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Aunt Sarah once asked me why I do not have a boyfriend and I said that I do not need a boyfriend. She smiled and said:

“There is nothing wrong with having a boyfriend or boyfriends and having sex and having children too. Mokgethi, when you think the time is right, enjoy it because it is what you are made for. Just make sure that you are the woman that you want to be and are happy with.”

I just smiled. What was I to say to that? I wanted to ask “When do you think is the right time for me to have sex?”, but I thought it was an inappropriate and foolish thing to ask.

“But know also that all men are the same, they think only about sex and after that they want to sleep with another woman, possibly your best friend, and if you cry too much you will be forever hurting.”

“What do you do in that case?”

“I am a wife. I sit at home and nurse my child. He will come back whenever he thinks it is time to come back. That is how God created them and if you want to have a man just for yourself, stop that impossible mission. Direct your energy to other things because you will never find him. Pick your man and make sure that you enjoy him more than the pain he will bring you.”

“Did you ever cheat on your husband?”

She smiled.

“I reserve the right to not answer that question.”

“Aunt Shirley cheats on her husband.”

“Your aunt, she has been a whore since we were kids. She likes to act like she is an angel, but she has always been a whore.”

We were laughing out loud.

“Does your husband cheat?”

She looked at me and smiled.

“Men!”

My aunt Sarah, I can talk to her about all things and I wish I had many more people like her in my life, people who can tell Mokgethi when she is going wrong, people who call just to ask you if you need anything. If I tell Aunt Sarah what I need, she'll tell me honestly that it is coming on a certain date or that she cannot help me with it. Love her very much; in her I have a mother.

I once asked Aunt Sarah why I had to leave the private school but she couldn't answer me. She said that I should ask my aunt and my grandmother, so I told her that when I asked my grandmother she just got furious. My aunt was at that point not very comfortable and her usual self within our conversation, but I know that Revelation is the last book of the Bible.

Pheladi

In the part of this big world where I live, young girls are celebrated for a short time, the beautiful ones worshipped until they fall. Yes, we all do fall. I knew that Mokgethi's fall was coming, I knew. I do not know why I call it a fall, but when you have fallen the celebration stops and then you see your surroundings differently.

My friend Pheladi was once a celebrated girl in my township, she was a queen bee and just like a queen bee she was surrounded by men.

Pheladi was deflowered at eleven by the taxi driver who picked her up at quarter past six every day. She was the first pupil he picked up each morning and the last he dropped off every evening. He wanted it from the beginning. She says he asked her about her boyfriend and after that they were talking, talking about things that she knew nothing about. Countless times he told her that he was going to have sex with her. He bought her chocolates every single day for school until one day he asked her to kiss him, a real kiss. The day after that she bunked school and got banged. The flower lost its petals and they continued to do it until she moved to high school.

By thirteen Pheladi was the most beautiful girl in the township; she was complete. Pheladi had no flaws and if she had, only she and God knew about them. Pheladi was perfection.

It is
UNTSHOFONATE
4 tsa batho tsa lefase lo, that they will never be graced by Pheladi, and worse they will never know the ultimate epitome of Beauty,
PHELADICON
, that we, Mapulana, are blessed wit. Tsa Mapulana di kgona go belega, Pa.

Graffiti in the men's toilet. The
untshofonate
is actually unfortunately misspelled, but intentionally written in big caps, and
Pheladicon
is in a different colour altogether, a metre long and maybe a ruler wide, so artistic that even we, the girls, went to the men's toilet to witness it for ourselves.

At thirteen Pheladi's relationship with her mother was no more. They were at war. She was a teenager, over the edge, enjoying all of it, and her mother couldn't discipline her. When Pheladi was about nine, her mother used to lock out her cousin, shouting at her and telling her (and everybody passing by) that she was a whore, until, finally, her father came and took her away, relieving Pheladi's mother of her.

But this time Pheladi, her own daughter, was over the edge and she was not locking her out like she had done with her cousin, even when she came back home at around four in the morning, jumping the fence. She was not shouting at her and calling her names. She only tried to talk to her, which did not work.

