Poison Pen

There was only one black man who owned a winery in South Africa to Samuel's knowledge. The gossip columnist was being as pointed as she was malicious. The De Kocks knew her—Grace Winston. Samuel would have to make a point of finding out from her where she was getting her information and why she was dishing this shit. There usually was an iceberg under the ice cube Grace dropped into her column. Daniel Currie wasn't raising pot or distilling illegal gin. He could barely keep up with the needs of his wine production, especially since he insisted on doing most of it himself and he was increasingly getting crippled by arthritis. But then Samuel had the sinking feeling that the old man might at least be growing pot for personal use to fight the arthritis. But why would that make its way into a Cape Town newspaper's gossip column?

He looked up to say something to Melissa, but she already was retreating into the house behind Koson.

Bitch, he thought. He knew what she was going to be doing and that she and Koson would be at it for some time to come. He felt the anger welling up inside him. It isn't that he wanted her anymore. There was a mean, cold streak that went through his wife that made her superficial beauty all the more repellant to him. She made him feel downright lazy and unambitious. He had grown up with all sorts of plans to build up Marymount, but those interests had been challenged by the sudden deaths of his parents before he was fully prepared to take over the operations and then had been diluted by having discovered his preference for men, first with Daniel Currie and then when he came under the control of his own overseer, Jan Townenaar.

And speaking of Jan Townenaar, there he was, on the hillside above, walking between the rows of wired-up grape vines. He was bare-chested, tanned, and muscular, his torso gleaming in the sunlight from a sheen of sweat. He was a hard worker—just as he was a hard cocksman. He didn't take Sundays off. Samuel heard the sound of a giggle through the open window of the master bedroom above his head. Melissa. Melissa and Koson. Angry and frustrated, he pushed up from the patio chair and started walking into the vineyard, up the hillside, between the rows of vines.

Townenaar watched Samuel as he approached and correctly discerned the intent in the younger man's eyes. The older man had his trousers unzipped and flared and his cock out of them and in his hand before Samuel reached him, went onto his knees, and took Townenaar's cock in his mouth. They were hidden here in the vineyard from every vantage point save the windows on the near façade of the main house's second floor, which included the master bedroom. Samuel didn't care whether he could be seen sucking his overseer's cock from the windows of the master bedroom—in fact, he rather hoped he was being observed.

Townenaar had pressed Samuel onto the ground between the rows of grapevines, onto his back, depleted of his shorts and briefs, and with his legs spread and bent, providing space for Townenaar to sink between his thighs and a welcoming angle for Townenaar to begin to work his cock into Samuel's channel when all hell broke loose in the form of police car sirens.

"What the hell?" Samuel cried out as he rose from under Townenaar and both men stood and grabbed for their trousers. Samuel instinctively looked up at the windows of the master bedroom, where Melissa appeared, her breasts exposed. She looked out toward the road up the hill, which she could see and could be seen from where Samuel stood. Her eyes were wide with something that wasn't the concern it should have been, but she only was at the window briefly. Two dark-brown hands came around her chest, fanned out over her breasts, and pulled her away from the window and back into the interior of the bedroom.

"Sounds like police," Townenaar muttered. "Coming here?" He said it like he had half a thought that the police were coming for him, and, indeed, he brawled enough in the bars down in Overberg that that possibility wasn't out of the question.

That was Samuel's immediate question too, but by the time he had formed an opinion to voice, the sound of the sirens had moved on up the hill. He wanted to go find out where they'd gone—there was only one place they could have gone if not here and that was BeauView Winery—but Townenaar was still hard and throbbing. He pulled Samuel back down to the ground, on his back, and slapped the younger man's legs apart. Neither of them had pulled his trousers back on. Samuel cried out, arched his back, and rolled his pelvis up, as Townenaar forced his knees under Samuel's buttocks, grabbed Samuel's wrists and forced the younger man's arms over his head, hovered over Samuel's torso, thrust inside Samuel's channel with his hard, thick cock, and began to pump. Groaning and moaning, Samuel turned his cheek to the side, let his tongue hang out, and took the hard, rough thrusts of the older man's cock. He had asked for this.

When Samuel had been able to disengage from his overseer and had driven up to the top of the hill, he found policemen searching for some evidence of drugs or an illegal still. Samuel wasn't worried that they'd find anything, but he was concerned to learn that Daniel Currie had been taken down to Overberg for questioning. He went back to his car and called his lawyer in Overberg.

