“What the fuck are you saying, Arena?”
We sat across from each other at Bear’s dining table.
“Bear, remember when you asked me to trust you? Because you had a good reason?”
He didn’t answer.
“I need you to trust me, baby. I need to do –”
“You need to go back to him? After what he did, Arena?” He slammed his fist on the table. “Are you fucking mad?”
“– this. Bear, please, I’m not saying goodbye to you. I’m saying…for a while. Trust me. I will explain later.”
He jerked to his feet, knocking the chair back and making me jump.
“I fucking love you. Hear that? I love you. I wanna help you. Do what needs to be done. I know something is up, and I want you to tell me what it is.” He wagged his finger at me. “I will kill for you, Arena. Kill for Warren too. It’s not new to me, baby. You don’t know me. You have no idea who I am. I don’t wanna tell you because I don’t wanna scare you off, don’t wanna lose you. But if you walk out the door, we’re done. Hear me?”
It was so tempting for me to tell him everything, but I worried that he’d go after Tom.
“I need you to trust me, Bear,” I said as I picked up my bag.
Bear looked at me with tears in his eyes. “I gave you everything I could, yet you do this to me, to us, Arena?” He grabbed his keys and stormed out of the apartment.
With a heavy heart, I called a cab and went to the hospital. Kobus was sitting up in bed, looking much better, and I was certain he wasn’t going to die.
“So, tell me more, Kobus,” I said.
He gave me a blank stare. “’Bout…what?”
“Sasha – Tom’s involvement with her death.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he snarled.
His reaction took me by surprise.
“My baby. You said that Tom stole the car with Sasha in it. You said that you helped him.”
Kobus’s eyes bulged with what looked like fear. “Are you fucking high? Get the fuck out of here. I never said those goddamn things.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Yes, you did the other day, Kobus.”
“I must have been drugged and talked shit. None of it was true, okay? None of it. None! Now get the fuck out of here, you cheating whore! I know all about you and your cop boyfriend – the cunt you left Tom for.”
“What?”
He glanced around, then dropped his voice. “And stop talking shit like that. You can’t prove nothin’, you hear?”
I was shaking with fury. “Listen here, you bastard, you told –”
“And leave my goddamn name out of it, or I’ll put a bullet in you, I’m warning you. Tom will have to stand in line to get you.”
So much for going to the cops. They already think I’m nuts because of all the things I said about Tom. Now without Kobus backing up my story, I will come across as a psycho. But he did say those things – about the waterfall at the picnic spot, us dancing in my apartment…
As I stormed out of the hospital, I vowed to kill Kobus one day. How and when I had no idea, I just knew that I would.
****
Fucking Tom was the worst part of this whole Operation Kill Tom. He was my baby’s murderer, my tormentor, the only being who could quietly turn my world into hell. I felt violated when he was inside of me, fought the urge to throw up and even cried at times. I felt like I had taken a thousand steps back, like I was being raped. Pretending it was Bear touching me helped a little. Just a little. “I’m on a mission,” I kept reminding myself. “I have to do what I have to do.”
Tom was on top of the world at our reconciliation, as he called it, and went out of his way to be nice to Warren and me. He bought me a huge diamond ring – five-carat baguettes, gaudy and as ugly as hell. But I accepted it graciously when he presented it to me in front of friends.
To save face, he didn’t outright announce my return to our friends. He just casually dropped something about my return in conversation. One night, eager to see what he was up to, I quietly approached his study and stood outside the closed door, eavesdropping. I overheard a conversation on loudspeaker with Mike Thomas, one of his friends.
Tom: “I’ll have to run it by Arena, Mike.”
Mike: “Oh?” (Confused voice.)
Tom: “She’s asleep now, but I’ll talk to her about it in the morning.” (Casual voice, but making it clear that I am back.)
Mike: “Arena’s asleep? Is she back then?” (Surprised voice.)
Tom: “Oh yeah. Some time now.” (Casual voice.)
Mike: “Oh really? So you’re back together then?” (Prying voice.)
Tom: “Of course. Who can stay away from me, Mike?” (Frivolous and bragging voice, followed with a chuckle.) “She just needed some alone time, and let’s just say…things didn’t go her way. But that’s all water under the bridge, and we have a child so…”
Mike: “That’s pretty big of you, mate. What a stand-up guy you are.”
Tom: “Just doing my best, Mike. Just doing my best. Anyway, she’s nagging me to join in her bed, so I’d better go.”
Smooth – that was Tom.
****
We were in the hot tub and Tom was wasted, courtesy of me. I plied him with whisky, kept topping up his glass without him asking, without him realizing it, until he was staggering.
I liked him drunk, because then he’d have trouble getting it up and of course, he couldn’t fuck me then.
“I can’t believe you’re back,” he said, slipping his fingers into my bikini and trying to finger me, but fumbling. “You like that, huh?”
It felt like he was trying to insert a cactus into me, so no, I did not like it; I hated it.
“I can’t believe I’m back either,” I retorted in a sarcastic voice, then quickly followed it up with, “Feels good to be back.” I kicked my legs and swam away from him. He followed me and turned me around to face him.
“It should,” he said, pulling down my top and exposing my breasts, “because Arena, I’m it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. If you knew what I’m capable of, you would admire me,” he slurred as he squeezed my breast.