Pheladi's mother explained the situation to her father but he too had no influence over Pheladi – she had chosen her path. By nature he is not a man of many words and he rarely laughs, let alone smiles. The first time I saw him I thought that he was a mental case. In fact, he drinks secretly, and smokes too, but he does both of these things in private, as if he is hiding from somebody. Pheladi has never seen him smoke but sometimes he sends her to buy him a packet of cigarettes. She says that her father is too much of a private person, that he is a big secret, not just to us but to himself as well.

They have five children, of which Pheladi is the first-born. Maybe at one point they loved each other, maybe they still do and just have a funny way of showing it. He comes home at intervals, comes on a Friday and leaves Sunday night. He spends ninety per cent of his time at work. At least, that is what we know.

Pheladi's father called a meeting with her, looked her deep in the eyes and told her that she should listen to her mother because her mother knew best. That was it. He had said what he needed to say. It didn't change anything. It was like telling someone who is addicted to gambling that they should stop gambling. They are going to listen to you and agree with everything that you say – that this addiction is ruining their life – and swear that they will never gamble again, never. You may think that they have seen the light, but as soon as they have money in their hands they will be gambling again, and not because they have forgotten what you have told them. No.

And worse, after they know your mind they will try to hide that they are still gambling, until they have lost everything again, when you are going to know all about it. You can say the same things all over again, and they will not disagree with you, but come some money they are going gambling.

This I know, but why?
I think
, and please underline the “I think” part, that it is because gambling is in their heart and gambling promises them far better things – a life they want and will have if only they can win. And when they win you are going to feel sorry for ever saying that gambling is bad and ruining their life. Because after they have won you are going to be the first to know and they are going to pay all your debts. But they never win.

Sex, I think, operates in a similar way. I have never gone gambling and got thrilled by bright lights, cigar smoke and machines, just as I have never been charmed by a boy and wished to get naked in front of him, but I know that you can tell somebody not to have sex, but there are inner sexual urges that urge them, making them want. And, afterwards, they find themselves hoping for more, hoping for more like a gambler hoping that they will win. Which makes me think that however often one has sex, one will never be fully satisfied, that the hope for more will remain a big hope for some more. This scares me about sex.

James, for instance, will have sex with a girl that he says he loves but after their third sexual encounter he is finished. Now he is hoping to have sex with another individual and working on it hard.

It is a health risk to have sex these days and a day does not pass without me being reminded of this fact. If someone tells me that something burns, I believe them and hope not to experience that the thing indeed burns. But for many people, even though their minds understand the risks and dangers involved in the whole act, the urges are much stronger than their fear of the risks.

Pheladi couldn't say no. She even said yes to those who didn't impress her or charm her in any way if they were persistent enough.

At fourteen Pheladi aborted what was to be her first-born, claiming that she was too young to have a baby. To which one might have replied by asking why she was having sex if she was too young to deal with the consequences. I think her main reason for having the abortion was that she was not sure who the father of the child was. The three people who, according to her calculations, could be the father were all already husbands and fathers. They were the ones she hadn't used protection with, or, at least, that's what she told me long afterwards.

Although Pheladi aborted many of her worshippers with that first abortion – her body had changed somehow – there were still those who were interested, and they helped to make sure that her road to recovery was not that lonely and sad.

In reality this was her second abortion. She confessed to me that with the first one she had realised that she might be pregnant after just a day, so she took some pills and washed the pregnancy away. For a long time I believed that this was a myth, but then Lebo told me the same thing – that the backstreet abortion doctors can give you some pills that work so beautifully that you won't even miss your period. The backstreet abortion doctors were here long before abortion became legal in this country and legalisation has not done them any harm, they are still operating.

Four months and two weeks before her fifteenth birthday, Pheladi was back in the backstreets again. This time she was further along than before and once again she had no idea who the father was – some of the candidates were family men with daughters older than her.

Her dear mother had by this time given up completely.

Four month and nine days after her fifteenth birthday, Pheladi gave birth to what was supposed to be her fourth child, a baby boy, Thabang. With this her life as a celebrity came to an abrupt end – she was suddenly a mother, with motherly responsibilities. The relationship between her and her mother began to mend and although one cannot say that they are the best of friends, they are happy.

