Chapter 4

"Are you sure your parents aren't smoking some hectic shit?" Thembisa asked me, her Cape Townian accent thick, as she poured some boiling water into the two mugs for us to have some coffee. 

I rolled my eyes, "at this point I don't even know. They might be." 

"Yoh, because let me tell you something, there's this new drug called Flakka, you should see how people act. I'm telling you, your parents," she paused as she dramatically pouted, "your parents are smoking that shit!" 

I laughed and she joined in as she sat down and opened her legs, cleaning her teeth with her nail as she burped loudly, "what's up?" she asked me as she sipped from her coffee and I fought hard not to slam her legs closed, slap her across the face for burping and give her a long talk on etiquette. 

Thembisa is not one to act like a "lady". She likes to be herself and ‘herself’ is being all messy and boy like. 

I looked around her tiny flat, "well, first of all, I'm going to clean your flat," Thembisa`s run down flat is an absolute mess. Every time I come here it looks like an abandoned home that nobody has lived in for hundreds of yours. Her furniture is just sitting there collecting dust, dishes are in the sink unwashed, while some dishes are broken on the floor, there`s leak holes all throughout her ceiling and rats have infested the place and made it their home. She`s barely home though. She`s either out street racing, spinning her cars for an audience, partying, or sleeping at some strange man`s home.

She smiled wide, "really?" She asked me. 

She always loved it when I'm upset, why? I clean whenever I'm upset. 

"Yeah," I nodded, "and then, you are going to take a shower, call the girls and tell them to bring some beers and weed, and we're going to just sit and talk," I sighed as I massaged the back of my neck and closed my eyes. 

"Yes girl, plus we need to celebrate your new ride!" She sang, "a Porsche. Bitch, you got a whole Porsche!"

~~~

My close circle of friends is made up of four crazy and ambitious women, wanting to break borders and be the best in whatever they do. 

There's me of course, the hard hearted materialistic one. Then there's Thembisa, the tomboy gangster since birth. She`s got hardened features, a deep scar on her cheek from a stab wound she got for sleeping with a married gangster. 

Thembisa has had it rough, with her being a street kid ever since she was 6 years while staying by the Cape Flats and eventually getting sucked into gangsterism. That’s where she learned how to steal cars, kill people and got addicted to drugs. She was in and out of jail ever since she turned 12 and when she was 16 she was transferred to Pretoria to serve out her sentence in a Juvenile correction facility. She and I met by chance 7 years later. She was actually trying to rob me but somebody beat her to it, and she got into a squabble with the guy. After the fight when she saw how shaken up I was, she gave me back my things and I guess we`ve been inseparable ever since. It`s not exactly a romantic story but it`s ours and I think it`s pretty bad ass.

She`s pale in complexion and there`s a slight red tint to her cheeks. Brown hardened eyes that have surely witnessed a lot and thin pink lips that cussed way too often. Her nose was crooked from all the fights she gets into and gotten it broken. I think she gets a high from fighting with men because she`s always getting into altercations with them.

She`s a hard woman and you can even see from her facial features how hardened she is. She`s also big bodied with an impressive bust she always brags about. She`s at the same height as me at 1.7 metres.

The second name that comes to mind is Mmabatho, who we call iron man. She got married at 19 years old to a man that she was madly in love with but she was unaware of his sickeningly twisted history. He was a serial rapist and killer, who had killed his former wife in a blinded rage. Mmabatho was still young and naïve and he used that to his advantage, and abused her. They were married for over 14 years and she took the constant abuse, until just like every other woman, she finally snapped and when she did, we were all too happy to help.

We were planning on a swift getaway. Just pack her bags and leave but unfortunately the bastard came home early and his pathetic ass attacked me and then attacked her. She reached her breaking point and within the time that he was fighting with Thembisa, Keo and I, she had boiled water in a kettle and proceeded to singlehandedly hold him down and forced every drop of that water down his throat which resulted in him meeting his demise.

She's one of the reasons I stay head on in my promise to never let a man into my life. 

But even after everything that she`s gone through, she`s kind and loving. She`s the sweetheart of the group. She`s got a round and chubby face, a chubby body that looks good in whatever she puts on and a short afro that goes well with her melanin rich skin. 

Thankfully she has no physical scars on her beautiful face, but I know that the emotional damage will take years to deal with.

Then there's Keo, the youngest member of our little circle, a rape survivor who grew up in a loving home. Her father was a pastor who trusted people easily. He let any Tom, Dick and Harry into their family home and this resulted in her unfortunately falling victim to a paedophilic monster who held a high position in her father`s church. She`s narrated to us that this man forced himself onto her when she was only 13 years old and continued on doing so for 3 years.

She ran away the day that she turned 16 and never looked back. She somehow crossed paths with Thembisa who took her in and has been attached to Thembisa ever since. 

She`s got the youthful face of a little innocent angel. Big doe like eyes, a dark brown that wasn’t hardened like Thembisa`s, wide lips that were sadly always in a frown, a broad nose and high cheekbones. A light caramel skin tone and just like myself, preferred the no hair look.

We were all sitting on Thembisa's busted up sofas, lounging lazily as we all smoked our very own blunts and no conversations for the time being except for the loud South African hip hop music that played on Mmabatho`s speaker that she had brought with her.

"Your mother," Mmabatho paused as she snarled, letting out a breath and a puff of smoke, "is fucked up." 

"Hey!" I deeply scowled at the insult even though I wasn’t exactly happy with her, I didn’t want anyone disrespecting her like this.

"What? You're defending her now?" she asked me, rolling her eyes, "actually even your father is fucked up. Who the hell sells their own daughter?" 

Keo nodded, "vele vele, this country is fucked up, this world is fucked up and everything is fucked up," that’s how conversations went whenever we would get high. Everybody would rant on about how messed up the world is and how unfair life is. 

"Yeah..." Thembisa said drunkenly, finally detaching her lips from the cheap beer bottle and I groaned as the room began to spin.

"I can't believe they found me a husband," I laughed as I looked at Mmabatho. 

She laughed too, "ja, because no one is going to marry you. You? Nah, never!" she laughed hard, chocking on her own saliva and I frowned as I sat up. 

"Why?" I snapped, "what's wrong with me?" I wanted to know what she found so funny and why she said what she said. I mean, I know I don’t want a man but I am most definitely a catch so I`m more than confident that there is someone out there who wants to marry me.

"There's nothing wrong with you," Mmabatho shook her head, her kind smile coming back onto her face yet her eyes were bloodshot red from the weed.

"Let me tell you the kind of woman that you are, Celeste," she spoke, slurring, "you're those independent women...the ones who run a business and make money from it, and then you spoil yourself. You buy yourself cars, clothes and expensive jewellery. What the hell do you need a man for? What hold will a man have over you?" 

"Amen to that!" Keo exclaimed louder than necessary.

"You see us," she stood, stumbling as she pointed to them all, "if a man were to do for us what you are able to do for yourself, I'd be giving him my pussy even when he doesn't want it. But wena," she let out a scoff, "what will he buy for you?" She asked me, "huh? There, your parents bought you a Porsche, you live in a mansion and you wear...that watch that costs a fortune," she spat, "you don't need a man..." 

She stumbled back to the sofa and threw herself on it, "don't do it, Celeste. Don't do it, you don't need one and trust me when I tell you that those men- men! Men, Celeste. They will use you, they will abuse you, and then they'll leave you with nothing and move on to the next best thing." 

She laughed as she shook her head, her hands moving uncontrollably as the drugs worked their way into her system, "ask me, ask us...ask women. We`ll tell you the truth."