A Woman's Essence: 1

By Thokozani Magagula

When the beautiful, vivacious Grace Nkosi meets the unassuming Nash Nemutandani, she quickly writes him off as undeserving of her time and affections, until she discovers he is wealthy beyond measure. A whirlwind romance ensues and soon Grace moves in with Nash in his mansion in Sandton.
Shopping sprees at exclusive boutiques, excursions to the far-flung Dubai and other exotic holiday destinations are now as simple as ordering pizza for Grace, and she is milking it for all it is worth. But what is supposed to be a forever-after love story soon turns into a living nightmare when she discovers the real source of Nash's wealth, and that the life of plenty she is living comes at a prize, and it is one that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
Based on a true story, A Woman's Essence isn't another 'reformed Slay Queen's Story'. Journalist turned publisher Thokozani Magagula explains: "Grace's story was an explosive, harrowing expose on some of Johannesburg's rich and famous. It was a story no journalist would touch, a bombshell no editor would dare publish. Until now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HELP U PUBLISH AFRIKA
• Release date: Mar 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393659433

Thokozani Magagula

Thokozani Magagula began his writing career in 1999, as a freelance reporter for the community-based Newcastle Advertiser, in Newcastle, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. In 2001 he moved to Middelburg, Mpumalanga, and joined the Middelburg News Edition. After a two-year stint with the rag, he was snatched up by the Caxton-owned Middelburg Observer. Working for the Observer granted Thokozani the opportunity to also contribute to Caxton-owned titles, amongst them The Daller, The Citizen and Mpumalanga Mirror, in the process giving him provincial and national exposure. In 2006, Thokozani joined Media-24 tabloid Daily Sun, as Mpumalanga province correspondent. A year later he was hired as regional editor in charge of a team of right journalists, a position he held for 10 years. Thokozani has published a book titled Out Of The Ashes, which tells the story of presidential hopeful Yvonne Ntshangase's battle with her past of having been raped as a teenage freedom fighter, at an exile camp in Angola. He has also been listed amongst the 30 Africa Book Club writers whose work will be published in an anthology later this month. Emmah Theron is Thokozani's third full-length novel.

Book preview

A Woman's Essence

1

Thokozani Magagula

Published by HELP U PUBLISH AFRIKA, 2021.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

A WOMAN'S ESSENCE

First edition. March 27, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 Thokozani Magagula.

Written by Thokozani Magagula.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

A Woman's Essence (1)

A Woman’s Essence: The Origins

––––––––

It was in March 2017 when I received this frantic call from a lady, who begged that I come to Witbank, in Mpumalanga, South Africa, to do a story about her and her wealthy ex, who has now dumped and left her in the lurch.

Please, you have to put the story in your newspaper, she implored. We have to warn every woman out there about my ex and other evil men like him. They are out there. They have to be stopped.

At the time, I was working as Mpumalanga bureau chief for South Africa's biggest newspaper, the Daily Sun, and of course, I quickly wrote off the woman's story as the rant of a bitter ex. The story would be ripped to shreds within seconds at the morning story conference.

But two days later she called again, her plea even more passionate.

My ex is well-known and acts like a saint, but he destroys lives, she cried. At least come and hear my story, and if you still decide not to publish it, I will understand. You are my last hope.

So I went, and the first few minutes of the interview were as can be expected. She was a bitter ex who had been cut off from a big girlfriend allowance, shopping sprees and exotic excursions.

My ex is very wealthy, but he does not work hard for his money, she said. In fact, he doesn't do any work. The women in his life do, without them even knowing they are the ones who bring in the money. All his exes. We bring in the money, and every year he gets another woman, and the same vicious circle carries on. He is one of a growing number of men who take women to an inyanga in Zimbabwe, where rituals are performed under the pretense that the ancestors are binding us as a couple for life. In truth, what they do in that sick, twisted ritual is to steal a woman's essence, and put it in the men, so they would be unstoppable in business dealings.