The bees are still attracted to the Pheladicon – she has recovered from the abortions and bearing a child. She is still out of line but these days she is more discreet about everything.

Lawfully what happened to Pheladi was rape. I was told that somewhere in our law there is something called statutory rape. Looked it up in the dictionary and it said:
Statutory rape by US law is the offence of having sex with a minor
.

So statutory rape is a US law. I think that it is only effective in the US. We are in Africa and though our lawmakers copied the law it is only relevant in law books and not in social reality.

Lebo

The thing that I have observed is that when a girl is put in this position, she learns to love it and somehow take pride in it, like a prisoner serving a life sentence. Prison life just becomes his life, it is not prison any more. Lebo is that girl. She is in this position and loving it all.

Lebo is the girl that sometimes I wish to be. Chocolate skin colour, big eyes, long hair, a forehead big enough to make her beautiful. She has a very small mouth, but when she smiles the world comes to a full stop.

Her father is a powerhouse, in my community's slang a “gas”, pronounced in Afrikaans. He does not take shit from anybody and will settle a dispute with his fists if he has to. I cannot say that he is not a nice person – he is – but he likes things the way he wants them and Lebo understands this very well.

Lebo can extract however much money she wants from her father, he will always give it gladly, but come results day he is not expecting anything less than a C+. Less than an E means violence.

Between seventeen thirty and eighteen hundred every day Lebo has to be home. She has never slept out, unless her father was not there and she was very sure where he was and when he would be coming back. A girl learns the behaviours and routines of those she is living with; she understands the potholes that there are. Pheladi would go out even when her father was home – her parents knew when she was out all night – but Lebo could never do that.

Lebo is afraid of getting on the wrong side of her father and if there is one thing that she wishes, it is never to make him angry. Gas thinks that his daughter is still a virgin, which is far away from the truth. Lebo does her thing in the mid of day as if it was the pitch-black night and by seventeen thirty she is home, busy with her books or television or something that she has to be busy with. And this is why Gas thinks that she is still a virgin.

There is a thing that Lebo and some of the girls in my school do when a male teacher is teaching. Lebo does it mostly when a lesson bores her and the teacher happens to be a man. Then she will put her feet on the side bars that hold her table's support together, and open her legs wide, showing off to distract him. It always works – the teacher will not want to look in Lebo's direction and, when he does, he will lose his ability to speak.

Mostly teachers never say a thing or complain, they just try very hard to avoid looking. In fact, the only complaint that ever came, came via a messenger, a female teacher. The teacher in question didn't say a thing to Lebo after the lesson. Instead, he sent a female teacher to come and set us all straight. She shouted at us as if we had all done the thing that Lebo did and never directly confronted the culprit. We turned it into a joke and Lebo did it to him again the very next time we had a lesson with him. Lebo calls it a direct under-table challenge.

“Girl, it is a statement, a direct under-table challenge. I can offer you this, that I have, nothing more, nothing less. If you want it, just say it out loud.”

In the same way, Lebo got Shatale, our principal, interested in her. He was teaching us N Sotho and Lebo just laid all bare. Our principal, though not willing to show that he was enjoying the challenge, carried on with the lesson and, funnily enough, it ran over time.

Shatale volunteered to drop her home after the lesson.

“My boyfriend won't like it if he hears that I was in your car, and anyway he is coming to pick me up. Thank you, some other time.”

Tumelo was Lebo's boyfriend at the time. He was interested in me first but Lebo had a crush on him, so I introduced them. To be honest, Lebo had a crush on Tumelo's car before she had a crush on him – I know she saw the car first – but I introduced them anyway.

For a period of two weeks Lebo gave Mr S the pleasures of the under-table challenge. After every lesson they would talk. She said that she once asked him:

“Why, Mr LS?”

Lebo called him Mr LS – the L was for Lordric, his first name, though Lebo always called him Mr Love Sex.

“I mean, you are old, you have a wife. Not to offend you, Mr LS, but I feel sorry for your wife.”

