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  King found out I had sex with his friend, but he didn’t scold me. He just wasn’t happy about it. He ended up sending me to Jay. And then Jay also disappeared.

  Now I didn’t have my own client and I became really bored hanging out in this hotel with nothing to do. I was used to the fast pace of Joburg, and this week in Cape Town was moving so slowly. I was also disappointed because I’d been looking forward to having fun, partying and getting drunk. After all, I had been flown down especially for this week’s events, but now nothing was happening.

  So, I called the British guy, whose number I still had with me.

  ‘Hey, how are you? You alright?’ he answered.

  We chatted, and then arranged for him to come to the hotel for a drink.

  Sitting at the bar, at first this guy seemed quite interesting. I had always enjoyed meeting intelligent men who talked about interesting things before we moved towards the sex. That is how I had learnt a lot about life – from men who took the time to show me that respect. But then it seemed to me that this guy was obsessed with race.

  When he drank his first drink, I got the feeling he was forcing himself to get drunk because he knew he was going to shag a black lady.

  During his second drink, I heard, ‘African girls are hot, sexy; but South African girls are … like … crooks.’ His voice became hard.

  He got to his third drink and, slurring, made more derogatory remarks about ‘South African girls’. By now, I was picking up his anger and hatred. I wondered if he was a freak, like a serial killer. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He saw that I wasn’t pleased with the conversation and he perked up.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’re very different from the other black girls I’ve met.’

  By the time we got to his place, a flat in Century City, he was very drunk. We talked and then had sex, but I felt so uncomfortable. He was mumbling about how he wanted to slap and beat a ‘black bitch’ – everything he said was racist and abusive.

  I hadn’t thought of him as a client but as a ‘date’ – and this was no fantasy date. Things were going very wrong.

  Why am I doing this? I asked myself, and came to my senses.

  I got him off me. I went to the toilet, with my phone. Inside, I called my friend Portia, telling her where I was and to come get me, fast.

  Then came my Oscar Pistorius moment.

  The guy smashed the toilet door with an axe!

  I saw the axe coming through the door, and I screamed.

  On the phone, Portia could hear what was going on, and I was screaming and shouting, ‘Portia, come get me. This guy has an axe! I’m naked!’

  He continued axing the door.

  ‘Who the fuck are you calling?’ he yelled at me. ‘Open this door!’ He was swearing, ‘you black bitch’ and the ‘k’ word.

  He got the door open just as his flat mate walked into the room: ‘What’s going on?’

  Then both of them grabbed me by the hair, and start beating me up and kicking me.

  Moments later, Security arrived, having heard me screaming. Portia and a Nigerian guy arrived then too, while I was being punched outside the toilet, stark naked. I didn’t know this Nigerian, but seeing a white guy beating up a black girl made him crazy. He grabbed the man and beat him senseless.

  ‘We don’t do that in Cape Town!’ he yelled.

  Then the police arrived, having been called by Security.

  I opened a police case against this British guy, who the police locked up.

  To the police I stated that I didn’t know these people who had beat him up, that he’d got beaten for his own reasons. His defence was that he was using the axe because he thought I was calling people to rob him.

  I returned to Joburg and the court proceedings didn’t happen for several months. At first he begged me not to open a case against him. When I opened a case anyway, he kept calling me, asking me to drop the case.

  I returned to Cape Town for the court proceedings. There, a former victim of his, a white girl now in a wheelchair, testified that he had beaten her up so badly that she was now paralysed. She had made a case against him then, but the police hadn’t been able to catch him until my case was opened. What a freak.

  He was indicted, locked up for several years, then deported and banned from entering South Africa again.

  Later, my friends asked why I had ever phoned this British guy, a total stranger. And I don’t know why I called him, except that I wanted to be with a man, to have sex, to have fun. And once again I was high on drugs.

  This is the disaster of addiction.

  Twenty-five

  IN JOBURG OVER THE NEXT few years, I continued my spiritual quest. It was always the same: when there was stability in my life I could get off drugs, but I was pushed back when things went wrong.

  I still needed a more permanent home, despite the kindness of my friends Zanele and Tie. Zanele found me a room to rent from a Congolese woman for R400 a month. But I had to sleep on the floor in the kitchen, with no mattress.

  ‘Salvation is personal,’ I said to myself.

  Zanele and I continued to attend the Christ Embassy Church. I was still wanting spiritual upliftment to help me escape from my memories of abuse and sexual violence. The CEC had become my place for developing faith, strength and friendships.

  I decided to get off heavy drugs, which wasn’t easy. The first year was tough, and I just smoked weed, but I felt clean and good about myself.

  I started a new job as a nanny, looking after the grandchild of one of the women from the Methodist church. By then my need for drugs had diminished; I knew I couldn’t smell of drugs and be a good worker, knew I couldn’t always be thinking of how to steal and get the next drug fix.

  This woman’s other daughter, Nuro, attended CEC with me, and her mother suggested we both leave ‘that Nigerian church’. It caused some friction between Nuro and her mother. But at least I had a steady job, and I was on a good path by then.

