I’ll never forget my first book launch. Sifiso was there from the beginning, a fresher face, a flatter gut, and hungry. Just as I was. He was a junior editor when he worked on my first book, Mercenary. He had rescued it from the slush pile at Starling & Co. and it became the book that launched his career, although you’ll never catch him admitting to it. For the last decade we’ve shared an erratic bond that started with that scrawny manuscript. The book was about a woman who would do anything for money. I painted her as a cold bitch with just enough redeeming qualities to make the reader curious about what happens in the next chapter.
I didn’t plan the novel at all.
The launch party was at the Grace Hotel in Rosebank, when it was still Something. My father came in an old suit and highly polished, scuffed shoes. I was so excited that evening, it seemed to pass in an hour, and at three in the morning Sifiso and I found ourselves stretched out on wide leather settees, the last to leave. He had the company credit card and we were drinking the last of many bottles of some Cap Classique and guffawing over our sudden success. He ended up giving me a lift home, not because of how drunk I was but because when we finally found my precious brand new Jaguar XKR in the parking lot, the tyres had been slashed and the doors keyed. The car itself seemed distressed and looked at me with blame in its headlights. Sifiso had been upset by this: he didn’t understand why someone would deliberately drive a butcher knife into the handsome oily rubber of my Falken tyres, especially on such an important night. I acted as bewildered as he looked, even though I of course knew exactly who had inflicted the damage. The knowledge rang as clear as an alarm bell in my head.
I intentionally date women I think will yield the most interesting experiences. Warning signs on first dates, sending sensible men running in the opposite direction, guarantee I’m hooked. I like to think of them as sub-plots. Some sub-plots you should develop, others, not. Fay Weldon said that she was good with relationships, they just weren’t very good with her. But she doesn’t regret anything because it is all good copy.
There was Melany, who told me on our first encounter that she had father-issues (read: liked to get spanked). She taught me a lot about psychoanalysis and the Elektra complex. I used her for a short story. It was good. Eventually the relationship fizzled out: I could only stand to be called ‘daddy’ so many times before it became awkward. Then there was Vanessa. She was a sweet, pretty little thing, a most unlikely fan of S&M, or rather, M. She was a great character study for me: opened up a whole new world. She would take me to bizarre underground clubs and ask me to tie her up, which I did with pleasure. She had a walk-in cupboard of erotic outfits I had to write about the minute I laid eyes on it. It was like a costume department of a pornographic vampire film set. And the costumes weren’t just for her. I liked the whips and studs and hot black latex but I drew a neat line at the gimp suit. I didn’t mind the stuff that gave her a little pain without too much damage, but I wouldn’t do anything that drew blood. She was disappointed but, as Clint Eastwood says, a man’s got to know his limitations. The sex itself was mediocre. It was the only relationship I have ever left thinking that I hadn’t hurt her enough.
Bella, on the other hand, was a different story. She was so clingy, so desperate that no matter how badly I treated her, she always came back for more. I didn’t mean to cause her pain: I am a bastard but I do have some warmth in my veins; I had to sting her histrionic heart for her own good. She told me she loved me within a week of meeting me, tried to move in the week after that and, when that didn’t work, tried to introduce me to her high-flier parents. I was crueclass="underline" I threw her clothes and bottle of Dior out of the window while it was raining and laughed out loud when she knelt in front of me, romcom-style, black spiders of mascara on her slipping down her cheeks, begging me to love her. I laughed. Not out of malevolence: the situation was ridiculous and I had a hard time taking her seriously. She would have fits of hysteria, tantrums where she would flail into my arms, stopping only when I crushed her against my chest, like a long-haired Fabio in some pulp romance.
And then of course there was Sally Ellis. When I met her in a cigar lounge in Sandton one evening, I knew I had to write about her. The warning signs were all there. A tall, beautiful, redhead (the red hair should have tipped me off but I was, for a while, in her thrall) who seemed mentally stable, intelligent, independent, had fantastic taste in shoes, and a villain in the sack. It was just asking for trouble. The initial month passed with me wanting more of her – a first – so we kept it going for a while longer. We had fun, made each other laugh, got on so well that I began to worry that I liked her company too much.
One night, when the relationship was still half-shiny, after too much to drink, I told her about Emily. No details, obviously, it just came up that I used to have a little sister. I had never told anyone even that. An almost-honest moment and – I should have known better – way too honest for me. Afterwards there was too much emotion in the air, it became hard to breathe. I began to think of reasons I didn’t like her, but she didn’t need much help from me. Her claws had already begun to show. It was as if she had been pretending to be someone else – which she was very good at – but every now and then her mask would slip. In hindsight I guess we were playing a similar game. It took me over two months to get her into bed, but the conquest was about more than sex. I crept into her life and absorbed everything I could. I found her complete lack of warmth fascinating. Behind the mask she was a cruel woman, she treated people abysmally. I had feelings for her. She would humiliate cashiers, chastise waiters at full volume and screech at beggars at intersections to get their grime away from her car. In the beginning the sex was incredible, but that also slipped and towards the end she was aloof and distant. I think I actually used the words “fucking [Sally] was like mounting the abominable snowman, but not as much fun”. Not my most poetic line of prose but you get the picture.
She stopped seeing other people and, I guess, she wanted me to do the same but I have a philosophical objection to monogamy. I just don’t think it’s natural. If you consider all the adultery in the world you have to either believe that man is inherently bad, or that monogamy is just not sustainable. I think that monogamy is a concept created by our forefathers for our own good: a bit like the Koran, or the Bible. The point of printing those wordy epistles was to make the world a better place. Monogamy, as a principle, would mean fewer illegitimate children and venereal disease, with more solid family units to make everyone feel safe. Most countries wouldn’t elect a president who fucks a different woman (or man) every week, preferring to go instead with Happily Married. I guess that makes our country an anomaly, unless you accept polygamy with benefits as a solid family unit. Clinton was thrown out for enjoying the most famous blowjob in history: our guy not only has five wives, but feels the need to shag his groupies on the side. Monogamy, like communism, appears to work only in theory.