her father’s promises. “I am going to take you to the University of the North,” he told her. Which became, “I didn’t save enough, but let me talk to people . . .” at the beginning of the following year.
Pretty got a job in a supermarket. She didn’t like it, but she thought that if she worked there for a year or two she would save enough money to take herself to university. That thought gave her the strength to wake up every morning and go to work, but saving money was more difficult than she had thought it would be, and she soon discovered that the way she was living didn’t allow her to save.
One afternoon, when she was working, Sport came to the outlet because he had heard some people talking of her beauty. He had asked that they show him what they were talking about, but they had refused. “There is no need for that,” one of them told him. “Just go in there and walk around, if she is on duty you won’t miss her.”
Sure enough he didn’t miss her, and for the first time in his life Sport did not know how to conduct himself in front of a woman.
It was later, during her lunch break, that he approached her. She was window-shopping, unaware that Sport was following her in his sports car, a GT. I have seen beautiful women, but none have scared me as this little girl does, he said to himself, shaking his head.
When Pretty went into a shop, Sport parked his car and followed her. Inside he greeted her humbly: “Hello.”
She acknowledged him with a gesture.
“My boss sent me to tell you that you can have anything you want.”
“And where is your boss?” she responded, smiling.
“You will see him. He is waiting outside.”
“I don’t want anything, I am just looking,” she replied. “Tell your boss that I said ‘thank you’.”
“Then I say, on his behalf, that you can take anything you want, anything you want even if you don’t want it . . . Take it for your cousins.”
Slowly he persuaded her, and eventually he bought her a very expensive pair of shoes, a leather jacket, a pair of jeans, a shirt and some cologne.
They were laughing when they left the shop. “I was instructed to drive you home safely,” he said.
“By your boss, I guess,” Pretty said.
“You guessed right.”
And that was how Sport bought his way into Pretty’s heart.
There was nothing wrong with Sport. He seemed to be a sweet man who liked the finer things in life. Pretty never asked how he earned his money, she just accepted whatever he presented of himself, but Sport asked her all about her life and it puzzled him that she never asked about his. “I have asked you nearly everything about your life,” he said one day when they were together, “but you have never asked me anything about mine.”
“I think it is a good thing not to know too much,” Pretty said. “I just accept things as they are, at face value. Don’t you think that’s for the best?”
“No.”
“Well, I think that it is. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. This way, at least, I don’t know that I’m being lied to.”
“You didn’t lie to me, did you?”
“No, but there are questions that I would advise you not to ask.”
But after using and abusing her for a couple of months, Sport found himself unable to do anything without having her by his side. “Where is your boyfriend?” he eventually asked.
“Finally,” she said, smiling at him. “Finally you ask ‘the question’. But, now, I don’t know whether to lie to you or tell you the truth. Which do you want me to do?”
“Lie.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“And what am I?”
“You said lie, and I lied.”
Sport looked into the distance as if he was calculating something. “The truth then, Pretty,” he finally said. “Where is your boyfriend?”
“You mean my boyfriends.”
The answer didn’t surprise him; somehow he had always known that she had more than one, but the honesty of her answer made him love her more than ever.
“How many do you have?” he asked.
“I have lost count; they come, they go.” She smiled. “But do you really want to know?” she asked, the tone of her voice changing. “Do you really want to know? I don’t want to lie to you, so if you don’t want to know, please don’t ask.”
“Do you love your boyfriends?” he asked.
“I have sex with them, if that is where you are going with this.” She smiled and gave a laugh that aroused his soul. “But why are you so interested in my private life today? Because, let me tell you, Sport, I don’t like to reflect on what I am. I don’t like what I am. It is not what I want to be.”
While she had been speaking she had changed; her eyes had turned red and her voice had become angry. “You can use me as you want,” she continued, “but please don’t stir me up.” She stopped as tears filled her eyes. “Don’t touch my heart.”
“I wasn’t stirring,” Sport protested. “I just wanted to understand why a beautiful, intelligent girl is stuck like you are.”
By now the tears were flowing out of her eyes, and she opened the door to get out of the car. “Bitch, what do you think you are doing?” he said, intending to scare her, but immediately he felt ashamed.
“Yes, say that again,” she said, stopping to look at him, half in and half out of the car. “Say it again. Say it. Use me like all the other bitches you have used. Don’t come here pretending that you want anything more than what you really want. And don’t blame me when I give it to you.” Her voice, though calm, held a violence that scared him.
They looked at each for a moment, then she wiped away her tears. “You are not the first one to buy me expensive shoes,” she said. “You are not the first one to buy me cologne. Men have bought me things all my life, and you know what the funny thing is? I have never asked them for anything. No. They just buy me things, like you did. They just do it.” She paused to catch her breath. “You all make up stories,” she continued. “‘My boss this . . .’, ‘My boss that . . .’ I always say ‘no’, but they buy me things anyway, just like you did. And, somehow, I have learned to love the fact that they buy me things, because deep down I know that they don’t care. After they ejaculate they will move on to someone else, and there will be somebody else for me too. I don’t like it, but I didn’t choose it either.”
“Is that what you think of me?” Sport asked.
“That is what I know about men,” she replied, “and you are a man as I am a woman.”
“Pretty, I want to help you.”
“You
