the group. You even admitted that you became a slave to the obsessions and fantasies that began to control your mind. We were like sponges, we soaked up everything they said. Gavin, Thomas and Charles exerted huge power and influence over us when it came to shaping our perception about girls while we were at school. We cannot ignore the fact that they played a very significant and disproportionate role in the development of our views about women. Girls were there to be fucked, plain and simple, and therefore it was necessary that one mastered the art of seduction and persuasion.

*What I always find amazing when thinking back about our high school days, was the blatant chauvinism and sexist views of Gavin and Thomas, and yet, in spite of this, the girls still liked them and were drawn to them like moths that had become mesmerized by the danger of a burning flame. Girls seemed to be magnetically drawn to bad boys like Gavin, Thomas and Charles, and that was a big irony.

-Yeah there was never a shortage of girls waiting to be fucked by Gavin, Thomas and Charles.

******

-You were saying that Charles and Vera were an item in Durban? Who conquered whom, or was it meeting of like-minds?

*It was probably a meeting of minds and bodies, definitely a merging of bodies into one flesh.

-She still seems to have a hold on you after all these years?

*I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I am obsessed with a fantasy called Vera.

-So Charles was banging her while you guys where in Durban?

*Yes he was.

-How did you feel about that?

*I felt bad. The truth is that I never really got over Vera. She had become more and more beautiful and desirable.

-What has happened to Charles? I heard he was discharged from the army for health reasons.

*That is right. In fact we travelled down in the troop train together to Middleburg in the Eastern Transvaal. Initially I didn't even know he was on the same train. We boarded the train at Park Station, and he found our compartment. Ricky and I were sitting together in the compartment and Charles joined us. After chatting for a while he takes out a book from his bag. It was the same book which he had on the beach, _The Rosy Crucifixion_ , and he started reading. He was only half-way through the book which had more than six hundred pages. When he eventually stopped reading and put the book down on the seat next to him, I leaned over and picked up the book because I happened to be curious about what kind of book it was. It was a thick paperback book. I flipped through the book scanning the pages. A ball point drawing on the inside cover caught my attention. I examined the drawing. It was a drawing of a heart with an arrow through it. Inside the drawing of the heart I saw the words: 'I love you Vera.' Charles noticed my interest in the drawing and he said: 'Vera drew the heart and wrote the message, it wasn't me. I was actually a bit upset when she did that, but I didn't say anything.' Ricky also leaned over and glanced at the drawing. He could read my mind. So he asks Charles: 'Did you fuck her.' Ricky was with us in Durban and he had an inkling about what was going on between Vera and me, and the dynamics between us on the beach did not escape his attention. He was sharp enough to notice that Vera behaved as if I did not exist.

-An interesting question, so what was Charles' answer?

*He said that she was the most incredible and exquisite fuck that he had ever had in his life.

-Did Charles elaborate?

*No he did not. However when Ricky asked him if he was going steady with Vera, he said no, he was not. He then confessed to Ricky and me that he has reached the stage in his life where he wanted more from a woman than just been able to fuck her body, he wanted something more spiritual, he wanted intelligent conversation, he wanted mystery and magic, and he also wanted wonder. He said that Vera was an animal and a complete narcissist, and that she was also very cunning and manipulative, and she was ruthless enough to use her charms to entrap you, she was a predator who was quite capable of feeding vampire-like on your emotions until she had sucked you dry, made you cry and reduced you to her slave. She got-off on power and control. We both looked at Charles with new eyes, we saw suddenly that there was a lot more to Charles than what we had originally thought. He seemed to have emerged out of the grubby larval existence of the underworld as a new being bursting from the shell of the chrysalis into a life filled with the brilliance of innocence and purity. But it made sense, Charles was different, we should have known that from the kind of English essays that he wrote. I realized that in spite of all his bragging about how many girls he had fucked in his life, there was still a mystery to his personality, he remained a complete enigma, and we really did not know him. He was different to Thomas and Gavin. Charles the Casanova, Charles the serial philanderer, Charles with his extraordinarily good looks and charm, who had such incredible power over women, had metamorphosed into a saint right before our eyes as we sat in the train on our way to the Middleburg military base. He seemed be cloaked in an aura of mystical purity. His solemn face projected a deep wisdom that was beyond his youthful years. He knew stuff that we could not even begin to imagine. Had he learnt this from his experiences with women or did he get it from all the books that he had read, like the one that he was now reading? He had plummeted to the dank and clammy depths of sensual and erotic darkness, and having satiated his desires beyond infinite measure, he had resurfaced purified into the golden dazzling light of enlightenment and liberation.

-Are you serious or is this an elaborate joke? Charles transformed into a saint or some kind of mystic. Hell that is really hard to believe.

*I am serious Charles is an enigma, his life is a paradox, he is a riddle.

-Well, all I can say is that this is the biggest load of bullshit that I ever heard or it is the most amazing story that is almost beyond belief? Why was Charles discharged from the army?

*He did not pass the medical examination which was a huge surprise. There was something wrong with his heart which was picked up in the medical examination. It was hard to believe that he had something wrong with his heart, he was very active, he was an athlete in every sense of the word, he was involved in swimming and he played water polo which was an extremely strenuous sport.

-He could have had a heart attack while copulating.

*Maybe it was a miracle that he was spared the awkward embarrassment of having a heart attack while copulating. Anyway just before he was discharged he came back to our bungalow. He was dressed in his civvies, the same jeans and shirt that he was wearing when we arrived at the military base and he was carrying his rucksack over his shoulder. He opened his rucksack, took out _The Rosy Crucifixion_ , and gave it to me saying: 'I have finished reading it, you can have it, I think you will enjoy it, it is actually a banned book so don't flash it about'.