I was confused, so she explained further: You do know that a man would do anything to please a woman, right? Wars have been waged the world over, because of a woman. Right now, as we speak, there are men risking their lives in the bowels of the earth, digging for gold and diamonds, so that they would come out and impress a woman. That is the essence of a woman. Her core. Her aura. It makes men go crazy, perform the impossible. Worse if the woman has the beauty of a goddess. These are the women these men target. Their essence, their core, that invisible aura that makes us women, not our breasts and vagina, our essence - is stolen in these rituals. It is transplanted into these men, so that those who run the country will find them so irresistible, they just sign away multi-million contracts over to them. It is not their shrewdness or unmatched business acumen that scores them these deals, it is something much bigger, something that leaves even those in power in awe, wondering what they even saw in those men and in their poorly drafted business proposals in the first place.

Right off the cue, I knew this was a story we can't use. It seemed too far-fetched, more unbelievable as I talked to her. There was just no way we could prove it was true, even though I could feel it in my gut that it was.

This was despite the tangible proof (it will be explained in the story) she presented, as well as collaborating statements by three of her ex's former girlfriends, as well as damning testimony of a maiden who assisted the inyanga in many of the rituals.

All the ladies had three things in common: they were strikingly beautiful, yet no man found them attractive anymore, and they all battled terrifying nightmares stemming from their ordeals during the rituals. The nightmares, up to this day, beset them even in broad daylight, while they are very much awake. It is a past they cannot shake off, which will remain with them for the rest of their lives. As they described themselves: We are now empty, hollowed out shells, living for the sake of being alive.

A Woman's Essence, is their story.

PROLOGUE

Dear Sir/Madam

My name is Grace Nkosi, a 30-year-old inmate incarcerated at Barberton Farm Prison. Yes, you have read correctly. I am in prison serving a 25-year sentence for murder and 15 for kidnapping. Two murders, actually. But the judge was kind enough to let the sentences run concurrently.

But this is not about me. It is about my friend Puleng Tladi, who has applied for a job at your company. Am I the right person to write a reference or letter of recommendation, seeing I am a convicted murderer and all? All I can say is, I am probably the only person in the world who knows Puleng better, probably much better than she knows herself. And I am all she’s got.

So before you turn down her application for employment, please take some time and read her life story below first.

I am not asking you to treat her like some special charity case. Only just special, because that is what she is.

Regards

Grace Nkosi

Chapter 1

“I love you, Grace. I want you to always know that ... I love you."

His voice is coming out muffled — muffled because his head is buried deep between my thighs where he is sucking, licking and stroking so gently it tickles. Personally, I think he has been down there too long. I have gushed in volcanic eruptions of pleasure three times already, and my velvet cake is already feeling numb. I want him inside me; the whole donkey-length and breadth of him.

It seems he is reading my mind, because he raises his head, the clean-shaven scalp gleaming, and looks at me with those big brown eyes filled with ravenous lust. Oh, those shoulders, those arms, chest and biceps. If I didn’t know better I would say this man was born, raised and still lives in the gym. He is so buffed and ripped it is as if he has just done a hundred push-ups. No, he has just been giving me pleasure, and my legs are still shaking with exhilaration. This man has breathed new life into me, literally.

His name is Nash, and I still have not been able to pronounce his surname properly. I will rehearse when there is a rock on my finger proclaiming that I am about to be a Mrs. For now, he will remain Nash. Even that isn’t his name. It is just shortened. For me he will just be Nash, and I love him to bits. Or do I?

He is rich. No, correction. He is wealthy. That’s respectable English for filthy rich. So which girl wouldn’t love him to bits? We met a month ago outside the SABC studios in Auckland Park. I had just come out of a messy audition for a part in some soapie for the umpteenth time, and for the umpteenth time the casting director told me my agent should be shot, and then showed me the door. So I wasn’t in an accommodating mood, not in the very least for a dark-as-night man in snug tennis shorts, a vest and crude sandals that look as if they were hurriedly crafted for him from an old car tyre on the side of the road.