  Nuro became a significant part of my life and transformation. She and I spent a lot of time speaking about the Bible. I also shared my trafficking stories with her, which fascinated her. I was getting used to stability, having work and friends around while going to church and gradually leading a more sober and simple life. It was nice. I was getting stronger and stronger.

  Then, another setback. My landlord suddenly doubled my rent to R800. This was unaffordable since I was receiving a nanny’s salary of R2200, and I felt it was unfair since I was sleeping on the kitchen floor! Drama broke out in the church about this so I gave up the accommodation, but to add insult to injury, I was fired as a nanny because Nuro’s mother did not approve of us attending the Christ Embassy Church. A woman in the CEC found me a job as a cleaner, which paid slightly more than my salary as a nanny, although that didn’t last long.

  Tie came to the rescue by letting me share her bed in a bachelor flat for R400. Her flat was right behind a drug house.

  My transformation was never simple. Because of the world I knew, the skills I had and the demands of my life, I always had to make difficult decisions.

  The house behind Nuro’s flat was run by Nigerians. Delivering their drugs to Cape Town was an easy way of making money. I was no longer taking heavy drugs myself, so it wasn’t a big issue for me to pick up and deliver them, and not consume them myself.

  Hearing my mother was sick in hospital, I managed to make a drug drop in Cape Town, gather a few thousand rand, see my mother and my son and then leave again for Joburg.

  I had street protection for these money stashes I carried around. I carried all my money in my bra and in my shoe as I didn’t have a bank account. Gangsters on the streets have a secret language and invisible bonds, so they leave you alone. I was not robbed because there was always a network of people keeping an eye on me. And I knew I was already part of the drug dealers’ safety network – they knew I was reliable.

  Sometimes, I did not accept an opportunity for dropping drugs as I was always wanting to phase do
wn this activity. But mostly they would offer me this money – R11 000, R12 000 – and the sound of those numbers in my desperate ears would draw me in.

  Then, when I came back from a delivery, my body would go into shock, and I would run straight to the church and cry for mercy! That’s what I found myself doing: I did what I did to support my family, hoping that when I was done, God would bless and forgive me.

  My spiritual meter kept swinging back and forth as I entertained these thoughts in my head.

  Twenty-six

  DURING MY VARIOUS EXPLOITS IN Joburg, I became attached to four men who paid me well each month to ‘keep’ me for periods of time. One of these men was Suleiman, a businessman who was gentle and sweet with me. Originally from Tanzania, he lived in Cape Town.

  I enjoyed his company, and got to know him well. I never let him know about my past; I lied about my life and background. I just told him I was in Joburg ‘doing my thing’ as a waitress. I thought that if he knew about me, it would spoil the type of relationship I was hoping might develop with him.

  When we were apart Suleiman liked phone sex, but he would sometimes travel to be with me for a few days in Joburg. He also paid me to visit him in Cape Town, and I would manage to secretly and briefly visit my son and mom. In Joburg or in Cape Town, I would stay with him for several days at a time.

  He never told me what business he was into, but he paid me well, which gave him authority over me. Sometimes I thought I was becoming emotionally attached to him, and he seemed interested in me too, because he was caring and loving.

  But he also became very controlling.

  I couldn’t take any drugs in front of him, because he disapproved. Rather, I would have to sneak them into my system before we met up so I would be high during our time together. He didn’t like me smoking weed either, so it was a whole mission to try to camouflage my weed as a cigarettes, and then I’d gargle with mouthwash to kill the smell.

  If I came to his house in Cape Town, he wouldn’t let me leave. And if I needed to go out, like shopping for something, I had to give him a very good reason. He locked me in the house when he went out. My phone always had to be on because he would frequently call me.

  Because I was also doing drug drops, I had two SIM cards for my phone. So if we went out, say to the mall, I’d make sure I had both SIM cards with me. I sometimes needed to call my drug lord to deliver the drugs, so once at the mall, I would excuse myself from Suleiman and go to the ladies’ toilets to change my SIM and call my pimp. Then I’d switch back to the only number Suleiman had for me.

  I also always had to find ways of keeping myself high in order to service his needs, so while I was in the toilets, I’d quickly smoke some weed with cigarette tobacco. Then I’d meet up with him somewhere where there were lots of people – hoping he wouldn’t focus on my body and smell.

  Sometimes Suleiman called me during one of my SIM-card swops, and got my voice message. When he asked me why I had turned off my phone, I had to tell him I dropped it, or got water inside it, or something. Then he would angrily ask who I’d really been calling.

  I had to do what he wanted me to, when he wanted it.

  Sometimes, I thought he was crazy. He would make me stand naked in front of him to check my body and my bum, to make sure I smelt good. If I didn’t smell right, he would ask me to take another shower. He followed Muslim sanitation rules and demanded cleanliness at all times. I had to wear long dresses inside the house, and cover my whole body. This made me crazy, wearing so many clothes.

  But he was paying me well, so I didn’t want to mess things up. And I was still fond of him because he could be really romantic. Sulieman would sometimes do nothing with me sexually – we would just lie together, or talk. Or he would sit up in bed with the light on and look at my nude body. Or he would decorate the whole house with candles while I just lay there. We wouldn’t have intercourse but would just watch each other play with ourselves.

