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I had a day to kill in Jo’burg before going to Pretoria to write my exams. I was saturated with studying, and figured if I didn’t know enough now it was too late anyway. I was staying with Boris, and he’d gone off to work. I decided to see a movie. They were showing Apocalypse Now at the Mini-Cine in Hillbrow. I’d seen it before, but I’d been tripping on acid, so I decided it might be good to see it relatively straight. It’d probably be a completely different film. It started at seven in the evening, so I went for a few beers first and then smoked a joint while wandering the streets.

There weren’t very many people in the cinema, so I had a choice of seats. I grabbed a seat right in the middle of the cinema, poured the two miniatures of vodka I had found in my pocket into the Coke I’d bought, and sat back to enjoy the film. There was a girl sitting two rows in front of me and just off to one side. As the movie started she smiled at me. I waved back, and then I was immersed in the film. When Martin Sheen was being briefed on his mission I noticed the girl looking at me. All I could see of her was her face, which looked quite attractive in the dim flickering light from the screen, framed by long dark hair. Her chin rested on the chair-back, and she appeared to be fluttering her eyelashes at me. I looked away, and she turned back to the film. When the bit with the helicopters taking the cavalry surfing was on, she turned round again. There was no doubt about it now, either she was in R.E.M. sleep with her eyes open, or she was flashing her lashes at me. I turned round to make sure she wasn’t looking at anyone behind me, but there was just some old guy slumped fast asleep in his chair a few rows behind me. I turned back towards her , and she winked at me. I grabbed my drink off the floor and went and sat next to her. She jumped up and went and sat two rows behind me, almost where I had been sitting. Either she had a serious twitch or she was a cock-teaser. I went back to the movie, but all the way through I could feel her looking at me.

After the film, she was standing outside the cinema entrance. Apart from a slight pot belly she was quite attractive, dressed in black jeans and a striped blouse. I went up to her.

"Enjoy the film?” I asked.

"It was OK A bit violent. And you?”

"I’ve seen it before. I thought it was great”, I answered. She had a slight foreign accent, though I couldn’t place it. "Do you fancy a drink?”, I asked.

"No thanks. I’ve got to get home”, she replied.

"Where do you live?” I asked her. This seemed to make her slightly nervous.

"Why do you want to know?” she enquired, scratching a spot on her chin. A passer-by knocked me back against the door. I stuck my foot out to trip him up, but missed.

"Sorry. I was just making conversation.”, I said to the girl, "See you around..” I wasn’t getting anywhere, and she seemed a bit weird. I don’t mind weird women, but I wasn’t going to play silly games. I walked away towards Mi-vami for something to eat.

"Wait”, she called after me. I stopped and she walked up to me, touched me on the arm. "Have you got a car?”

"No”, I answered, “I’m staying at a friend's in Yeoville. I walked here.”

"Would you mind walking me home? It’s a bit dangerous walking around here at night, alone.”

"Where do you live?’ I asked for the second time. She laughed. Her front teeth were a bit crooked.

"Near Joubert Park..”

I agreed to walk her home. How she knew I wasn’t a psychotic rapist, I don’t know. We walked off down Twist St., turned right along Wolmarans, onto Klein St and walked round the back of a large block of flats on the corner of Kok St. The whole way she was telling me about her mother who lived in Cape Town and bred Dalmatians. We walked in an entrance and she pressed the lift button. She didn’t say anything , so I got in the lift with her and we got out on the third floor.

Her flat smelled awful, a musty shit smell. We went through a small hallway into what was basically a bed-sit. When she put the light on I could see where the smell came from. There were two large cages full of white mice.

"My babies”, she said, giggling softly. There was a bed set up right next to and level with the window, looking out over the park. There were no curtains, just a Venetian blind, which was raised. I sat down on the bed as she went and put the kettle on in a minute kitchenette adjoining the room. There was hardly any furniture - just the bed, an old wooden cupboard and a small round table with a lamp on it. There were no pictures on the walls, which looked like they’d recently been painted beige. She opened both the cages, and soon about thirty white mice were scurrying all over the place. She picked one up and came and sat next to me.

"This is Maxi”, she said, putting the mouse on the front of my shirt. A little pink nose with twitching whiskers, pink eyes looking at me. Its claws dug into my skin through my shirt.

"How can you tell?”, I asked, a bit uncomfortable to be surrounded by rodents. I could feel one climbing up my leg.