-What happened to Charles?

*He went overseas for the rest of that year, hiking or backpacking throughout Europe, and he also spent some time in Paris. When he came back to South Africa he went to UCT and did a BA majoring in English. He has published his first debut novel which was short-listed for some or other major international literary prize. He is a professor of English at Wits now.

-What was the name of his book?

*He called it The Mouse Trap.

-What! You got to be kidding me.

*No I am not.

-And Vera, what happened to her?

*She has done well for herself.

******

-I need to know something that is kind of personal; you don't have to give me an answer.

*What is it that you want to know?

-Did you get to fuck Vera?

*Yes I did, it was on the Saturday night before the party when I was at her house. As usual her parents went to bed at 10.00 and they allowed Vera to stay up until her sister came home. She asked what I would like to listen to and I said Jimmy Hendrix. She took the vinyl LP from its jacket and placed it on the turntable and then lowered the stylus on the first track. She tiptoed down the passage and stood by her parent's door for a few moments. She came back to the lounge and said: 'they are sound asleep.' We began to smooch. She was wearing a short skirt. I began to play with the mouse. I whispered in her ear: 'can we do it now.' She answered: 'yes.' I slipped off her panties and I quickly opened the tin and took out an FL. I was counting to 60 so that I could count-off the minutes. I had only three minutes to do the job. While watching me she suddenly said: 'It is OK, we don't need the mouse trap.' She lay on the sofa and I mounted her. She whispered: 'there is no need to hurry, you can stop counting, you going to spoil it.' How did she know I was counting? I have never forgotten that night. Everything is still so vivid in my mind. The pure instrumental solo guitar rendition of Jimi Hendrix's _The Wind Cries Mary_ was playing. When it ended 3.34 minutes later I was still thrusting. All the time my mind was filled with the sounds of the most incredible guitar solo playing that I had ever heard, this particular number was one of the artistic hallmarks of Jimi Hendrix's musical wizardry, it was like been carried to paradise by the pure sublime genius of Jimi Hendrix, it was like being lifted to the most stratospheric heights of the purest pleasure possible, at that moment I experienced an intensity of ecstasy which I have never been able to ever attain again in my entire life, it was beyond magic, it was beyond the most deepest mystery. Then _Hey Joe_ starting playing and I slowed the tempo of my thrusts, postponing for as long as possible the inevitability of the climax. Afterwards I said that I loved her and she just smiled back at me. It was an enigmatic smile, maybe a mystical smile, but also a smile of accomplishment. It was as if I had done my job right on cue. I had accomplished the task that was expected of me. In retrospect I should have realized then that the moment which marked the climax of our lovemaking, also signalled the end of our relationship. She was now just about done with me; I still had one more job to finish for her. The job that was left for me to fulfil was to be her partner, to be paraded as a trophy, demonstrating to everyone what a big girl she was.

-Well at least you received your physical compensation of pleasure in all its fullness, if we can take Charles' word as the truth regarding the magical charms possessed by Vera; you have had the most exquisite fuck that was ever possible in the Universe.

*In spite of everything, it was actually also a very bitter sweet moment, a moment which became increasing pregnant with its own pathos especially when it all ended, which was possibly captured ironically in the dying strains of Jimi Hendrix's _Hey Joe_. Emotionally it was supposed to be a special occasion. We had both donated our virgin bodies as a free gift to each other. My donation included my selfhood or personhood or my heart and soul especially when I said that I loved her. That statement included an offering of the 'I'. I may have been sixteen years old at the time but I meant it with all my heart and my soul when I said that I loved her. For me it was a moment of profound inviolability. I would have died for her if she had said that she loved me and if she showed affection. But she was satisfied that I had confirmed the depth of my love for her, that my love was genuine and authentic, that it was real, and tangible beyond doubt. She knew that I had given myself to her; she knew that I had given my heart to her. She knew that I adored her. Now she had the power to spurn my love. She had the power to inflict emotional or psychological pain, suffering, injury and harm on me. I was the vulnerable party even though I was the male. She had won. She was the mouse trap and I had been the mouse all along. All this sounds paradoxical. It sounds paradoxical and also counter-intuitive because males are not supposed to feel emotional pain and loss. We are supposed to be just unfeeling fucking-machines. But this is not true. We are not unfeeling. We cannot be unfeeling if we are sane, rational, possess a conscience and are able to experience empathy. I have no time for this male pretence of toughness. No matter how tough you pretend to be you can be broken by a woman. I can tell now in all honesty in spite of her mouse and all the other kinds of stuff which I have spoken about in a very light-hearted and humorous manner regarding my relationship with Vera, in the end Vera broke me, she broke me in a deeply emotional and painful way. It pains me that she ignores me, that she treats me as if I don't exist. I would like to be reconciled with her in some kind of way. The point I want to stress is we are not just robotic-fucking-machines, we also have feelings, and we also have emotions, and we can be hurt. From Vera I learnt first-hand the full depth of pain and hurt that a male could experience as a consequence of a woman's rejection. I know it seems unbelievable that a sixteen year old boy could suffer such emotional pain at the hands of a fourteen year old girl.