  When we did have sex, he thought he was the greatest performer. I felt sorry for him, because he wasn’t particularly satisfying, but I just let him do whatever he wanted to do. And because I liked him, I gave him more pleasure. I didn’t tell him I was getting emotionally attached, and I always took my morning-after tablet.

  One night in Cape Town, Suleiman asked not to use a condom, and when I returned to Joburg after that, he became very quiet. He owed me R6000 for those few days’ visit with him, but his money hadn’t been transferred into my re-opened bank account.

  I called him: ‘When are you sending my money?’

  He dropped the phone, and this happened several more times.

  When he finally called me, giving excuses about difficulties with his business, I told him to consider the baby I was carrying.

  Of course I was lying, but he freaked out.

  But what did he expect? I thought. I had cooperated with him by having sex without a condom. His side of the deal was that he had to pay me.

  When we’d first met, I had thought he was single, but by now I had found out that he had a wife who lived somewhere outside Cape Town. So I sent him threatening SMSes telling him that I knew everything about him, as well as his mother’s address and his wife’s address.

  I said, ‘I’m going to call them right now and tell them who I am and that I know where you stay in Cape Town, and what you’re on about.’

  We went on back and forth. I gave him a sob story, telling him that I really wanted to keep this baby because I felt something had developed between us.

  ‘I feel this can work with us,’ I said.

  ‘What will my parents in Tanzania think if I told them?’ On and on, he told me all his challenges: ‘My wife cannot have this trauma right now – she has her own traumas.’

  I retorted, ‘I have nothing to do with your problems. What about me and my kid?’

  He asked me to get rid of the baby, saying we would have a longer relationship without the complication. Then he sent me money each week for an abortion. He asked if he could get me a place to stay in Cape Town so that we could be closer together.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘This is happening now, this baby. And I want it.’ I wasn’t going to go anywhere.

  I never really cared what happened when I told stories like these. I would never worry about the outcome. I would always justify it to myself, because there was always something I needed – a drug, a client, money – to survive.

  Suleiman really started to freak out. When he cried over the phone, I felt quite stupid about telling my lie. But I went on.

  I asked him to come to Joburg to be with me for the abortion. He said he couldn’t. I insisted that if I had an abortion, I wanted him there with me, otherwise I would not do it.

  I said, ‘I’ve always been a support to you, so why can’t you support me now?’

  And that’s when he turned on me. ‘What? Now you’re sounding like a girlfriend. Since when did you become emotional?’

  I was now sure that all men are the same. The same issues.

  He said he would send money to me via a friend. But I rejected that idea. What if the friend killed me or did something violent to me to make me lose the baby? Then he agreed to send me R4000 before the abortion, and R4000 afterwards, as long as I sent a form from the clinic confirming that the procedure had been done.

  I continued to insist he be in Joburg with me during the abortion. If he had actually flown to see me in Joburg, I would have told him I wasn’t pregnant. I would have told him the truth. And the truth was that I just wanted to see him because I liked him.

  Eventually I realised that I couldn’t convince him, so I had to settle with accepting money and not communicating any longer.

  Was I going to continue looking for a loving, caring relationship after that?

  Twenty-seven

  IF THERE WASN’T ROMANCE, AT least there was friendship.

  When I was in my early thirties, two friends from church, Nuro and Lesedi, came to understand and support me in different ways. Thes
e two women gave me the company I had always needed: they were there for me. I felt their understanding. Lesedi would buy me food when I didn’t have any money, and Nuro was always finding me information about work that was available at the church. Nuro knew my story and just wanted to help me to be strong and become ‘delivered’ in the church.

  As time went on, I tried to return the favour. Looking back, I know that my transformation had a lot to do with having the opportunity to help others. And that’s what the Methodists taught me: how to help myself in order to help others.

  Lesedi was a member of the church choir, and did prostitution on the side. Lesedi did her prostitution differently; she kept it all very quiet. She stayed with a guy and even paid him rent, but she claimed he was her boyfriend. That’s how she satisfied her family back in Lesotho. She also sent them photos of herself in her church uniform during choir functions.

  But she regularly had clients on the streets. I wasn’t judge-mental of what she was doing, but confused, wondering why she was in this sex work. She saw me as a strong person for breaking my former habits.

  Lesedi would come to church, and then she and I would walk on the streets of Randburg at night while she did her work. I just waited for her and hung out. I had to wait because I was hungry! She was earning money for both of us, and she always shared.

  Lesedi often fell pregnant and had one abortion after another, sometimes three in one year. I didn’t like what she was doing. I told her that these regular back-door abortions would kill her in the end. But I didn’t put pressure on Lesedi to exit from her affairs because I knew she needed the money. My stress kicked in because Lesedi was supporting both of us. I was not making any money and was dependent on her.

  Once, during a four-day church conference in a Randburg hotel, a tall, handsome, well-dressed Nigerian man, who was high up in the church administration, approached Lesedi and me. After some small talk, he asked if we wanted to do business with him. He wanted sex with both of us but I said a flat no!