John Davis - Roots of Outrage

And now, last month, the cops had played into her hands again. Oh, it was going to be a humdinger of a story when he’d worked it through. It was nearly midnight by the time he’d finished making his notes about Sergeant van Rensburg of the Vice Squad and Major Kotze of the Bureau of State Security – and he was finally allowed to see all the photographs. But only briefly, only long enough to be satisfied that they existed. It was with the greatest of effort that he tore his gentlemanly eyes off them and handed them back to her. ‘Okay?’ she said. No, it wasn’t okay. Oh, the rampant sensuality of that gorgeous golden body in the act of fucking – it was enough to make your eyes water, enough to break his heart. He ached to feel that gorgeous body under his … And now it was time either to leave or make that pass, and he had drunk enough to be emboldened.

‘Right,’ she said as she put his notebook into the big envelope with the photographs, ‘I’ll look after all this until you can come back to start writing. When? This weekend?’

Oh, the whole weekend with her? ‘Fine.’

‘Okay, I’ll send the van to the same place on Saturday morning. Well, you must be tired. Shall I call the driver?’

And it was now or never, and he stood up and took her in his arms ardently.

And, oh, the wonderful feel of her breasts and belly and loins crushed against him, the wonderful feel of her wide warm mouth, the glorious scent of her and the smoothness of her satiny skin; with all his heart and loins he had to possess her, hurl himself on top of her and splay those gorgeous thighs and thrust his grateful way up into the glorious depths of her; his hand went to her breast – oh the lovely fullness of it – and his other slid down her satiny back – then suddenly he realized she was laughing into his mouth as they banged against the wall.

She broke the kiss and giggled into his shoulder: ‘ Oh, Luke …’ Her arms hung at her sides, her eyes bright with mirth. ‘You’re terribly attractive, but you’re so art less.’

Artless? But terribly attractive! ‘ Me art less?’

She burst into new giggles and walked towards the telephone. Then she turned to him and tried to put on a straight face: ‘Luke, you know that there’s no future in this … mutual attraction?’ She had to work at it to suppress her grin: ‘You’ve just seen pornographic pictures of me …’ Then her face failed her and she burst into giggles again. ‘Oh, it’s all terribly funny, but don’t you realize what a … tart I feel when you make a grab at me straight after that?’

There was a silence: Patti’s eyes moist, Mahoney blushing, his heart knocking with the implied promise. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Please don’t be too sorry!’ And she reached for the telephone, giggling.

He was driven back to town in the back of the van, riding on air. ‘Please don’t be too sorry!’ And, oh, the wonderful brief feel of her; it seemed he could still taste her mouth, her lipstick, smell her scent. Oh, it felt like love. He could not wait for the weekend. It had to happen next weekend. And he did not care if he was playing a dangerous game.

It did happen the next weekend. And when it did, it was even more wonderful, more exciting, more erotic, more exotic than he had imagined: he was trembling with desire as he took her in his arms and crushed his mouth against hers, and, oh, the wonderful feel of her again, and this time her loins were pressed against his, she was kissing him as hard as he was her, and he peeled her dress off her golden shoulders, and, oh, the bliss as he cupped her beautiful breasts. Her dress fell off her hips in a silky heap, and there she stood, naked but for her brief panties, her glorious thighs golden and perfect, and he lowered himself to one knee and kissed down her belly and thighs, and then peeled the panties off her rounded hips, and he buried his mouth into her soft sweet pubic triangle. And she sighed, then she turned out of his embrace and walked to the sofa; she sat down, then she lifted her knees and she opened her long golden legs to him.

SOUTH AFRICA BECOMES A REPUBLIC

CONGO CHAOS CONTINUES

KENYA, TANGANYIKA, UGANDA GRANTED INDEPENDENCE

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

TROUBLE IN RHODESIA

ANC ANNOUNCES ARMED STRUGGLE

NELSON MANDELA ARRESTED

POLICE FIND ANC UNDERGROUND HQ

A lot of things happened in the two years that followed. Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd led South Africa into becoming a republic, severing its ties to the Queen and the Commonwealth; the Afrikaner had thrown off the British yoke at last, the Boer War had finally ended and there was an orgy of emotion. In Kenya the last of the Mau Mau had been wooed out of the forest with an amnesty and a promise by Britain of independence, which caused outrage amongst the settlers. Tanganyika was given its independence, for the British government had lost its stomach for fighting. Immediately a new Marxist government began collectivization and villagization and communization; America was alarmed, the USSR applauded and South Africa said: ‘I told you so.’ Uganda was granted its independence and Milton Obote, the new prime minister, sent his army, under the command of a sergeant major named Idi Amin, to blast King Freddy, the popular monarch of Buganda, out of his throne and palace. America wrung its hands, the Soviets rubbed theirs and South Africa said ‘I told you so’ again. In Ghana the Great Redeemer continued throwing his opposition into jail. Nigeria was granted independence and immediately there was a military coup, the first of many. In the United Nations President Khrushchev banged his shoe on the table and sent Cuba intercontinental ballistic missiles to be aimed at America. In the Rhodesian Federation the black nationalists sent their youth about burning mission schools and dip tanks, maiming cattle and throwing petrol bombs. In the Congo chaos reigned supreme, tribalism and Marxism and nihilism and cannibalism and black magic, and Moise Tshombe defended the secessionist Katanga against this chaos with white mercenaries. In South Africa, the Spear of the Nation, under Nelson Mandela, started setting off bombs. The rival PAC sponsored a terrorist organization called Poqo, which means We go it alone , and random murders of whites began. The government responded with a new raft of tough legislation, the press was curbed and suspects in police custody began having fatal accidents. It was a bloody, frightening time in Africa as the colonial powers withdrew with reckless haste, and to many people all over the world the South African kragdadigheid seemed the only way. It was the start of the really bad times.

But to Luke Mahoney they were wonderful, exciting, happy times. And when they ended in a crack of thunder, in shock, in desperation, in running for his life, it was all the more heartbreaking because they needn’t have ended that way. In the years that followed he never ceased to remember the happiness of those days. And the unhappiness.

The happiness of being head over heels in love; the happiness of knowing he had one of the most beautiful women in the world to love; the excitement of knowing that tonight they were going to make glorious, riotously sensual love. And there was the excitement of danger, of delicious forbidden fruit – the sheer fun of getting away with it; the breathtaking joy of making love in the apartment above her emporium, with the tailors working below, the telephones ringing; the thrill of smuggling her into The Parsonage for quickies during the afternoons, the excitement of stolen secret hours, sometimes whole perfumed nights.