-But this is not what we learnt from Charles, Thomas and Gavin. In their universe, guys don't have emotions of vulnerability and sensitivity or experiences of hurt or rejection. These guys were not advocating any kind of search for something emotionally uplifting or meaningful or anything remotely spiritual in a relationship. Their view of the human world and especially of females was essentially reptilian. Conscience and empathy were not high on their list of priorities. They were not searching for absolution or redemption or even meaning. They were out to take everything that life could offer them for free. The pure physical act of fucking Vera in a completely emotionless manner would have been their mission and goal. Charles said that fucking Vera was the most exquisite fuck he had ever experienced and he was a connoisseur of fucking. Does that not count for something in terms of compensation for all your emotional pain and suffering? You have experienced the most exquisite fuck that was possible on earth; it lasted for the entire length of _The Wind Cries Mary_ and _Hey Joe_.

******

*In a way we did learn a lot from our friendship with Charles, Thomas and Gavin. We have learnt that there exists another world of reality behind the one that seemly exists as part and parcel of our everyday lives which we take to be the mundane ordinary world constructed out of a constant stream of seemingly innocent appearances and sensations and experiences. It has been said that we construct an entire Universe out of our perceptions, out of a single sensation, out of a fleeting glance. But apart from that, we have also learnt that there is an underworld co-existing beneath the surface world of everyday appearances, and in this underworld all norms and conventions are constantly been transgressed or violated, the underworld is a world of violation, often violent violation. And the point I want make it that these two worlds somehow co-exist side by side, but bleeding continuously into each other, exchanging fluids in a manner of speaking, with the underworld constantly poisoning and contaminating the everyday world, the world of innocuous surface appearances, which is the world we naturally take to be the picture or the shining mirror of normality.

-Are you implying that you believe in a Manichaean Universe in which good and evil co-exist in a state of war, and where the ultimate source of evil is matter and the good is associated with non-material spiritual existence?

*It seems I am implying that. But I don't want to. No I am not a dualist nor do I believe in the existence of a Manichaean Universe. I even have problems with believing in the existence of evil.

-You don't believe in evil!

*Yes and no. The way I see it, evil is the destruction of human solidarity. The underworld of transgression and violation results in the destruction of human solidarity. In this sense all the narratives justifying, defending and promoting the deeds of the underworld, that is deeds or actions or agencies, which ultimately involve forms of transgression and violation that end up destroying human solidarity and human egalitarianism, then these narratives are narratives of idolatry. As propounded by Thomas, Gavin and Charles they are essentially narratives of evil and because of this they are essentially nihilistic. Nihilism in its pure essence is the destruction of human solidarity and egalitarianism. Their individual narratives are very similar or complementary because they embody or express or exemplify arguments in defence of the underworld, arguments which are essentially nihilistic in nature. And in this sense their underworld narrative express forms of nihilism which necessarily advocates the destruction of human solidarity and egalitarianism.

-Wow, this is really heavy stuff. Solidarity and egalitarianism, goodness me, since when have you started speaking like a radical or like a student Leftie. It is only us Jews that experience such heartfelt kinds of sentiments which have their wellspring in an absurd Jewish sense of guilt about everything in the world. Let me not go there! But going back to Thomas, Gavin and Charles, do you really think that they were nihilists?

*Well let's say that there was a nihilistic dimension to their views, beliefs and actions when we were teenagers at school. Thomas, Gavin and Charles were in fact engaged in actions that had a nihilistic flavour. They were doing stuff with young girls as teenage boys that would now land people in jail if they were caught doing that kind of stuff today in our current world. Anyway I don't want to sound all moralistic. I would just like to say that we should endeavour to serve the highest good by promoting human solidarity.

-OK that sounds all fine and good and I go along with it. But just to change the subject. Why do you think Charles called his debut novel The Mouse Trap? I mean you have been using that phrase and the idea associated with the concept of the mouse trap also crops up in your own account of your experiences with Vera.

*Well maybe Vera articulated her own ideas about the mouse trap to Charles.

******

-Do you ever think of Vera?

*Who cannot stop thinking about Vera? I think the fantasy of Vera haunts every man.

-What happened to Vera?

*When she finished Matric she went to Wits and did a BA in psychology and anthropology. She is married now. She married some billionaire who could be her grandfather. They live in Johannesburg in a huge mansion. She drives a top of the range Porsche, so she has done very well for herself, and she has two lovely boys. Basically she has got everything that her heart could possibly desire. And she has got her old man or husband firmly under her thumb.

-How do you know all this? So I were right when I argued that you were not type.

*Yes you were right. I turned out not to be her type. Where do I get all my information from? I get all the news from Wendy, she is still a very close friend of Vera. They have always had a special relationship. I have not had any real meaning contact with Vera since we broke up in high school, we haven't even spoke to each other after all these years. I have some gossip to share with you about Vera. While being married to this old billionaire she has had a string of affairs. Believe it or not she has been having an on-off affair with Charles over the years. They still see each other regularly.

-They are two of a kind. They are made for each other.

*Yeah I suppose so. It still hurts a bit when I think of her.

-I wanted to say something, but it has slipped my mind. What were we speaking about again before I became side tracked with the topic of Vera?

*Nihilism.

\- It is interesting that you can see that there was a nihilistic dimension to the way we saw and experienced the world during those years especially when we were still quite young, that is, while we were in standard six and seven. We were young impressionable boys and we became exposed to a kind of Messianic Darkness, especially at such an early age in our lives. All of this talk reminds me of Isaac Bashevis Singer's novel _Satan in Goray_. It also makes me think of Lindsay Anderson's movie _If_..., do remember Charles spoke incessantly about the movie, it had made a deep impression on him.