“My sister, please hear me out,” he had begged as I briskly walked across the street, my index finger already flagging down a taxi.

"Abuti, I don’t think you can afford me,” I told him, and to rub it in, I stopped just long enough to stare him down, then up, clicked my tongue, pouted and continued strutting my stuff down Kingsway Road. He looked at me with sad, blood-shot eyes, clearly blood-shot because he was bleeding inside, probably wishing one of my high heels snapped and I collapsed in a messy heap on the pavement. I didn’t care.

To be honest, I couldn’t even afford myself. The wig on my head had seen better days. Each time I wore it, it felt like I was putting a hornet's nest on my head. It stung worse than a crown crafted out of thorns. I couldn’t remember when last I had a decent meal with meat, salad and some veggies. The past two months I have been keeping the monster off my door with sphatlo and amagwinya, on credit, from the generous gogo outside my flat.

Talking about my flat ... I was two months behind in rent, and if it wasn’t for the fact that my Portuguese landlord still had high hopes of tapping me, my butt would have been out in the streets. But still, just because I was down on my luck didn’t mean I had to lower my standards as well. For heaven’s sake, if he could be at a public place such as the SABC in tight shorts and self-made sandals, then he just as well may be ...

“I can drop you off where you live,” the voice that rudely interrupted my thoughts came from a bright yellow Mercedes Benz convertible that just inched beside me on the pavement, its engine purring so silently if it wasn’t for the mellowed music coming from its sound system, I wouldn’t have believed the car was even there. “I honestly don’t mind, if it will give me a chance just to talk to you.”

It was him — the man in shorts and self-made sandals. I took a good look at him behind the wheel of that German-made roadster.

Okay, I might have misjudged him. He wasn’t too dark - just chocolate brown - the bearable kind of dark. And those shorts; I just loved how they hugged his bum and those thighs that were as big as tree trunks. And his eyes, they weren’t as blood-shot and sad. They just looked as if he hadn’t had much sleep in days; probably burning the midnight oil on some lucrative business deal. I probably owed this poor soul an apology. Correction — rich soul.

“So you went and stole a car just to impress me now,” I jabbed, still waving passing taxis down, inwardly wishing they all just kept driving past.

He chuckled.

“My dear, you do look like the sort of lady I would do the craziest things for, but stealing isn’t one of them,” he said, smiling a set of gleaming white teeth. "After just meeting you, why would I want to do something that would put me away from you for a long time?”

“Uhm ... what are you talking about?”

“Jail, dear. Prison. If I steal, I will be arrested —“

“Please don’t flatter yourself,” I cut him short. “We have not even met. You just stalked me from the SABC. For that, I can get you arrested.”

And then the stupid taxi driver actually stopped. I cursed inside. These buggers are always there when you don’t really need them the most. The taxi door cluttered open, thanks to scabha-boy sitting on the engine. With a heavy heart, I climbed in, and the scabha-boy killed possibly my last shot at happiness out when he slammed the door shut. I hated myself. This playing hard to get thing should have remained with our grandparents.

As the taxi jerked forward, a part of me wanted to scream to the taxi driver to stop. My lips actually parted a few times and formed the words, but my diaphragm wouldn’t release my voice. So I just sat there, my heart bleeding for a man I hardly knew, feeling like I was on a steam train chugging miles and miles away from my one true love ...

I shook my head and lightly slapped my own cheek, releasing the adolescent thoughts into oblivion. What on earth was I on about? That man could even have been a glorified car washer for the rich and famous at the SABC, who just happened to be trusted by Connie Ferguson herself with her car keys ...

“My sister, did you steal that man's wallet or something?” the taxi driver blurted out amidst the maskandi music blasting in the taxi. He was staring at me from the rear-view mirror, chewing a match-stick at the corner of his mouth.

“Are you talking to me?” I said with a tad of chutzpah, staring swords back at him.

“Don’t be so rude, my sister,” he persisted. “I am asking because he hasn’t stopped following us. He has made every turn that I made, and makes no effort of overtaking me.”