“Yeah?”
“Cops, ha! They think they’re smart. Ha! Dumb pieces of shit. Shit! Shit! Shit! I have the ability to outsmart them all. Detectives, cops, you name it. All of them. Seriously. Whole shebang!”
I knew he was having a dig at my darling Bear.
“Oh, c’mon, Tom!” I said in a goading manner. “They found our car with…” I stopped, unable to utter her name in his presence.
“Yeah, eighteen hours later! That long? Eighteen hours, Arena? Give me a break!” His mouth curling with disgust, he released my breasts and moved away from me. “They’re a bunch of morons with their lie detector tests and their interrogations and their investigations…all shiiiit. Stupid pricks. Nobody can outsmart me, Arena. Nobody. Not Tom Botha, businessman extraordinaire!”
Okay, he had passed the lie detector test – had to hand it to him – he’s smart, all right. As I pulled up my top and adjusted my bikini bottom, I cocked my head to one side and squinted at him. “Nobody?”
He threw out his arms and puffed out his chest. “I am brilliant, BABY! Your husband is fucking brill…i…ant! You really have no idea how amazing I am.” He stabbed his chest with his index finger. “I am the real deal. All in one. Me. I am as good as it gets. All these other fuckers who think they can take me…” he fanned the air, “generic.”
I quietly burned while he bragged. He was, after all, talking about how he fooled people over killing his own baby, not how he triumphed in a business deal or something. How could I have married a man with no heart? An animal with no heart?
My eyes fell on the half-empty whisky bottle on the side of the hot tub. Suddenly, I had a fantasy of slamming the whisky bottle against his head, then holding his head under water until he drowned. End of Tom.
I could get away with it. After all, he had copious amounts of alcohol in his system, and in that state he could have fallen, bumped his head and drowned?
I would play the innocent wife. “Yes, officer, I did swim with Tom, yes, but I left the hot tub, took a shower, and went to bed, while he continued drinking in the hot tub. If only I had stayed with him. If only I had stopped him from drinking so much.”
I could do it.
In a trance-like state, I picked up the whisky bottle, my heart thudding. This is how it feels before you kill someone, I thought. Slowly I waded toward Tom, my heart now booming.
“What?” he asked. “What are you up to, Arena?”
Warren’s crying face flashed before me. What would happen to him if I went to jail over Tom’s death?
“I…I…” I looked at the whisky bottle and shook my head hard. “I wanna pour you another drink. Where’s your glass, Tom?”
He held up his hand to stop me. “Got to take it easy on the booze if I don’t want to look like a… gorilla, right?” He meant to say bear, not gorilla.
With something between a grimace and a sneer, I watched him guffaw at his own joke.
Bastard!
“I’m gonna take a shower,” I muttered as I hopped out of the hot tub.
****
A week later, when I dropped off Warren at school, I was handed a letter addressed to Mrs. Arena Botha. Thinking it was a letter from the school, I thanked them and tore it open.
Baby,
I found your letter to me, the one you tore up. I pieced it together and know what you’re up to. Don’t do anything silly. They will get you. I have a better idea. Meet me Wed at Soong’s for a massage. I’ll be waiting for you.
I love you.
xxx
PS: I really really love you.
The letter I wrote to Bear was torn in such tiny pieces – how the hell did he put it together?
“Wow!” I whispered, unable to believe that he took the time to do that. And this “better idea” that he had—what could it be?
For a few moments, I clutched the letter from Bear to my chest, my only line of contact with him.
Thrilled to know that Bear wasn’t mad at me and that he wasn’t rushing to do anything crazy, I waited for Wednesday. Impatiently at that.
Soong threw her arms around me when she saw me, then ushered me into the broom cupboard where my Bear was waiting for me.
We dived into each other’s arms and kissed like crazy before we tore off each other’s clothes.
It felt wonderful to be in his arms again, to feel him that close to me.
I lay on the floor in Bear’s arms as we kissed some more and talked.
“What do you want to do to Tom?” Bear asked.
“Kill him,” I said in a casual voice as I stroked Bear’s face. “Karma is taking too friggin’ long. I can’t wait, Bear. I have to take control of things myself. I have to kill him.”
He nodded as if I had just informed him that I wanted to order a pizza or something.
“We’re gonna kill him, but we’re gonna do it my way.” He then went on to explain.
After he finished, I ran my fingers slowly through my hair, overwhelmed with all that had to be done.
As if reading my mind, Bear said, “I got it covered, baby. Just do as I say and things will happen.”
I looked at him silently.
“Trust me. Please?”
I nodded slowly.
He handed me a packet of pills.
“Headache…?”
“It’s not what it looks like. Pop one of these babies into his drink and he will sleep through the night so soundly, you’ll be able to do what you like to him.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. And when he wakes up in the morning, he’ll act weird and have difficulty remembering things.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, but don’t be tempted to kill him in his sleep or get him to sign anything, okay?”
“Mm, pity.” I pouted.
He smiled, and when he did, he looked so beautiful that my heart leapt and I just had to give him another kiss.
Bear spent some time going over other parts of the plan with me. I made suggestions, gave him details, and eventually, after a lot of hugging and kissing, we tore ourselves out of each other’s arms.