Getting drunk all over again when you are already halfway sober is a very different experience to getting drunk from scratch. I’d forgotten that. It is a slow, golden build-up, like your second orgasm of the day. The first one might have been fast and urgent—nought to a hundred in ten seconds—but the second is more intense. The first is upon you so quickly, you’re almost numb from the sensations slamming into you. The second is more satisfying.

I share this insight with Moira, and she tells me I really need to get laid.

At that exact moment, my phone starts buzzing with replies. This strikes me as so apt as to be heaven-sent. I repeat “heaven-sent” to myself and guffaw.

These are the messages I get from men in response to my Cinder profile.

You look like a bad bitch. How much cock can you take? If you can take it, I can give it to you.

Aww . . . uv had a bad experince? Stop whining or I’ll shut your rmouth with my dik

Do you like to take it in the ass? In ur profile pic you look like some1 is giving it to you in the ass. Wish it was me.

u whining cunts are all the same. Whine whine whine. Shut the fuck up bitch.

Do you know what will help you get over your bad experience? Riding my dick.

Did some man dump yo ugly ass? I don’t blame him cos u ugly as fuck.

You need to be raped bitch. But noone wud rape you becos you so ugly.

Shut up, bitch. Noone wants to listen to your whining.

You’re just a dumb bitch who deserved a bad experience.

Moira starts reading the replies out loud, but stops after a few words.

“Never mind. You don’t want to hear this. I’ll delete them.”

“No, give it here. I want to know what they say.”

“No.” She lifts the phone above her head and pulls away from me.

I watch her for a moment, measuring the distance between us. I am drunker than she is, but I have the element of surprise on my side.

Lulled by my passivity, she lowers the phone.

I pounce.

“Jesus! Get off me.”

I have the phone in my hand. I run into the bathroom and lock myself in, so I can read in peace.

CHAPTER 9

Good news! The police have caught one of my rapists—the ringleader. They received a tip-off from a community leader in Khayelitsha. Apparently, someone had been going around the taverns boasting about how he was responsible for a high-profile rape that had been turned into a book. There were rumours that the book was going to be made into a movie with Jeremy Irons in the role of my father, and Rachel McAdams playing me.