I didn’t want to smile, but I did. The smile morphed into a giggle, so loud the old lady sitting next to me stared at me distastefully, shook her head and gazed outside the window.

“Drop me after the robot, please,” I told the driver, visibly embarrassed.

I hadn’t reached my destination yet, but if love was following you, wouldn’t you turn around and meet it halfway? Or would you risk it and it overtakes you to disappear into the horizon? I didn’t take that chance and now here he is, all mine in his mansion just outside Sandton, in Johannesburg. He is about to make love to me for the first time since we met. This is the second time I am in his house, and this time, I don’t intend to leave without having firmly secured the pillars of our love. I have waited too long. He has waited too long ...

Chapter 2

I wake up, and for a moment my mind is a dazed blank, uncertain where I am. I don’t recognise the bedding and the plush furniture in this stadium-sized bedroom. Then it all comes flashing back to me — the candle-lit dinner on the roof, the panoramic view of the glowing city lights all around us, the passionate kisses in the Jacuzzi, the snacks and bowls of ice cream as we huddled in the dark in gowns in front of the telly, watching The Titanic probably for the hundredth time individually and for the first time as a couple. It had felt like a new movie — Tom & Jerry would be great to watch too when you have good company.

When Nash finally carried me up the stairs to the bedroom, he had already stimulated and climaxed my mind a hundred times, so much that sex seemed a secondary, unnecessary exercise. Even if he had turned out to be a flop in the sack, he had already made up for it by being a gentleman and treating me like royalty. He didn’t have to do anything more to win my heart over. I already loved this man with every cell in my body, with every breath and heartbeat, and with every brainwave in my medulla oblongata. He is practically all I have been thinking about lately, and it is kind of silly because I am so happy everyone thinks I am smiling at them.

I glance at his side of the bed, and my eyes are greeted by an emptiness. A note is sitting on the pillow. I pick it up and read it, and I smile: “Babe, I made you breakfast. Didn’t have much time, so I made bacon and eggs. I hope it will suffice. See you tonight. Love you stacks.”

Didn’t have much time, but made bacon and eggs? What would this man prepare when he has the time? A feast fit for a queen?

It is only now that I notice the small cart at the end of the bed, with plates covered in foil and a jug of what looks like freshly squeezed orange juice. Could he really have had the time to squeeze oranges just so I would have 100% pure orange juice? I couldn’t put it past him.

I don a gown and make my way towards the cart. Oh, there is another surprise on the cart, right next to my pure orange juice. A bank card, with a note attached to it. It is the PIN and a message: “Please keep the card with you. I don’t use it much. Don’t worry, if the funds in it near running out, I will be the first one to know and top it up. You will never know declined transactions as long as I am around.”

I chuckle. Who does this man think he is? Bill Gates? God knows I need a new weave, and some shoes. The last few months I had summoned up shoe-mending skills I never knew I possessed. It is amazing what you can do with a few tubes of Super-glue and some pegs. And my wardrobe ... it shouldn’t even be called a wardrobe anymore. My clothes are a pile of rags that I should have donated to a homeless shelter months ago. The last outfit I bought, a pair of white denim jeans and a black blouse that this knight in shining amour spotted me wearing when we first met, was bought almost nine months ago when I still bled cash. It shouldn’t even still be in my wardrobe.

You might say I am kind of spoilt. In a way I am. When I first came to Jo’burg, from Newcastle in Kwazulu-Natal two years ago, I only had a dream of basking in the spotlight, with cameras rolling even when I am in dreamland. Yes, I wanted to be so famous I would even have a reality show that is all about my life of bling and glamour. A thousand auditions later, even the glare of the spotlights in my mind had lost their shine. The dream remained just that; a dream. I did land a few gigs as an extra in a number of soapies, but no one back home believed I was even on set, because the casting directors often wanted us to have our backs turned to the cameras. I couldn’t even spot myself when the episodes aired - I was just a faceless bimbo in a restaurant nibbling on an old, bloated man's wrinkled face.