“You have never had a chat with my wife. Talk to her first and hear her side of the story and you will be surprised.”

I do not know where Lebo got his numbers from because he didn't give them to her, but she got them. She called him the first time, but from then on she sent him
please call me
messages whenever she wanted to talk. Although Lebo thought that she had control of every aspect of the slowly but surely advancing relationship, she was actually never in control, she was playing his game by his rules. She was talking to him, thinking that she was wrapping him around her little finger, until one day when everything changed and I knew for sure that eventually Lebo was going to get undressed by our principal.

“I sent him a
please call me
at around nineteen hundred.” She looked at me as if this was the only important thing that had ever happened in her life. “He called, saying that he would call me back at around eleven.”

“You didn't have it with the principal?”

“Listen, listen, do not think before you hear what I have to say. Listen.”

“I am listening.”

“He called me and we talked for four hours.”

“Four hours?”

“Four hours, twenty-eight minutes and forty-seven seconds. He called at ...” She checked when the call had come in on her phone. “Eleven zero seven, and dropped the call at half past three.”

She gave me the phone so I could see that she was not lying.

“What were you talking about?”

“We were having sex on the phone, and, girl, I can tell you it was the greatest sex I ever had.”

“You and the principal were having sex on the phone and it was the greatest sex you ever had. How?”

She started to explain in detail – telling me even the smallest thing – looking very lively.

The next day, when she saw Mr LS at school, it was as if, in that moment, he drained all her energy from her.

“Lebo, you are going to have sex with Shatale very soon.”

“Yes, why not, he wants me and I cannot keep saying no forever. I just have to do it. It is just sex; he is not planning to marry me. And, yes, I am going to have sex with my principal. Do you know how old he is?”

Shook my head, I did not know. “Forty?” I guessed. “Forty-four?”

“Forty-nine.”

“And you are going to have sex with him.”

My heart, liver and lungs felt like they were being mixed together, as if someone was mixing a fruit cocktail inside me. I felt like I was going to puke.

“Lebo! I am going to puke.”

The thought of Lebo having sex with Shatale disgusted me completely.

“He is the one who wants to have sex with me. He is forty-nine; I am fifteen.”

“Stop. He is married and far older than you are.”

“Of course! You think he doesn't know that I am a minor ...?” She paused. “He said that he likes it when he is teaching and I open my legs wide.”

“He said that?”

“He said he loves it when I am wearing my white underwear.”

To prove it, Lebo sent him a
please call me
and we made the call a conference call. She made him feel comfortable while we listened, encouraging his perversions.

After listening to the call, Mamafa argued that Shatale was not a player, as players do not run around with young children, babysitting them. In Mamafa's opinion, Shatale qualified only as a paedophile.

The day that Shatale had been scheming towards finally came one afternoon, after Saturday school. We had been waiting for Tumelo for about an hour. We didn't mind as we had nothing else to do other than sitting around and talking until Tumelo came and Lebo had to leave us. What we didn't know was that the night before somebody had seen Tumelo with another girl from somewhere, and then that somebody had told somebody, who had told somebody, who had told somebody ... It finally got to us via some boy who wants Lebo very much but who doesn't stand a chance because he does not have his own car. That day he was in his friend's car.

“You are waiting for Tumelo?” he asked as the car pulled up next to us.

“How did you know?”

Lebo answered him in a way that told him that he and his friend should continue going to wherever he was going.

“Sorry, he is not coming today. You might as well go home or come with me. His wife, who has a degree and a car, a very beautiful four-by-four, has come all the way from Joburg to see her man.”

He paused as if waiting for a response but it didn't come.

“What are you going to do, Lebogang? I told you that he does not want you; the boy is only killing time and boredom with you. And I want you, not only do I want you but I love you.”

Paused again.

“You can keep waiting but Tumelo is not coming today.”

He and his friend drove on.

Although Lebo didn't believe the story, she called Tumelo rather than sending him a
please call me
. The man answered but he was unusual and uncomfortable on the phone and after a few minutes he cut the call. Lebo called again and again he cut the call. A bad thing to happen to a girl in front of her friends. As someone inexperienced in these matters, I said:

“Girlfriend, do not mind, it's nothing.”

