Phoenix Resurrected Read online

  The security guard turned and left the office, closing the door behind him.

  “What’s your name?” Mister Harris asked.

  “Cindy Bedford.” I replied.

  “Cindy.” the manager said. “You do realize that shoplifting is a criminal offence, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I said softly, still staring at the floor in front of me.

  “Having a criminal record at such a young age can ruin your whole life.” Mister Harris said. “And have you given any thought to how your family and friends will react when this incident becomes known?”

  I continued to stare at the floor.

  I heard Mister Harris get up from his chair and I watched him walk past me to the office door. He locked the door and walked back to his desk and sat down in his chair.

  “How old are you, Cindy?” he asked.

  “Sixteen.” I said.

  “You look a lot older.” Mister Harris said and I saw him studying my body, lust filling his eyes. “Do you know what a “blowjob” is, Cindy?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what it is and if you give me one I’ll forget about this whole shoplifting thing and I’ll even give you the stockings as part of the deal.” Mister Harris said.

  “What’s a blowjob?” I asked.

  “Come here and I’ll explain it to you.” Harris said.

  I walked around the side of the desk and stood next to the manager. He swivelled his chair so that he sat facing me.

  “Get down on your knees, Cindy.” Mister Harris said.

  I stared at the man not really understanding what he meant.

  “Just get down on your knees.” Harris said, his voice turning menacing. “If you don’t do as I say I’ll be forced to lay a charge of shoplifting against you and you don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  I knelt down in front of Mister Harris and watched as he unzipped the fly of trousers. His hard, rigid penis pushed itself into view.

  “Now all you have to do is take my cock in your mouth and suck it gently.” Harris said. “At the same time tickle my balls. That’s all you have to do.”

  I took a deep breath and blanked out my mind just as I had done whenever my father had abused me. I leant forward, closed my eyes, and took the hard piece of flesh in my mouth. I heard Mister Harris gasp with pleasure. I sucked and tickled him gently. I heard his breathing quicken and suddenly his whole body tensed as he gasped and shuddered. I felt a hot sticky fluid burst into my mouth. I drew back.

  “Swallow it!’ Mister Harris gasped.

  I closed my eyes and swallowed. I looked at Mister Harris. He sat in his chair with his eyes closed and then he zipped up his fly and smiled at me.

  “That was wonderful, Cindy.” he said. “For your first blowjob you were fantastic! Okay, you can stand up now.”

  I stood up and so did Mister Harris. He walked to the office door and unlocked it.

  “Bring your stockings, Cindy.” he said. “I’ll walk with you to the front of the store.”

  I followed the manager to the front of the supermarket.

  “Okay, Cindy.” Mister Harris said. “You can go now.”

  I turned and walked away along the pavement, the familiar feelings of helplessness and anger flooding over me. Once again I’d found myself in a position where I was helpless and cursed myself for allowing someone to take advantage of my predicament.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Your Honour.” James Foster said to Judge Bester. “I’m going to interrupt Miss Bedford again at this stage as my colleague, Paul Greave, would like to recall Garth Gilmore.”

  The Judge nodded and Cindy left the witness stand. I got up from where I’d been sitting and walked towards the witness stand. As I passed Cindy she smiled faintly. I stepped onto the witness stand.

  “Garth.” my attorney, Paul Greave, said. “You were telling us about your discovery of your parents’ tragic demise. What happened after that?”

  ***

  While the estates of my parents were being wound up the Child Welfare authorities arranged for me to live with my mother’s only sister, Rosemary Cooper who lived in a small two-bedroom house in the suburb of Windhoek West, only a few houses away from where Cindy Bedford lived with her parents. My aunt had been the secretary of the nearby Windhoek Central Hospital and had retired three years ago on a very generous pension. She now spent much of her time reading, cooking and tending to the small garden in front of the house.

  My parents’ funeral was a small affair as neither of them had many friends. As for my own friends, the only person that I knew from school who attended the service was Cindy Bedford. I found this surprising as we had hardly ever spoken to each other and we weren’t even in the same school class.

  The welfare authorities helped me move my clothes and other items to my aunt’s house. The house faced north with a deep veranda spanning the whole of the front of the building. The walls were built of a dark brown face brick and the corrugated roof was painted a dark red. A narrow central passage ran from the front door straight through to the back door and on the one side were the two bedrooms, the bathroom and the kitchen while on the other side were the lounge, the dining room and the laundry. A small neat garden consisting mainly of daisies and other annuals filled the area between the brick front wall and the house. A single garage with brown wooden doors had been built onto the left side of the house. As Aunty Rose had no need for a car, the garage was used as a storeroom.

  Unlike my mother, who had been short and blonde, Aunty Rose, as she insisted on being called, was tall with short dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, a large nose and a straight thin-lipped mouth. She tended to dress in dark-coloured out of fashion clothes and, because she had never married and had lived on her own all her adult life, it soon became obvious to me that she resented my intrusion into her privacy.