*Yeah I remember the movie. How could I ever forget that movie with the haunting sounds of the Sanctus? And then later on Charles went on and on about that book, what was it called again?

-It was called _A Clock Work Orange_.

*Oh yes, _A Clock Work Orange_. We all ended up reading that bloody book and for a time we even took to using some of the slang. Remember how we all used the word devotchka when speaking about chicks. And you say that _Satan in Goray_ also makes you think of this Messianic Darkness? I must read Singer's novel. Anyway the kind of Messianic Darkness I am thinking of involved a naturalistic messianic consciousness without there being a specific identifiable messiah. And paradoxically it was based on the messianic realization of an anti-messianic or counter-messianic message or even a Gospel or anti-Gospel if you like. It was inspired by a message of Good News, but a counter-intuitive idea of what the good news should be about.

-What do you mean by 'naturalistic'?

*I mean the view of reality proposed by philosophical naturalism which believes that everything in the Universe is based on natural properties and causes and that there is no supernatural realm or supernatural intervention or supernatural causation or any divinely ordained moral order governing human behaviour. Like Charles always said, there is nothing that is supernatural, there is only matter, energy and motion, and in the end, except for erotic desire, there was nothing else, hence the idea of nihilism.

-Which means that there is no devil, no evil one?

*Yes, there is no devil, all evil springs from our own hearts, that is, if we need to speak of evil. We are the charioteer of our own souls, of the virtuous and wild-bad horses which represent our desires and passions.

-Like in Plato's _Phaedrus_?

*Yes.

-Going back to this idea of a reigning Messianic Darkness, which could have been a kind of illumination, I agree, that there was a messianic message which was being propagated by a messianic agency or messianic spirit or even a messianic consciousness, which was not centred on any identifiable individual like you said. And the message did indeed run counter to, and even opposed, the prevailing spirit of a milieu or of an age or of an ethos that reigned in Boksburg, the East Rand and in the whole of South Africa under the Nationalist Party government. And it could have be due to an awakening to the ideas of naturalism as you mentioned, which could have given rise to an unconscious negative theology.

*I suppose so. It was also possible that the rising of this messianic consciousness could have expressed itself through the prophetic agency of individuals, who were in fact school boys, mere teenage boys.

-I see where you taking this idea. Do you think that Charles, Gavin and Thomas could have been unconsciously or inadvertently expressing the spirit or consciousness of an anti-messiah or of an anti-messianism based on the proclamation of an anti-messianic message which expressed an anti-messianic vision which was essentially nihilistic? They could have been possessed by a spirit of nihilism which captured the essence of an anti-messianism. They could have been inadvertently propagating a messianic vision without even realizing it, a vision about how the world should be changed by an apocalypse of nihilism which would obliterate the existing world without any kind of renewal, other than a return to instinct and nature. And I myself fell under the spell of this nihilism with its vision of messianic darkness in which the apparently fragile normalcy of the world becomes obliterated through our actions and deeds. I think the depressive cultural stagnation and general spiritual oppression that permeated Boksburg and the whole of the East Rand must have played a role, which I think we all experienced as the rigor mortis of a corpse, and the rotting cadaver became the ideal incubator for the emergence of this nihilistic Messianic Darkness that gripped us while we were at high school, and which we expressed and experienced in terms of an all pervasive, jubilant and ecstatic celebration of sexual promiscuity and sexual permissiveness. In a way we were affirming life and not death, we were affirming the fecundity of life, the fertility of life, we were participating in the dance of procreation, in the drive to reproduce the species, and in the drive to forestall human extinction at all costs. This was the messianic drive to usher in the reign of the kingdom of the underworld. It was a life sustaining nihilism, it was Nietzschean, it was a not celebration or festival of the necropolis, of the city of the dead and death, but of life, of Eros, of the ladder of love which rises out of the underworld of darkness in the light of the heavenly forms.

*You have completely lost me, I am not sure if I am understanding what you saying. Can you give me examples to exemplify the point you making.

-OK forget about what I was saying, I think I got a bit carried away by a sudden flash of insight which I suddenly had about the dialectic of light and darkness, but we can save this for another day. But then again, maybe it is a good idea for me say a bit more about what I was trying to get at. Let's go back a bit, rewind and replay the tape as it were, take for example Charles and Paula the Portuguese angel. To me she was the both the guardian angel and doorway keeper into the nihilistic kingdom of darkness, but as the door keeper, she was also an angel of life, an angel of Eros, an angel of procreation, this was what I mean by the dialectic of light and darkness. My obsession of wanting to bang her meant that I too had embraced the sensual gifts and benefits that were part and parcel of Charles' dark anti-messianic kingdom of darkness, the gifts associated with a return to a life based on instinct, natural drives and nature. My obsession with the idea of having sex with Paula had taken complete possession of me, for me it had become the only meaningful and significant life affirming experience I could think of, so I became completely preoccupied with the tangible possibility of screwing her. I was constantly on the brink of asking Charles to organize it. My mouth would go dry, my hands would become clammy and my heart would begin pounding as soon as the school bell rang signalling the start of our break. In my mind I was going to speak to Charles about the possibility of fucking Paula. My plan was to casually express my interest in the prospect of fucking her. If he organized it for Dominik and all the others, then he could do it for me. In my mind I rehearsed everything, the whole fantasy, and I could even hear the magic words coming from Charles: 'yeah sure lets go and see her.' In my fantasy we would go and find the Portuguese girl in the small tarred quad. Charles would call her aside and we would retire to a quiet corner in the quad and he would introduce me to her, and she would smile sweetly at me. And on Charles' prompting she would say: 'OK he can fuck me'. And then straight after school we would all ride on our bicycles to Charles' place. We would enter that closet in the passage and would go in single file up the dark narrow stairs to his room in the attic. Like what all the others had revealed, Charles would take command of the situation. He would make sure that the vast attic bedroom had an erotic ambiance, maybe he would play that French lyric _Je T'aime, moi non plus_...while I stripped Paula's school gym slip from her body, and then she would slip into black silk stockings and step into those black stilettos. I would embrace her body, kiss her mouth, her hot tongue probing the depths of my oral cavity, and I would caress her magnificent breasts and kiss her entire body, and then I would mount her, and all the time _Je T'aime...moi non plus_ will be replayed over and over again until I climaxed with her legs tightly wrapped around my upper thighs.