For me it was nothing because I had never been in that position. MmaLekgope, one of Lebo's friends, said:

“He cuts the call when you are calling him with your own money?” She slapped her thigh. “He cannot do that to you. Who does he think he is? He is not God and he is certainly not the only man on this earth. Dump the dog!” She slapped her thigh again, very hard. “Girl, dump that dog so it knows what it is – nothing but a dog.”

Lebo called for a third time and he answered, confirming everything:

“I am with my wife now and you are disturbing me.”

Tumelo then gave his phone to his wife, telling her that somebody wanted to say hello to her. A very sweet voice said hello three times before Lebo ended the call.

That call ended the intelligent Lebo that I had always wanted to be. She was no more. The sweet-talking, smiling Lebo was no more. We all paused for a moment, then MmaLekgope said:

“Girl, dump the dog.”

Silence. I was feeling sad because I had introduced Lebo to Tumelo.

“Lebo, you can have any man you want. You have a queue of men just waiting and wishing. Why cry for one when there is still the whole of Mars waiting and wanting. Dump the dog, forget him.”

We were not really helping her to feel any better, but somehow she managed to put on a smile, a hurt smile.

“Girls, I am not crying. You make it sound like this is the end of the world. It is not.” She looked at us and for a moment I believed that she was not affected at all. “Girls, I am not crying, it is just that it came as a shock.”

We went our separate ways – there was nothing left to hang around for. Lebo said that she was going home.

Monday – before I picked it up from the street, actually it was literally minutes before I heard it from the street – Lebo called me to the back of the class after lunch break and said:

“You are not going to believe it.”

“Try me.”

I looked at her.

“I had sex with Mr LS.”

I was still looking at her.

“I fucked him, we fucked ... I didn't want you to hear it from anybody else because you are ...”

She couldn't finish because at that moment I puked up everything that I had just had for lunch.

“Why did you puke?”

“It is disgusting.”

Then James and Mamafa arrived, James looking at Lebo as if she had committed a criminal act.

“You won't give it to me, but you will give it to him?”

Back then James wanted to have sex with Lebo, he would have died for it, but Lebo thought that he was just a small boy with not enough experience. She said that young boys came with too much energy, playing very rough, as if they were in a playground, and after they finished with you, you hadn't enjoyed anything.

James and Mamafa had come to warn me about Lebo. They did not like her much. James didn't like her because she didn't want to have sex with him and Mamafa, well, he didn't like her because he felt that she influenced me negatively.

They took me away from her.

“Your friend is the latest of Shatale's trophies.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“She just told me now.”

Mamafa looked at me as if to say “I told you so”.

“Told you long ago that she has a decaying mind, and that if you hang around with her, listening to her, it will affect you. I cannot let that happen.”

“I do not hang around with her that much.”

“But you are listening to the things that she thinks and says.”

I felt, somehow, tenderly cared for, important – these two people cared for me and would do what they could to protect me because they loved me just the way I was.

“Stay away from her, Mokgethi, please. Stay away from her.”

“Do not listen to what she says to you.”

Later, when I was walking home with Mamafa and James, I asked them why it was that they did not want me to hang around Lebo. Mamafa said:

“Mokgethi, let's say you have never been to Joburg but people are always telling you this and that about Joburg and how wonderful it is there. What will you think?”

“I will think it is a wonderful place.”

“And you will long to see it and never long to see Cape Town because nobody ever tells you about Cape Town. If you continue hanging around with Lebo you are going to absorb her thoughts and ideas and somehow turn into her.”

“I see your point.”

I started to distance myself from Lebo. It was easy in a way – things had heated up between her and Mr S and what she thought was going to be a once-off fling had become a two-month relationship. I will never know how Shatale feels about himself deep in his thinking. He is an adult and one with a lot of responsibility – at any one time he is guiding about twelve hundred pupils into their future. And for this I have nothing but respect for him. But he is ... What is the word in English? He is irritating. Every time I see him I feel like I want to puke, but I still have to listen to him, learn as he is teaching me.