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P • A • L • E • S • A
She could not quite understand what had just happened to her.
She woke up with this huge headache and this abnormal pain by her lower part and she felt this huge urge to fall right back to sleep. She tried calling for the girls but as minutes passed and her soft voice kept calling out names, she realised no one was home. She gathered all the strength she had and decided to pull herself out of bed.
It was as if everything was a bad dream. One very unusual dream. She couldn't understand what had happened to her but she sure knew and remembered every single tiny detail of it. She let out a mini scream as she stood up, feeling the pain worsen but decided to fight through it and continued walking.
She made it into the living room and saw Mpho's little note laying on the table. She said she would be back by 10pm and it was already 4am in the morning. Palesa sat down and switched on the tv, to try get her mind off of things. She clearly did not want to accept what had happened to her and needed to do anything at all to keep her mind off of it.
She kept her focus on the TV until a knock was heard, startling her. She had this great sense of fear as she didn't understand who would come knocking on a door at 4am. "Who is it?" She called out. There was this silence and it was in this moment that Palesa saw that the door was actually unlocked. Her heart beat increased as none of them ever left the door unlocked. They all had their keys and they would always, I mean always make sure the door was locked.
She wanted to run back to her room to fetch her own keys to lock the door but her body was in too much pain and it was already too late. The door opened, revealing a man that looked like he was in his early thirties. He looked like a mess, like something had happened that had kept him up all this time. "Who are you?" she asked, deciding to keep calm. The man looked at her, almost confused and Palesa still didn't dare move a single bone in her.
"I-I'm looking for Mpho. Mpho Dikana," he said, almost sounding out of breath. Palesa stood, staring at him. She decided he was of no danger and was simply just looking for her friend. "She went out, left a note saying she would be back by ten but hasn't returned ever since then," she responded. The man looked at her, almost like he wanted more but there wasn't anything else Palesa could tell him. "Didn't say where she would be going," Palesa added.
The man continued staring at her for a while and turned and walked off, leaving the door wide open. Palesa wasted no time and hurried off to her room, fetching the keys. She realised she made a mistake by not finding out who the man was before giving him details like that but trusted he was a genuine client of Mpho. After locking the door, she sat on the couch and continued watching TV.
Her body was surprisingly getting better in a short space of time which she found weird. Anyone would want answers if something like that happened to them. They would share it with other people, try to make sense of it but she wasn't going to do any of that. She was a bag chaser, always been about her money. If it took her silence to be fed and clothed, she decided she would do just that - be silent.
* * * Several Hours Later
"You're fifteen minutes late," her boss said, standing by the door. Palesa swallowed the huge lump in her throat and continued combing her hair, deciding to ignore her boss. She has been in many situations like this and she knew the less she talked, the less the punishment would be. It was how he operated. "You'll come by my office after your shift, you dare forget I will make sure I come to your place," he said before turning and walking off.
Palesa made the mental note and continued, slipping her stilettos on. This was the very first time she hasn't practiced for her shift but she still knew and remembered her moves. She would obviously change a couple of things from her previous dance but she knew she was good to go. She heard the cheers of people as a fellow stripper was doing what she does best on the stage and she smiled, remembering that this was indeed her happy place. The only place that mattered and the only place that will forever matter.
The cheers continued as her name was mentioned and she got on stage, prepared to do what she also does best. Everything was going well. She was moving her body, her hips, her legs, arms in all the right directions until she saw him at the far end of the club. It was in this moment that a place that had made her the happiest was now tainted with something horrible.
Something just as bad as getting raped, murdered. Something that was filled with the same evil. "Lativa," she finally heard her name. At the side of the stage, stood her colleague, worried for her. The cheers had now stopped, the music still blasting and Palesa - standing there frozen in her shock. He was doing nothing but staring. Looking at her relive that night, that serpent -
"Lativa!!" Her boss called out. She looked at him with nothing but disgust. For the first time she felt no fear, no obligation to listen to anything that came out of his mouth. For the first time she saw a rapist. A man exerting his anger towards his employees through nothing else but rape. Constant rape justified with punishment. She looked at Banzi one more time before running off the stage. She needed to leave, needed to go somewhere that would give her peace, give her the same happiness this place used to give her but where would that be?
Where would she go?
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