*I go...I go... and I come...between your thighs...or between her hips, now, right now, don't stop. A theme song well chosen for those days when we were randy schoolboys bursting with sexual energy, those were the days. Now about the Portuguese girl, I think this fantasy of fucking Paula was going through all of our minds. I am sorry you missed out on the opportunity, it seems like the window of opportunity came and went, and it was open only for that very brief moment of complete madness, until she came to her senses, but don't feel guilty or bad about it. What happened with Paula now belongs to the dream or oneiric world of legend, fantasy and myth. Did it really all happen? I don't know. Or was it just our imagination playing tricks on us? Or was it just a dream, a collective dream, in which we all shared the same fantasy, while others participated possibly in a life changing experience of pure eroticism beyond anything that could be imagined in a real world, thanks to Charles and Paula. I need to remind you that while all this was going on when we were in standard nine I was still with Vera, I was her puppy dog, during that window of madness. I just heard the stories being whispered, and no one believed it.

-No, it did happen. It was for real. I also sometimes wonder whether I was dreaming it. I saw Dominik with Charles in the quad talking to Paula, he did flash the thumbs up sign. I was there, it wasn't a dream. He did fuck her. And you with Vera, was that only a dream? Or was it for real? Did you really fuck Vera while listening to Jimi Hendrix's guitar solo _The Wind Cries Mary_ or was that a dream, a fantasy, a trick of the imagination. I remember, I dream, I imagine therefore I am, even though a demon has put these thoughts in my mind to fool me into believing that what I was experiencing was real, when in fact it was just an illusion, a dream, even if it was a dream or an illusion or a hallucination, that would still be sufficient ground for saying 'I am, I am something, I am a self that exists, even though it seems like a dream'. No it was not like that! It was not a dream, or an illusion or a hallucination. It was real, it was as real as you fucking Vera while _The Wind Cries Mary_.

*Sometimes I must admit, it does feel like a dream, the memory of my experiences with Vera has with the passage of time taken on a dreamlike quality. I have also dreamt so many times that I was having the most amazing sex with Vera. And every time I had one of these vivid erotic dreams about her, I would end up slumping into a dark valley of nostalgia and melancholy, sometimes for days on end. It was always a variation of the same dream. In the dream I would be peddling my bicycle, riding to her house, then suddenly we are together again and we are having sex. Come to think of it, in those days we were all in the same place, we were all possessed with the same ideas, the same desires, the same obsessions, and the same compulsions. While I was with Vera playing those board games on the lounge carpet on that very first night at her home I found myself in a state of intense arousal, even while her parents were still in the lounge. Her bodily and personal comportment towards me was incredibly flirtatious and sexual. I was getting all kind of signals from her, and the moment we were alone, I became impulsive, I did not hold back, my hands roved over her. In a sense I was acting under the influence of Gavin, Thomas and Charles, but in another very sense, it also felt like I had entered a dream world, there was dreaminess to everything, especially when you become lost in the act of close physical intimacy, you enter another zone of consciousness, as if you are on drugs. According to the guys, when you were alone with a girl and had started smooching her then this what you did, you entered that zone of consciousness where nothing else mattered in the world, and the goal was to take possession of her body. The goal was to gain unrestricted access to physical intimacy without any emotional intimacy or emotional commitment for building anything meaningful. It was like a return to nature and instinct, it was a return to the dream state, to the apocalyptic obliteration of the existing order so that the order of the natural, the unrestricted, the instinctual, the physiological, the hormonal and the permissive could return and make the world dreamy, fecund, abundant, fertile, fruitful and joyful once more. It was from darkness into light, like the dialectic of light and darkness that you mentioned. It was exactly like what Charles advocated. What he was really advocating even as teenager was a return to a state of anarchism. He would always argue with the guidance and religious instruction teacher, proposing that there was nothing except atoms and molecules in motion, that there was nothing except the collision and impulse of molecules and atoms, that there was nothing but matter or molecules in motion, and everything came from matter and the motion of matter, including our consciousness, our dreams, our fantasies, our emotions and our desires. There was only matter, motion and energy, besides that there was nothing else, not even the soul, not even God, the only God that existed was the Laws of Nature. I actually realise now, that that was the essence of the anti-messianic message which prompted the vision that eroticism and sexual pleasure was the only worthwhile pursuit in a meaningless Universe pregnant with insignificance. She would ask him: 'so you believe that the Universe is causally closed'? Trying to catch him out and he replied yes, and he also added: 'every physical effect has a physical cause, and mind, consciousness, desire are all physical effects of physical causes, there is only matter, motion and energy, nothing else besides that.'