And then I met Jeff. He was in politics, and he reeked of money just as he leaked money. He spent money like he urgently needed to get rid of every dime, as if he was allergic to it, while it was drawn to him like bees to nectar.

If I knew back then what I know now, I would have known that I was just a trophy to him, yet another conquest to show off to his equally pompous, self-centred friends at exclusive clubs and eateries in Jo’burg, Pretoria, Cape Town, P.E and even Polokwane - you name it I have been there. I was too naïve to know that I was just one of his pets that he kept in kennels all over the city. Each one of his conquests had either a flat, a townhouse or an apartment - each one according to her level - and he paid for all of them every month. Some of the girls even had cars that were in his name. So many of us, so 'little' of him even when he was fully aroused. Yet he walked and pushed his weight around as if he packed a bazooka under that unsightly bulge.

Just so you know, when we met, he hadn’t started competing with Barney The Dinosaur on who can grow the biggest gut in three months. He seemed to have been in a race to catch up to his friends, who all had two chins, flabby arms, stubby fingers, chubby cheeks and pushed gigantic trailers in the front. You wouldn’t go past some of them in the widest doorways - either you let him pass or he gives you right of way. But what Jeff lacked in the sack, he quite easily made up for in the cash. I was happy, the other girls were happy, and even the wife was happy.

But then, like a pyramid scheme, it all bottle-necked. There were so many women in his life he could no longer afford them all, so he started neglecting some of us. He would either forget to pay my rent, or ignore it on purpose. Even the automatic bank transfers suddenly dried up. He just couldn’t afford us anymore. Yes, some of the girls we knew about each other, and chatted regularly on WhatsApp each time he gave any one of us the lame ruse that he was going on a business trip. A business trip, we learnt, always meant another woman. It was only the wife he never lied about. So if one of us confirmed that he was with her, at least we knew our ‘investments’ were still safe.

Eventually he ignored me altogether. One of his friends, Paul, a highly placed government employee whom Jeff always referred to as 'Cadre', had been irritating me like a persistent fly even while I and Jeff dated. So I made sure I 'bump into him' at ZAR one evening. He was with another woman, but that didn’t stop him from being the usual pest.

“What about your lady friend?” I asked him as he wobbled unsteadily on his feet. He was as drunk as a sailor.

“What about her?” he said, burped, drank greedily from his glass of Whiskey, all the while hanging on for balance on my chair rests. “Look Grace, I have been pursuing you for a good six months now, woman. Six long months. It’s your fault I ended up picking up strays.”

“Oh? Strays? That’s what you all call us when you want to get under another woman's sheets?”

“Grace,” he breathed, and began to laugh. “That is what we call you all the god-damn time.”

Now, he was laughing so uncontrollably his eyes watered.

“It is all true,” he said, wiping the tears of laughter with the back of his hand. “Just ask the wives.”

I should have been angry at him, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t afford it. You see, pride has a price tag. It doesn’t put a meal on the table. I lost my pride when I became Jeff's pet. I still wouldn’t accept the lowest bidder for my affections, but the highest bidders like Jeff and Paul got to determine how much you are worth.

“Look, stop by my office tomorrow afternoon,” he said as he flipped his wallet open and fished out a pile of R200 notes. Without even counting them, he dropped them on the table, right under my nose. The weight of the cash as it landed nearly spilled my drink. This man had just emptied his whole wallet.

“That’s for your drink,” he continued. “There is more where that came from, Grace.”

Indeed there was, for only three months, that is. He had picked up a few more strays, so he no longer had time for me. In the meantime Dumisani, one of his tender-prenuer friends with serious political connections, had been waiting patiently in the wings. Dumisani was so loaded he once threw R200 notes into a crowd at a nightclub in Pretoria. I had told Paul about his friend’s advances, just as I had told Jeff about Paul sneaking up on me back in the day. But like Jeff, Paul did absolutely nothing about it. Instead, they seemed to be tighter as friends after I had snitched on him.

