April 28 2012 4:05 AM

Dear Jane

I’m up and I won’t be able to sleep again. I’m thinking about Chris. He called yesterday and said he’s coming to visit today. It’s Saturday and we get to sit outdoors and see visitors. I’ve been here a full two months now so its one of my privileges. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to be disappointed if he didn’t come. He is a busy businessman so I don’t expect him to just drop everything and come see me. Although part of me really would love to see him. I wonder if we’ll have sex, but I doubt it. If I had the chance I would; with Chris I would. It was different with him. He said we made love together. I wouldn’t know but I felt better with him. It was nicer every time.

I met him three years ago at a taxi rank in town: Noord. I was staying in Yeoville then and I had gone out to work. By work I mean stand on the road and get men to sleep with me so I could contribute in the house and buy food, electricity and cigarettes.

So, I was standing at the rank, hungry and tired, but I needed one client just so I could get the day going. Chris came towards me. He didn’t look like the buying type, but then again nobody does. I asked him for spare change and he looked at me like he was deaf. I wasn’t the only white person working the streets in Hillbrow, so I don’t know that it was my accent. I repeated myself and even said ‘please’. He looked around like I wasn’t talking to him. I figured he was either dumb or deaf so I walked passed him. But he followed me and kept saying, “Sorry lady, excuse me”. Like, seriously, he called me a lady. I finally turned and looked at him and he said, “Hi”. He had an amazing smile so I said if he didn’t want to just give spare change I could always make it worth his while. He gave me a blank, shocked look and asked me if I was in “the business”.

I said sarcastically, “No, I’m just standing here admiring the view.” He laughed and flashed his perfect teeth. I told him if he wasn’t buying, I wasn’t wasting my time with him, so he should go. He asked me to have lunch with him. Now I had the deaf-dumb look. He laughed and assured me he would make it worth my while. I flashed him one of my own smiles as he took out his wallet and pulled out a R200 note. For having lunch with him, R200! I thought they must be fake notes and laughed at him. I asked if he thought I was stupid. He said I should just follow him to the Spur up the road and if the money wasn’t real I could walk away. If it was I could keep it. Hell yeah!

So we sat at Spur and we ate. Well I ate and he watched me eat. When I was done he asked me my name so I told him: “Stoan”. And he said, “Your real name, beautiful.” He smiled again and I had to tell him. Deaf and dumb was back when he heard my name. Said it was the most beautiful name he had ever heard. He asked where I stayed and with whom and I told him.

He stayed in Fourways − larny I know. He said he stayed with two of his ‘business partners’. He never called us whores or bitches or prostitutes but his ‘associates’ or ‘business partners’. Fuck, I miss him. So he asked me to move in with them and be his ‘right hand’. I said I’d think about it. Then he asked if he could take me to his place to do business. I didn’t mind − the man had just paid me 200 big ones.

When we got to the house I was amazed. It was big, with a pool and everything. The garden was a little run-down, but had a wooden bench and a big tree with a tyre swing. My, this was a little girl’s heaven. How a home should be.

Chris said the house was his father’s but he had died five years ago and left it to him. We went inside and I swear I died. The house was enormous: three living rooms, a huge open kitchen, a TV room that he called his ‘chill area’, and two bathrooms. And that was just downstairs! Upstairs the rooms were huge: six in total and three bathrooms. His was the main bedroom with the en suite bathroom and balcony. It was the size of a regular house itself.

He showed me my ‘would-be’ room, and it was perfect. Red, with beautiful paintings hanging on one wall, and a huge mirror on the wall opposite the bed. A built-in closet on one side and a small dressing table with a blue velvet chair. I was smitten. I stood there and just stared. He said I could move in whenever I was ready. Considering that rent was due in two days in Yeoville, I chose this rent-free dollhouse in a split second!

You may ask why, or how, I could just move in with a total stranger. Well I trusted him. Weird but true. So we drove to my place in his Polo Playa to pick up my belongings. There was nothing worth saving there, but I wanted them anyways. I knew nobody would be home at the time, so I went in and got my bag and was downstairs again in less than three minutes.

We drove off towards the sunset of Fourways. And the rest, as they say my dear Jane, is history. Don’t ask me what I’m doing here, if I had it that good. Maybe I’ll tell you some day.

The sun is up and I must go shower while the water is still hot, and get ready to see Louise and convince her I’m ready for visitors. Honestly she drives me up the wall with all her positive, ‘the sun shines from my ass crap’, but she means well. I wish she could mean it far away from me though.

Must say, I’m enjoying having a best friend to talk to. I must go and get ready before the alarm rings.

Good morning Jane.

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Tell us what you think: What do you think of Catherine and Chris’ relationship?