-Do your remember Charles' English essays, they were full of this kind of stuff you have just mentioned. They were about revolt, not just political revolt, it was about metaphysical revolt. In Matric he wrote an essay about the black uprising against apartheid.

*I remember that essay. It was in 1970. It was unthinkable that a white high school boy could even entertain anti-apartheid thoughts.

-The class became strangely quiet after the English teacher had finished reading Charles' essay to the class. In retrospect she could have been fired. Charles had taken the lid off Pandora's Box. Our complacency was shattered. Our apparent world of normalcy was indeed very fragile. So maybe in a paradoxical way Charles could have been an angel of light, enlightenment, liberation and freedom.

*Speaking about apartheid, a few months after Vera broke up with me I became very good friends with Wendy. We had to keep our friendship a secret because she did not want Vera to know I was seeing her. She knew everything about Vera and myself. Vera had told her everything in great detail. Vera even told Wendy about the mouse stuff and Wendy also knew that Vera and I had had sex. Remember how stunningly beautiful Wendy was as teenager, but in such a strange and exotic way. If you recall she never went to parties or sessions, she always stayed at home, always studying, always doing her homework and always reading books. Outside of school hours she hardly left her home in Parkdene. Apart from playing hockey she remained homebound. There was a very good reason why she never went out and why she always kept a very low profile. She was convinced that she was not white. She was terrified that people may begin to question her status as a white person. She was terrified of the police. She was terrified that she would be reclassified as a Coloured. She even told me that she thought she was Coloured. Wendy and her sister were adopted as infants. They came from different mothers, so they are not biologically related. This explains why they were completely different in appearance. Her sister was unmistakeably white. Her sister's hair was dark brown and her build was plump and un-athletic, whereas Wendy was small and petite, but athletic with a beautiful body and a very attractive face. Wendy's hair was also unusual in its colour and texture. It was a light brown straw colour, and while it was straight, it had a very different texture compared to Caucasian hair, it was not at all like the hair of whites or Indians. She kept her hair long and plaited tightly and shaved the back of her. During the school holidays when her hair hung loose over her shoulders she once lifted up her long hair and showed me the hair behind her upper neck just below her hair line. It was _krosie_ and she said that these tight curly hairs were proof that she was not white but Coloured. She used to continuously shave away those hairs. She said that she had black blood running in her veins and that her biological father was black and that is why her white mother gave her up for adoption to get rid of her. She was placed for adoption as a white baby and her adoptive parents adopted her as a white baby when she was only a few days old. Her skin tone was unusual, it was a beautiful caramel or cappuccino colour. She was always avoided prolonged exposure to the sun, as she was worried that her skin tone would turn Albany. She always took great care of her skin, applying lotions and ointments. Her skin was amazing. It was soft and silky. She felt that her deep blue eyes made her very conspicuous, and she also felt that her blue eyes gave her a weird and alien appearance. That is why she often wore dark glasses especially if she was forced go into town with her mom when shopping had to be done. Her excuse was that her eyes were sensitive to sunlight.

-So it was because of Vera that nothing happened between you and Wendy while you guys were still at school?

*I think Vera did in fact play a big part in keeping us from going steady. Wendy was affectionate toward me and always said that she cared for me a lot and liked me. But even when we smooched and held hands Vera's shadow loomed over us. She didn't want to lose me nor did she want to lose Vera. With Wendy and Vera being friends, I were trapped in a triangle. It felt like I was having a secret affair with Wendy behind Vera's back. I could not touch her intimately because of Vera while we were still in high school.

-What happened to Wendy?

*She studied medicine and then specialized in brain surgery. She is brain surgeon.

-Is she married?

*No she is not married. She is bisexual. I share her with Vera. Wendy and I have been partners for a very long time now, since high school, since the time I broke up with Vera. But we don't live together. It is strange arrangement.

-Do you think Wendy and Vera have sex?

*They do.

-And you, do also have sex with Wendy?

*We are lovers. We share a child, a little girl. We have an amazingly and wonderful relationship, we care deeply for each other and we are totally commitment to each other. I don't see any other women, I am in a faithful monogamous relationship with Wendy. I don't want to be with anyone else.

-So to sum up the status of Vera, let me see if I can complete the list. OK first of all, she has a foothold in Wendy life and therefore in your life. So Vera has her billionaire husband, a Porsche and Wendy, and Vera also still has you in a manner of speaking. Vera has Charles who is a professor of English and he has not stopped seeing Vera, and added to all this, Vera also keeps a string of lovers in the wings, whose love she can spurn when she feels the need to be cruel. Vera, what a woman! What happened to Gavin and Thomas?

*You are not going to believe this. Gavin and Thomas own a brothel and a striptease-bar franchise which they started and built up as partners. Their striptease-bar-brothel franchise trades under the name: The Mouse Trap.

-What! You kidding me!