Just as I said, I was a little naïve on the mean maneuvering of these men. Even now I still can’t say with absolute certainty, that I had figured them out. They are still an enigma.

Did I let Dumisani have a taste of the honeypot too? No. I was done being these men's play thing. So I hopped out of the flat I couldn’t afford, and moved into a derelict one-bedroom lodging in the heart of Hilbrow. I shook my dream awake and stormed the offices of a casting agent in Sandton, armed with a thin-as-tissue portfolio of my acting stint. She wanted an impromptu audition and, with some discomfort, she agreed to represent me. I didn’t blame her. I was more than just rusty. I hadn’t so much as mimicked a cartoon on TV in over a year. I had only had rehearsals to can ace any role in the porn industry.

Fast-forward a year and the dream of fame and fortune remained elusive. And now I am here, in Nash’s house. He is so much like every man I have known in the last two years - stinking rich, full of himself and believes his money can buy him anything, even love. In a way, his money has been speaking a language I understand. In fact, it had been louder and clearer today of all times, and I hadn’t even spent a penny of it yet.

But at the same time Nash is different from the rest of the men. He is young, he takes very good care of his body and his health, and unlike all the other men, I know where he lives and I am in his house as we speak. Unlike the other men, he doesn’t treat me like his personal property. So far, he has been quite a gentleman.

Should I let my guard down? This man has already disarmed me by just giving me that thick-lipped smile. I have the love - bundles of it - good sex, plenty of good sex, and now his money too. What more could a girl ask for in a man?

Chapter 3

I eat my breakfast, and then decide it is time to investigate. You cannot possibly be in New Bae's house all by yourself, and not snoop around.

I start with the rubbish bin. There is always a lot of information there about the going-ons in a man's life when you are not there. It is empty. I raid his closet and drawers - there is always a possibility that there might be a woman's clothes there. Nothing. Just his own clothes, footwear and bling. I sit on the bed, disappointed. This man is too clean and it is suspicious. But then again, he isn't.

It isn't the first time I am in Nash's house, the six-bedroom two-storey mansion nestled at the foot of the hill just outside Sandton, Johannesburg. I was here two weeks ago, and an incident left me wondering who this man really is and if I can really trust him.

As we drove in, I couldn't help but marvel at the manicured garden, the lawn so smooth it could have been towed straight from a golf course. The house is different from the rest this side of the suburb. The walls are carved in marble, inside and out. You cannot see the roof, and as I walked inside, I noticed why. His swimming pool is not on the grounds. It is on the roof; the whole length of the living room ceiling is a stretch of a transparent basin that holds a body of water so large, I get a headache just looking at it. It is an architectural wonder that I had never seen before in my life, and I have been around the block in my 26 years on the planet.

From the living room, you can actually see whoever would be swimming up there, from inside the house. For a second, my imagination threw a blur of five stark naked women flipping by in various swimming strokes.

How much water is up there? I asked Nash, who had noticed my jaw on the floor.

Oh, about 20 000 litres, he had said simply. Don't worry. It's not going to cave in and flood the house. I can shoot a bullet into that glass, it won't even scratch it. Not even an earthquake.

That's good to know, I said, both relieved and impressed.

Come, the bedroom is upstairs, he said as he hopped up the wooden stairs - except it isn't wood. It's granite, shrewdly imbued in wood design to blend in with the expensive-looking furniture and artworks. He stopped halfway up the stairs, as he realised that I had moved an inch.

Uhm ... bedroom? I was hesitant.

I thought you might want to see the rest of the house, he said, slowly descending the stairs. We could start with the bedroom, and work our way down.

Oh, okay, I said reluctantly.

You are one strange woman, Grace. With some women, being in my car alone is enough to loosen their lingerie. You are in my house, and even that hasn't loosened even one button on your blouse.

I laughed. So you went through all the trouble of wining and dining me, cruising the N1 in your Mercedes convertible and bringing me into this palace, just so you can get into my pants?

I went through all this trouble just to get into your heart, he said matter-of-factly, and planted