"You want me to go to the station and represent Daniel Currie?" the lawyer asked, his voice laced with disbelief. "Rumors had it you were trying to get him off that land and get it yourself."

"Fuck the rumors," Samuel said. "I didn't start them. His family and mine have been close for centuries. I don't think the police have anything on Daniel. See if you can spring him loose. And even if they find something, I'm good for his bail."

Getting in his car, he drove back down the hill. He didn't stop at Marymount; he continued driving all the way to Cape Town and to the offices of the Daily Sun, where he tracked down the gossip columnist, Grace Winston.

"I got the information from several sources," she said. "I wouldn't have printed it if it was just from one source. Running rumor is what the column is all about, though, Sam. Besides, from what Melissa tells me, you'd be happy to see that man go—that you want his winery."

Melissa.

"Did any of the rumors reach you by mail, Grace?"

"Yes, of course."

"From Melissa?"

"No. Melissa and I talk. We don't send letters to each other."

"Any of the rumors come on lavender—lavender stationery in a lavender envelope."

"Yes, the first one did—an anonymous source."

Melissa.

Samuel drove back to Overberg, at breakneck speed, and to the police station there. Daniel had already been sent home. They hadn't found anything incriminating at his place and Samuel's lawyer had done his work.

"How did you know to get a search warrant on his place?" Samuel asked the chief inspector. "It couldn't just been from a rumor in the newspaper."

"We received several letters too," the policeman answered.

"Anonymous?"

"Some; not all. But enough that we couldn't just ignore them."

"Because he's not white?" Samuel asked.

"Enough not to ignore no matter what color he is," the answer came back somewhat belligerently. "Here. Here's a stack of the letters."

Three of them were on lavender stationery, anonymously sent. Melissa. The others used the same phrasing that the lavender stationery notes used. It was a vicious circle of gossip and innuendo.

Samuel hauled ass back up to BeauView Winery. He found Daniel sitting, his stance dejected, amid a living room that had been torn apart in the search.

"I'm sorry, Daniel. This shouldn't have happened. I didn't want this to happen." Samuel sank down on his knees beside Daniel. The consolation moved to embracing, and then to kissing. Samuel unzipped Daniel's trousers and took possession of the older man's cock, first with a hand and then with his mouth. They both heated up, which led to Samuel sitting in Daniel's lap, impaled on his cock and riding the older man to a mutual ejaculation.

Afterward, while Daniel went flaccid inside Samuel's channel, they cuddled and murmured to each other.

"I didn't want this to happen," Samuel repeated.

"It might be for the best," Daniel answered. "I have been thinking of leaving here anyway. I can't get the vines to give better grapes here no matter what I've tried."

"What do you mean?" Samuel asked. "You have the best grapes in the country. Your wine is the best."

"Not because of these grapes," Daniel said. "These grapes are good, yes. But they are the same as your grapes. They could be even better. They are better grown somewhere else. The wine of mine that gets top awards doesn't come from these grapes. Those grapes come from my other fields."

"Your other fields?"

"Yes, this is only a small part of what I use to produce BeauView wines. I have raised the better grapes off the West Coast Road, by the Atlantic, on the Darling Wine Route, between the towns of Yzerfontein and Malmsbury. I have more extensive fields and better facilities there than here. I live here mainly because this has been the family holding for so long. I don't tell anyone I'm producing there, of course. It's hard enough for a black man to claim owning fields this size. I would receive even more trouble than I do now if it was known how extensive my holdings were."

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were having trouble. And I'm only now finding out how much of that trouble is being generated by me."

Melissa.

* * * *

Samuel left the top of the hill determined to put a stop to this persecution and poison pen campaign against his old family friend, Daniel Currie. He was particularly mortified because at the base of it was an effort to wrest Currie's vineyard away from him so that Samuel could have it—or Samuel and Melissa, and maybe eventually just Melissa. He had been such a sluggard, letting Melissa take over so much—too much.

He had to plan some way to make it stop. In the event, though, he almost was too late to stop it. He made a plan and started preparations for it, but Melissa made her next move too quickly for him. It was less than a week after that and it unfolded in a bar down in Overberg, where both Samuel and Jan Townenaar coincidentally were having a drink, Samuel after one of several trips to his lawyer and the bank and Townenaar while in town for supplies.

All were boisterous and the liquor was free flowing, as those in the bar were watching a rugby match on the television. All slowly went quiet, though, as their attention was drawn to the entrance to the bar where a disheveled and bruised Melissa de Kock stood—or, rather staggered until someone near her moved to her to help her stand. Her hair was a mess—something that no one anywhere had seen in Melissa's appearance before—and her dress was torn, one breast nearly exposed. The silence in the room was quickly replaced by gasps and questioning exclamations.

