When I heard the word ‘marry’ I wanted to believe he loved me after all. He wouldn’t have said that if I meant nothing to him. On that night we had unprotected sex. Who knew that the risk I took then would come back to haunt me? From then on we had unprotected sex and if I tried to insist on buying condoms he would remind me of who was providing the food and transport.

My friend didn’t know where I was and I didn’t have her address either. The only person I knew in this country was Sam. He was the only one who could save me so I had to satisfy his needs, otherwise I would end up on the streets again.

I felt like a small child around him because my opinion never mattered to him. While he drove I slept to avoid talking to him.

After we left Beaufort West and he had sex with me again, I closed my eyes. I saw a vision of my mother. She was warning me about something, but I couldn’t hear her clearly. I tried to go to her, but something kept pulling me back. Something was dividing us and I couldn’t cross over to where she was. Her face was fading and I shouted her name over and over again.

Sam woke me up. “You were shouting in your sleep,” he said. “What was that about?”

“It’s nothing really,” I said.

Sam wanted to know more about me, but brushed me off when I asked about his family. It was worse when I asked about his wife.

Finally we reached Cape Town! I was bowled over by the sheer beauty of the mountains and trees. The city was clean and more beautiful than Johannesburg. It felt like I was in another country. I smiled to myself and had hope for good things to come.

“Wow, Cape Town yakanaka (is lovely)!” I said in amazement. “It’s as if we have come to another country.”

“I told you how cool this place is,” Sam said cheerfully.

He drove his truck into a warehouse in Woodstock and three men came to offload. Sam had a bachelor flat he rented in Muizenberg and we headed there once he was done with work.

Sam’s flat was so big and beautiful. He didn’t have a lot of furniture, but everything was decorated nicely. The purple curtains matched the colour of his couches. His double bed had lots of pillows and was too big for one person. Everything looked perfect and I smiled to myself.

“Welcome home, Rudo,” he said, putting his hands around me. “Hope you’ll like it.”

He had said the word ‘home’. He meant for this to be our home?

“I love it!” I said to him happily.

When I saw his home I knew he would give me money to send back home too, for my brothers. He was my ‘passport’ to a good life and I would finally be able to send my younger brothers to school. This is what I thought. But who knew what I was in for?

Sam went out to the shops nearby and bought a few groceries and beers. He also had some white powder wrapped in a plastic. It looked like glucose, but I saw him sniffing it and realised it was drugs. I never asked him about it. I didn’t want to fight with him over this when he was doing me a favour letting me stay with him.

In the first weeks it was like we were a newly wedded couple starting a life together in a new home – well new for me. That was, until I told him about the offer I had got to work as a waitress at a nearby restaurant.

“Am I not providing you with everything you want? You’re not working anywhere!” he said firmly.

“I just thought I could start working on my own now to save some money to send back home,” I said bravely.

He slapped me on my right cheek and blood oozed from the corner of my mouth. I slowly wiped it away and looked at him, before I went to the bathroom to clean up. This was a taste of things to come.

I lived like a prisoner and wasn’t allowed to go outside on my own. Every day I longed to speak to my brothers and tell them I was going to come back home. All the hopes I had when I reached the Mother City died after that first week.

Whenever I told Sam I was leaving he would beg me to stay and pamper me with gifts. He would spend two days without laying his hand on me and then the beating would start again. I was so confused. When he was good to me I felt close to him. But he could change so fast. When he was rude to me and treated me like a five-year-old I felt so alone. He would remind me that I had nothing and was homeless without him. Then he would be loving again, and I would think how he had done more for me than anyone else would do.

***

Tell us what you think: Do you think Rudo had a choice to be with Sam or not?