way.”
Everyone looks at me, then pack up laughing.
“You’ve never fired before?” Tarago asks an incredulous look on his face.
“No.”
“If you live with me, you have to know how to use a weapon.”
“Mff.”
“Or you can be dumped into the pool. You choose.”
He stands up and starts moving his feet like a bull does before it charges.
“Tarago, stop!” I say.
He puts his fingers to his head to form horns and continues working his feet like bull.
I look at the pool, then look at him.
“Okay fine!” I snap.
He stops and returns to gun cleaning.
Grudgingly, I have to admit, I have fun at the gun range. Tarago stands behind me, helps me aim, corrects my stance and makes me fire. I feel powerful as I hit the target – what a rush.
He gets me to fire a 9mm, a shotgun and a revolver. Teaches me how to cock to, about recoil and firing stance, about gun safety...
“You don’t have to be afraid of a gun,” he explains. “Be afraid of the person holding it.”
“Like you?”
With a short laugh, he kisses the back of my neck and presses his hips into my butt. “Ja,” he whispers, running his hand around me and squeezing my boobs, “always be afraid of me. I’m a bastard.”
“Oh, I could tell you that,” I say, pushing him off me. “Careful, someone might see you trying to fuck a chick that’s not white.”
To my disappointment, he actually looks around and drops his arms.
What a bastard. What a racist bastard.
But in the end, I won’t forget the rush I got when I fired those weapons.
****
I see my family every Sunday afternoon from 10 AM till 9 PM. I take my mother shopping, pick up my gran from her nursing home to spend the day with us, have dinner with the family, then drop off my gran again at the nursing home and head back to my tormentor’s home in Clifton.
I look forward to my mother’s home cooked meals of curry and rice and pickles and all things Indian. I miss all of it so much, that I dive into her pots the moment I arrive home.
My mother, for the first time in months looks healthy – courtesy of the regular treatment she is getting. Her face is not puffy and she has energy. That makes me believe that all that I go through at Clifton Manor is worth it.
Ralph my brother studying criminal law and Sergie my brother studying telecommunications technology, are doing well with their studies and are thrilled to see me.
My sisters are getting good grades so I can’t complain about much, even their short skirts.
When I see how happy and relaxed they all are, I feel that I did the right thing by accepting my tormentor’s fucked up proposal.
My uncle Anand, who is my father’s brother, and his wife, Aunt Saras, who is my mother’s younger sister, usually visit every Sunday afternoon mainly to see me.
Uncle Anand became a father-figure when my father was thrown in prison. He and Aunt Saras has been our family’s mainstay and we do very little without consulting them first.
Uncle Anand hates Whites with a passion and is very vocal about it.
Today, at the dinner table, he scoffs at the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize was given to both de Klerk and Mandela. Then he scoffs at the fact that my employer is white. Then he scoffs at, well everything concerning the white man. His bitterness knows no bounds.
As he speaks, my brothers and sisters hang on to his every word.
“Enough politics,” Aunt Saras says with a smile and turns to me. “How are things going at work?”
“Not bad,” I say.
They go on to ask questions about my life and my boss. My answers are short and vague.
I don’t tell them about obnoxious Tarago who visits almost every night and about his voracious sexual appetite.
I don’t tell them that when Tarago fucks me at night, I pretend it’s Ashwin grunting on top of me.
I don’t tell them about how I am the butt of all jokes all the times by the whites.
I don’t tell them that the people who treat me with utter disrespect because of my