*No I am not. Listen to the story. They named their flesh trade business after Charles' book because they liked the book so much and because they put up the money for the publication and launching of the book. They are behind the commercial success of the book. They own the rights on the book and Charles gets a royalty on the sales. They own the movie rights on the book as well. I have one of their business cards in my wallet, I will give it to you. You must phone Gavin or Thomas or email them, they will be happy to see you, they will treat you like royalty if you go and visit them. You must really pay them a visit, it will be worth your while in many ways I can assure you. They have their operational headquarters at the Sandton Mouse Trap. In Gavin's office there is a blown-up print of our high school gang. We are all in the photo standing under the goal posts on the school soccer fields. Charles, Ricky, Alvin Alston with his arm around his luscious Jewish girlfriend, you and I and everyone else are in the picture, we are all smiling and looking incredibly happy, smug and self-satisfied. It is an amazing photo of us as teenagers. Beneath the picture are the words: The Original Buccaneers of Boksburg High School. On one of the walls is a framed poster sized photo of a bloody faced Ricky in the boxing ring in Las Vegas. They put up the money for Ricky's boxing career and helped him start his building business in California. In Morningside they have the Mouse Trap porn studios. If you really interest in seeing how a porn movie is made then they will arrange for you sit in on a porn shoot. You can hang around there the whole day and see how they make a porn movie from beginning to end. They have camera technicians, makeup artists, directors and producers working for the studio. It is all very high tech.

-What happened to the Portuguese girl?

*Surprisingly she turned out to exceptionally clever. She got several distinction for her Matric and she was awarded a prestigious teaching bursary to do a BSc in maths and physics. After doing her BSc Honours and H Dip she taught for a while and then got married to some oldish Portuguese millionaire businessman who she keeps happy every night.

-So everyone did well in the old gang.

*Yes it seems like we all did OK in the end.

-And Wendy and Vera have also done every well. What is Wendy like as person, I never really got to know her.

*Wendy is a great person and has great sense of humour. She said the happiest day in her life was when she gave up being white and become a Coloured.

-Even after hearing about how well our old gang has done I still get the feeling that in some vague sense we are still living under a dark cloud. Our lives are not perfect. We are still living under a shadow for some or other reason that I cannot fully discern.

*You may have a point there. But what about you my old buddy? We have spoken now hours about my experiences. Tell me about yourself. Tell about all the things that are deep and personal and embarrassing in your life.

\- The story of my life has been to be seduced, used and then cast away like some used object that has fulfilled its purpose. So my story is also one of painful and hurtful personal experiences with women. Like your own experience with Vera, I am also not a stranger to rejection. It is something that I have had to endure more than once. And it is not easy for me to admit this. To be honest it is actually very embarrassing for me as a man and I cannot help feeling ashamed just listening to myself making this admission. My failure with women is mainly because I have always been the perfect gentlemen. I did not have the courage to fuck the Portuguese angel. I now I regret this especially after you have told me that she survived living the role of Charles' angel in the messianic republic of nihilism. It seems like she is a fulfilled person who is now happily married to a millionaire.

*My dear friend, my best friend you are being too hard on yourself.

-No I am not. I have many regrets and I have made countless mistakes. I have also laboured under the false illusion that I could read a woman's mind and second guess her every move. I have been too overly confident in the apparent validity or certitude of my knowledge and understanding of women, especially young beautiful and desirable women, but it turned out that my understanding and knowledge of women in general has been fatefully flawed, and I have become the emotional victim of my own misjudgements. My judgements of what was going on in a woman's mind has often been based on so many false assumptions and a complete misreading of reality. That has been my problem, I have often been out of touch with reality and because of this I have ended denying myself the just compensations that I genuinely deserved for all my troubles when it came to my relationships with women. I have also wasted a lot of hard earned money on women. It is not true that money can buy love and happiness, even though they say money is a Jew's weapon, I ask as you as a Jew: a weapon for what purpose? Money did not save the Jews from the Holocaust.

*You are being too hard on yourself. What kind of compensation are you talking about?

-You know what I mean, use your imagination.

*Physical compensation.

-Right on! For example I missed out on the Portuguese girl. How can that ever be compensated? All the money can never compensate for not having fucked Paula while I was in high school as a randy teenager walking around with a perpetual erection, sex was made for teenagers, sex is not the same when you old, and I missed out when it mattered the most.

*What about intimate emotional compensation.

-That is what I have wanted my whole damn life!

*With someone like Vera Peachberry?

-Yes, especially with someone like Vera or any of the others!

*What do mean by any of the others?

-Don't be disappointed with me. They are Sharon, Cynthia, and even Wendy. I would have loved to bang Wendy, if you don't mind me saying so. At school I used to gaze at Wendy and think to myself: 'that is one chick, I would give anything to bang her'. But I can't have Wendy, she belongs to you and Vera.

*Wow! What can I say my friend. So much rejection with no compensation, how is that possible?

-I blame religion. I also blame the influence of exaggerated schoolyard narratives about the nature of women which instilled in my imagination unrealistic expectations regarding the negotiation of physical intimacy with girls.

*Negotiation of physical intimacy?

-By negotiation I mean all the 'how to' schoolyard narratives regarding strategy, tactics, manoeuvres, emotional persuasion and the overall methodology for the guaranteed, successful and fool-proof gaining of access to physical intimacy with girls. I do admit that this schoolboy 'folk wisdom' on the art of seduction has played a big part in conditioning and informing my own behaviour towards women.

*OK I understand that all those schoolyard theories, or schoolboy 'folk wisdom' as you put it, which are often used as guidelines in strategic and tactical negotiations for gaining access to physical intimacy with girls can lead to certain disaster. I understand that the advice about girls which flows from the free unconstrained imagination of schoolboys can be dangerously wrong, and I can also fully appreciate how these theories have a tendency to fail spectacularly and quite horribly in the heat of the moment, but why also blame religion?

-Religion stirs up the conscience, religion instils guilt, religion places a huge burden on the exercise of free will, religion makes one conscious of fault, sin, liability and culpability, religion makes the whole of life sacred, and religion prevents the sacred from being transformed into the profane. Having a good conscience becomes a problem, my conscience made me vulnerable to all the injunctions and sanctions that flow from religious belief, I have never had the heart to put pressure on any girl or try and persuade a girl to go the whole way. I was hopeless at negotiating access to physical intimacy.