"Daniel Currie. Daniel assaulted me. Over by the church. Tried to drag me into the graveyard. I barely fought him off," she gasped. Both Samuel and Townenaar immediately went to her.

The gasps increased and the exclamations surging around the room turned murderous. A black assaulting a white woman. It hadn't been that long since that was a lynching offense in South Africa. And dragging her onto the church grounds, into the cemetery—a prominent white woman; a young beauty.

Townenaar's voice lifted out over all the others. "Come on, boys. Let's us find some rope and this fucker and do him!"

As he spoke, Samuel—and only Samuel—caught Melissa's eye. A sly little smile floated across her face. He would have known anyway that Daniel could not have done this—he was crippled up, barely able to move; he rarely left the hilltop vineyard; and he had no sexual interest in women—certainly not in Melissa, whose nature and ambition he'd warned Samuel about for years. Of course Melissa had orchestrated this. The poison pen letters weren't acting fast enough. The horror for Samuel, though, was that she obviously knew of the relationship between Samuel and Daniel and she was twisting the knife. Her private smile was for him and was one of triumph.

"Wait, Jan. That's not the way," Samuel cried out over the crowd. "Let's not get anyone else in trouble over this. Yes, guys, prepare yourselves. But, Jan, go to the police station. Get the proper warrant and police backup. Leave Daniel to me for now. I'll go up there and make sure he's there when the police arrive. It's my right. What man here will say it's not my right to be there first?" He stood, facing them all down—but not before giving Melissa a look of hatred and knowledge that made her turn her face away—that ended whatever they once had forever. He took a stance that faced down all of them, including Jan. It was a man's world here. They understood and accepted his prerogative.

As he raced for his car, Townenaar and some other men headed for the police station.

It took less than an hour for the police to obtain the arrest warrant and to head for the BeauView Winery, with a cavalcade of cars following them. But they'd barely reached the Marymount Winery on their way to the hilltop when they heard the explosion.

When they arrived, the rambling wooden shack that Daniel Currier called home was engulfed in flames, the oil tank leaning against it finally having exploded. Currier's old Renault was there, close to the house, also in flames and still in the drive, impeding the arrival of the police cars—and, ultimately, the fire trucks—was Samuel's BMW convertible, the driver's door still open, but the ignition key gone so that it became a problem to move the car out of the drive.

Hours later, the fire settled down to not much more than ash and with little left of the smoldering wreckage, the fire chief came over to Melissa de Kock.

"Tomorrow, when the fire is completely out, we will see if we can find the bodies."

"No need," Melissa answered. "Just bulldoze the whole place into that empty swimming pool over there and write up a report that declares them both dead. We'll fill in the pool as a grave for both of them."

This was working out better than she'd ever imagined it would. She had done her research. The granting of this land to the Curries by the De Kocks long ago had included the stipulation that if the Currie line died out, which, with Daniel, it did, the land reverted to the De Kocks. And with Samuel dead as well, the De Kock holdings reverted to Melissa. She didn't need bodies to be recovered. She only needed death certificates to be issued. Certificates would come quicker if they didn't have to sift through the ash for evidence of bodies.

* * * *

Weeks later, at the larger Currie vineyard on the west coast, in the Darling wine country, a vineyard registered in Daniel Currie's other, Zulu, name of Bandile Diamini, Bandile looked up from where he was sitting and sipping wine on the patio of his vineyard home to watch the man once known as Samuel de Kock drive up. Samuel exited the Land Rover Diamini had bought weeks earlier and parked at the foot of the other side of the hill from the drive up to the BeauView Winery.

"All done?" Diamini asked as the younger man walked to him and settled, with a sigh, in the chair beside him.

"Yep, all new documentation. I'm Scott Easton now. Recently arrived from the States. All the money I took out of the Overberg De Kock accounts and from the remortgaging of Marymount Winery is also deposited in the Easton name. I'd sorely like to see Melissa's face when she finds out the assets have been wiped out. We'll have to get this place a name, though, so we can start bottling its wine in some other name than BeauView. Good thing you never attached that name to these fields."

"Can that wait a day or two?" Bandile asked. "I feel like celebrating our freedom at this moment."

"Sure. And how would you—?"

"You know how I'd like to celebrate. Shall we go inside?"

"Yes. I can't think of anything I'd like to do more."