"Oh, they’ve all got names”, she said, "I can tell them all apart".

Well, they looked like clones to me. In the light of the bare bulb I took a closer look at her. She was quite attractive, about twenty five or so, a faint growth of wispy black hair on her top lip. I could not decide if I really wanted to be there. She pulled the mouse off me, put it on the floor with the others, and grabbed my crotch.

"You’re a bit shy, aren’t you”, she said, squeezing my cock.

"Yes, a bit”, I said, reaching for one of her breasts. She didn’t have a bra on. I opened a few buttons and slid my hand inside her shirt. Her breast was full and firm. We kissed, and then we were ripping each other's clothes off. Her body was beautiful, in spite of the pot belly. Her pussy was shaved. She slid along the bed and pulled me on top of her.

"I’ve got a tight pussy, haven’t I?”, she enquired as I entered her. She certainly did. I almost came immediately, but she sensed it, arched her back away from me. "Slowly”, she said, “We’ve got all night.” She certainly knew how to fuck. Every time I was going to come, she stopped me. After a while it wasn’t so difficult because the mice were finding their way onto the bed, and sharp little claws kept digging into various parts of my body. It was a strange mingling of sensations; her fingernails were scraping along my back, and it was difficult to tell sometimes what was her and what was the mice. One of them started investigating my bum, and I was hard pushed not to grab it and hurl it against the wall. I clenched my buttocks and trapped its head. It clawed frantically at my bum, and scampered off when I released it. I was glad she didn’t keep ferrets. She picked a mouse up and kissed it as she moaned softly, moving slowly beneath me. Then she started crying out, thrusting up against me, and I came. The fucking mice were all over me now, and I had to leap of her and stand up, three mice falling off me. I nearly stood on one, but felt it beneath my bare foot just in time. She smiled at me, then reached under the bed and pulled out a telephone, put it on the bed and dialled a number. It was all getting a bit strange for me.

"Put the kettle on”, she said.

I walked over to the kitchenette and put the kettle on. There were already two cups there with coffee and sugar in - the coffee we’d never got round to when we’d first arrived. She was talking to her mother on the telephone. They appeared to be talking about me.

"He’s quite cute, really”, she said, and then “Don’t worry, I’m always careful.’ I found that a bit hard to believe. There was a saucepan on the stove with some cold red slime in it, congealing. Thoughts of Jerry Dammers entered my mind. Maybe she was a cannibal. I sniffed the slime, but all I could smell was tomato. A Far Side postcard was stuck on the ‘fridge. All there was inside the ‘fridge was a bottle of milk. I took it out and put some in the coffees. “Anyway, Mum, I’ve got to go now, I’ll call you tomorrow”, I heard her saying as I stirred.

I went over with the coffee, gave her a cup. She put it on the floor and started collecting the mice, putting them back in the cages. They’d got everywhere; I’m sure there must have been some missing. In a moment of paranoia, I looked around for hidden cameras, imagining I’d just starred in some bizarre porno movie for people with rodent fetishes. I could imagine some pervert whacking off as I clenched a squealing mouse in my buttocks.

She came and sat next to me. I suddenly realised that anyone in the park would have been able to see the entire performance. As we sat drinking the coffee she told me that she bred the mice to sell to pet shops. She’d only been in Jo’burg a few weeks and didn’t know anyone. She said she hadn’t had sex for three months and she’d gone to Hillbrow specifically to get laid, but had chickened out and gone to the movies instead. We talked for an hour or so, then she wanted to fuck again - thankfully this time without the mice.

Afterwards, as I got dressed, she asked me if I would come and see her again. I said I would, but that it would be a few weeks as I was leaving town that day. I kissed her goodbye and left. It was getting light outside. I was writing my first exam at two o’ clock that afternoon.

As I walked back to Boris’s, I realised that I did not even know her name. Somehow we’d never got around to introducing ourselves. The whole thing had been one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Two weeks later, I was back in Jo’burg, and I went round to see her. I couldn’t find the block of flats where she lived. I know Jo’burg pretty well, but her flat just wasn’t where I had thought it was. I spent an hour or so combing the area, tried Leyds and Koch streets, but the flats had vanished. Sometimes I wonder if I imagined the whole thing. Sometimes I’m glad I never found her again. One thing for sure, I’m not too keen on rodents anymore.