*OK I get it, so religion was a major debilitating factor in your relation with women.

-Well not entirely. In the end not even a mind and heart thoroughly corrupted by schoolyard theories of sex and sexuality helped me to throw moral caution to the wind and embark on any of the sexual adventures that were lying there so invitingly, ready for me to take advantage, lying there in supine readiness to please my every desire, lying there for me to enjoy. I have been a loser when it comes to sex and women. Day and night I have obsessed about the Portuguese girl. I was sick with lust and desire for her. Charles was to blame for all of this. I cannot understand why I lacked the moral agency, for lack of a better word. Gavin and Thomas took aside me one day in the playground and they said to me: 'look we know you have problems with getting a girl'. They said: 'Buddy we want to do something nice and good for you. We have a very nice girl for you, she is fourteen years old and in standard seven, who is willing to let you fuck her, she thinks you are cute and nice. Just say yes and she is yours.' I just lacked the courage and I discovered that I had no agency. Gavin and Thomas kept on saying me to that the girl was a nymphomaniac and she gets off on these arranged fucks, they kept on saying that she wants to do it with me, she thinks I am cute. And I kept on saying that I can't. And when they decided leave it and not press the matter any further I was instantly filled with regret and self-hate, and even shame. Then for days on end I would obsess about the girl. I would sneak off at break and look for her. I would stand in a place where she could not see me and then I would stand there for the whole break with a huge hard-on feasting my eyes on her and feeling incredible regret and guilt at the same time. It was the same with the Portuguese girl. I would also stand in the quad and just feast my eyes on her, knowing all the time that all I had to do was just speak to Charles and I would be able to fuck her.

*Never doubt yourself and never hate yourself. You were always our buddy. When we had that street fight with the Lebanese Ricky phoned you as well and you came right away. Ricky did not think twice about phoning you. He didn't stop and wonder if he should or shouldn't phone you because you happen to be Danny Levitsky the Jew boy. Danny Levitsky the Jew boy arrived and was beaten up by the Lebs and clubbed by the police, you were also thrown handcuffed head first into the police van with all of us. You saw me crying. I don't doubt your courage or capacity for exercising moral agency. You are a good man, much better than the rest of us. Maybe all you needed to know was the real truth about the Portuguese girl. She was not been fucked against her will. She was a nymphomaniac, she enjoyed the drama and theatrics, and the fucking game which Charles was organizing really turned her own.

-If the Portuguese girl was really a nymphomaniac and was going along with Charles with her full consent then I have let myself down by failing to rise to the occasion. There you go, I have failed myself spectacularly. Well its water under the bridge, it's no good having regrets about the past. Hell, I will never live this down. I failed to fuck Paula when I was a randy school boy. I can't believe how I have denied myself. I have lived a life of perpetual self-denial, and it has got me nowhere. I have so many regrets haunting me and Paula is one of them.

*Look you are a bachelor and you not in any relationship. You are also an advocate and a senior partner in a big law firm so you have done extremely well for yourself. Now having said that why don't you take the business card and get in touch with Gavin and Thomas and go and visit The Mouse Trap in Sandton. You will be treated as a guest of honour they will wine and dine you in the VIP lounge.

-Have you visited The Mouse Trap?

*Yes I have. I went with Wendy. It was fascinating. Look between you and I, Gavin and Thomas are gangsters they are involved in the trafficking of women, it is their business. They are Capitalists with a big C and they have an army of lawyers and advocates on their payroll. They also have politicians and the police in their pockets, they have turned politicians and high ranking police officers into prostitutes who work for The Mouse Trap. Buying politicians and policemen in South Africa is not too difficult, every politician and policemen, like every prostitute, has a price tag and can be bought. They are still nihilists and as nihilists with the help of intellectuals like Charles they have invested hugely into advocacy programmes and projects promoting the legal, philosophical, sociological, political and metaphysical defence of the adult industry. Their marketing of the sex trade and their defence of the sex trade industry is very sophisticated. Gavin is sharp and he is quite adept at debating at an intellectual level on the legitimacy of the adult industry. He has participated in televised debates on issues related to the sex trade and has also recently participated in a televised debate on the whole issue of the meaning of 'consent' in the context of the sex trade.

-What do think about the adult industry?

*I am against it. I am communist.

-Since when are you a communist?

*It is long story. Even though I was the only child my parents who were white working class still managed to do the best they could for me, but they did not have the financial means to send me to university. I think I carried on my person the odour of the white working class and possibly that is why Vera eventually dumped me. I got my B Com through UNISA and I specialized in finance, investment and banking, I work for one of the big commercial banks. I know how Capitalism works and I hate the system, it is destroying the world.

-You are full of surprises my dear buddy.

*Thank you.

-From a law perspective the idea of consent especially in the context of the so-called adult industry is highly problematic. How does one determine consent, how do you 'assay' consent. The problem of consent also goes to the very heart of own our sexual escapades and sexual adventures when we were teenagers in high school. We were involved in under aged sex which on the surface seemed to be consensual and not coerced. The past few hours we have spent a lot of time reminiscing about our high school years but we did not really debate the morality of sexual behaviour, consent and the negotiation of sex.

*Well we can do that the next time when we meet. I have to be going.

-OK I will see you again next Friday.

*Definitely.

-Here at Starbucks in Rosebank.

*For sure.