  I had expected that the deaths of my mother and father would reduce my anger and hatred towards other people but as I walked away from the cemetery I realized that, although I felt a certain amount of relief that I would never again have to deal with them, my attitude towards the indifference of the world towards me remained the same. This surprised me somewhat as I had believed that they had been the main reason for my antagonism.

  I continued to take offence at the slightest provocation and, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the people who upset me knew of my unusual physical strength and quickly backed away when I became angry, I could quite possibly have found myself facing charges of assault. Many of my fellow pupils shunned me or avoided contradicting anything that I said. On many occasions I sensed that people were agreeing with my point of view simply to prevent a confrontation.

  The relationship between me and Auntie Rose started off on a very civil level with both of us maintaining a strict distance from each other. We established a routine that would avoid any accidental embarrassment or disruption of the strict regimen that prevailed in the house. I soon began to resent the strict schedule that I had to adhere to mainly because I felt that I was entitled to more freedom, having had so little of it while my parents had been alive.

  Instead of coming straight home from school on the days that I didn’t have extra-mural sports activities I began to frequent the local corner café where I spent hours playing the pinball machines. I also began playing snooker at a nearby snooker saloon. Because of these afternoon activities I often arrived at the house late in the afternoon and this angered my aunt as she usually prepared lunch for me which was then wasted as it was too late to eat it before supper.

  Even on the days that I had extra-mural activities I seldom went straight back home. This wasn’t a conscious strategy though; it had become natural for me to resist any kind of discipline that others tried to impose on me. I also had no sense of guilt for the anger and anxiety that I caused. If people didn’t like the way I behaved, that was just too bad. And whenever I was reprimanded or punished for my indifferent behaviour I stored the memories of these supposed
injustices with a view to exacting some kind of revenge at a later date. Even the smallest censure or scolding became a reason to strike back. Anger was the dominant emotion in my life. It had always been with me but I had never been aware of it before. What I didn’t realize was that much of this anger was directed at myself. The helplessness and frustration that I had experienced during my formative years persisted.

  The three boys that I played snooker and the pinball machines with were all older than me and had been frequenting the saloon for several years. At first we played without betting and I was surprised at how competent I was considering how seldom I had played. I often beat all three of the guys and I soon realized that if I continued to play regularly and we started betting I could very likely cover my share of the costs for using the snooker table.

  Ian Visagie, the eldest of the three, was a tall thin boy with thick black hair and a prominent chin who tended to become extremely nervous whenever he found himself under pressure and needed to play a difficult shot. Bruce Smith was slightly younger than Ian, with a short stocky build and blonde hair cut in a crew-cut. He seemed to have difficulty following the snooker games and often had to ask what colour ball he had to play. Vic Brown, also short and stocky like Bruce, wore thick black-rimmed glasses and his eyesight was so bad that he had difficulty focusing on the far side of the snooker table. All three had dropped out of school and none of them had the slightest interest in trying to find regular work, happily whiling away their time in the snooker saloon. They all lived with their parents and relied on money from them to finance the cost of using the snooker tables and the pinball machines. As I was still at school they usually paid my share of the cost of using the snooker tables and playing the pinball machines.

  The fact that Ian, Bruce and Vic paid my share of the costs worried me as I wanted to avoid becoming indebted to them in any way. Although Aunty Rose gave me a small amount of pocket money each week, it wasn’t nearly enough to support my snooker and pinball playing. On top of this, I had also started smoking, a habit that I really couldn’t afford but also couldn’t break. I decided to ask my aunt to give me an advance on the money that I would be getting from my father’s estate once it had been wound up. I brought up the matter one evening while we were having supper at the kitchen table.

  “What do you need the money for?” Aunty Rose asked. “I know that you’ve started smoking, and although I disapprove, I won’t try to stop you. What else do you need money for?”

  “There are lots of things that I need.” I replied. “I need new clothes, toiletries, a computer and printer and a cell ‘phone. I also need money for entertainment like the movies and going to football games.”

  “How much is all this going to cost?”

  “The clothes, computer and cell ‘phone will probably cost about seven thousand dollars and the clothes, toiletries and entertainment about four hundred Rand a month.” I said.

  “That’s an awful lot of money.” my aunt said. “Do you really need a computer and a printer? Can’t you rather use the computers in the library?”

  “No.” I replied. “I need a computer and the printer to help me with my homework and I can’t do that at the library.”

  My aunt finished her meal in silence and then stood up from the table.

  “Get some quotes for the things that you need and we’ll take the matter further.” she said as she picked up her plate and walked to the kitchen sink.

  Over the following two days I visited some clothing shops and the computer department of a large department store in the nearby shopping centre. I got written quotes for the computer, printer and the cell phone as well as sales brochures and prices for the clothes that I wanted. I showed them to my aunt after supper that evening.

  “Are you sure that these are the best prices that you could get?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I replied. “The computer and the cell phone aren’t the cheapest models but they’re also not the most expensive. The clothes are from Woolworths, so they’re a good quality.”

  “Okay, Garth.” Aunty Rose said. “I’ll speak to the bank manager and let you know. But, if we do decide to buy the computer I want you to assure me that you’ll spend more time on your homework than you’re doing at present and less time doing whatever it is that you’re doing in the afternoons.”

  I nodded my assurance.

  The total cost of the items that I bought came to seven thousand two hundred dollars. Aunty Rose paid for them and also began to give me one hundred dollars every week on a Monday. Aunty Rose had furnished my bedroom with a bed, a small wooden desk and a chair and the computer and the small printer fitted comfortably on the desk top and still gave me enough room to do my homework. I used the computer to find the required answers to my homework and occasionally I looked at the news pages. Apart from that I found little of interest on the web until the day I mentioned to my snooker companion, Ian Visagie, that I had a computer.

  “Really?” he asked. “What do spend your time looking at on the web?”

  “Very little.” I replied. “I find the answers to my homework and sometimes look at the news.”

  “Is that all?” he asked. “Don’t you look at pornography?”

  I blinked. I knew vaguely what pornography was but I’d always thought of it as something to be avoided.

  “No.” I replied. “Is it worth looking at? I always thought that pornography was what sick old men looked at.”

  “Let me tell you that I spend most of my time on the internet looking at pornography websites and I’m definitely not a sick old man!” Ian said. “I’ll give a couple of my favourite porno website addresses and after you’ve looked at them I’ll guarantee that you’ll look at nothing else.”

  Ian wrote the three web addresses on a piece of paper and that evening, after I’d done my homework and Aunty Rose had gone to bed, I visited the first website on Ian’s list. At first I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and I quickly got up from my desk and made sure that my aunt’s bedroom door was closed. I returned to my desk and gawked at the images on the computer screen. The unfamiliar feeling of lust crept over my whole body and I felt my penis stiffen. It was a sensation that I hadn’t felt before although I had noticed that girls were becoming far more interesting to me and had a strange attraction for me.

  As I watched the figures moving on the screen I felt myself subconsciously massaging my penis and then, to my surprise, I felt myself ejaculate. The feeling was exquisite and my whole body tensed in ecstasy. I remembered my father ejaculating in the back of his car in the garage but I had never given it much thought. Now I understood why he had gasped with such pleasure. I looked down and saw that the front of my shorts was wet and sticky. I switched off the computer and removed my shorts. But what should I do with them? I realized that I would have to wash them or my aunt would notice that they’d been soiled. I crept to the bathroom and quietly washed the garment in the washbasin. I returned to me room and placed the shorts over the back of my chair, hoping that by the next morning they would be dry. I climbed into bed and lay on my back and gently rubbed my penis. The feeling was so pleasant and I realized then that a whole new experience was opening for me.

  The animosity between me and Aunty Rose continued to fester. She tolerated my smoking as long as I only smoked in my bedroom and cleaned out my ashtray myself. I knew though, that my pornography habit was a different matter and that if she discovered what I was doing, there would be hell to pay. At worst I would be kicked out of the house, and at best my computer would be confiscated. Although my aunt knew very little about computers I was careful to erase the history of the websites that I visited after each porno session

  My masturbating became more frequent and I was forced to collect my ejaculations in a small plastic cup that I surreptitiously took to the bathroom after each masturbation and quickly washed out in the basin. I also began to masturbate in the shower but this wasn’t very satisfactory as, to avoid attracting my aunt’s attention by showering
for an excessive length of time, I was forced to hurry and this spoilt the act considerably. One day I returned from school to find a plumber working on unblocking the drain from the bathroom, and although he didn’t say anything, I could see from the way he looked at me he knew that my sperm had been the cause of the blockage. Fortunately he didn’t say anything to my aunt.

  I began to detest my aunt, just as I detested anyone who tried to impose their authority on me. Her constant bickering angered me and it took all my self-control to stop myself from retaliating. I often lay in my bed at night and thought back to the reprimands that I had been subjected to, and in my mind I imagined myself shouting at my detractors and even assaulting them. It angered me that I was never able to retaliate when the incident was happening and always only reacted afterwards. These imaginary of retaliations gave me tremendous satisfaction but I was very careful not to try to re-enact them in real life. I knew that I possessed unusual physical strength and that, if I used this injudiciously, I could get into very serious trouble.

  When I began attending High School, I was assigned to the category of education that was designed to cater for those students would only be studying until they reached the age of eighteen and would then drop out of school and seek employment as learner tradesmen or professions that didn’t require a university degree or a matric certificate. The subjects that we studied were aimed at equipping us with information that was mostly technical.

  As I had no idea of what I wanted to do when I had completed my schooling, I had very little motivation and only put sufficient effort into my studies to ensure that I passed my exams. The pass requirement at schools at the time was thirty per cent which meant that, as long as I got one out of every three questions correct, I would pass. Even though I considered myself to be of very average intelligence, I had no difficulty in passing my exams comfortably with very little input.

  By the time I reached the age of eighteen I had been living in my Aunty Rose’s house for almost four years. Our relationship had deteriorated steadily and both of us looked forward eagerly to the time I would complete my schooling, find work and leave the house. Communication between us was kept to an absolute minimum and the hatred between us was blatantly obvious.