Malice Aforethought

Chapter 12
Betrayal

It was time for the drop again. This was the part that Elly always hated. For one it was always hard saying goodbye, especially when they didn’t really understand what it meant anymore, but also because it was damned dangerous. After getting Eric and Benny into bed together she gave them the special sleep trigger that left them deeply asleep until she came to wake them up. Then she strapped on a bullet-proof vest under her jacket and leant over to the safe beside her bed. She plugged in the four digit code she knew by heart, popping the door open and quickly extracting a loaded 9mm Glock pistol, safety off. She kept it next to her bed just in case. Everyone knew electric fences and barred windows only deterred the small timers. They just slowed the real cut-throats down, hopefully giving her time to get out her only real defence measure. Now she holstered it and clipped it to her belt. She hoped she’d never need it, but she practised at the range every week nonetheless.

It was dark out as she led the two nearly naked young men to the minivan. They yawned as they’d grown used to being in bed by this time of night. Neither man complained about being loaded into the van and strapped into their seats with nothing but a thick white nappy on either of them. They were so far gone she could have marched them into the library that way and neither would have batted an eye. On the contrary Aiden enjoyed his time lying on the changing mat in the living room while she taped his nappy on, reaching out to feel her hair and giggling as she tickled his bare tummy.

Her contact had instructed Elly to deliver them in nappies only, to make escape more unlikely. She thought it was ridiculous as she made certain they were incapable of escape long before delivery. But she wasn’t going to argue over the point. At least it saved her having to replace outfits.

Once they were safely strapped in Elly was quick to get the car on the road. She always wanted these things over and done with quickly. She checked the mirror repeatedly as she drove, making sure the boys were comfortable. She had let them each have a special treat before going, a last turn nursing on her booby. And she’d let them bring their favourite toys to entertain themselves on the ride. It helped assuage her guilt a little bit. It was only once they were on the highway that she began explaining a bit about what was happening.

**

We’re going for a ride, just me and Timmy and Mummy. I dunno why the others is sleeping. It’s a nakey ride too. I just in my nappy and so is Timmy. We’re nappy brothers! I like the feeling of being in just my soft nappy for the ride and I wonder why mummy usually makes us put on clothes to go for rides. I wonder if this has anything to do with the police lady who I saw today. I liked her uniform. It had shiny buttons and lots of interesting tools I’d like to play with. She was a nice lady too, very smiley. I push my feets against mummy’s seat and wiggle my toes. Timmy likes his toes too, he’s sucking them now. I want to be like him so I suck on mine too. My thumb is all wrinkly anyway and toes are better.

Mummy starts talking about going bye-bye for a bit. She says we have to stay with some other friends of hers just for a little while. At first it’s hard to follow all her big grown-up words, but then I understand more and I don’t like the sound of what she’s saying at all. What does she mean friends of hers? She’s mummy! I stay with her! If mummy gone, I’m all alone and that’s scary. I yell and say she can’t go away! But mummy just says shush and that it will be okay and I’ll be happy. But that’s a lie! I need mummy, there is no happy without mummy! She’s really going to go. It makes me so angry! I cry and scream and I think I might explode until something in my head clicks into place.

The police woman visit couldn’t do it. But hearing mummy is leaving changes everything for me. It was love for mummy, for booby milk and cuddles and being cared for that made me let go when the trigger happened. But unlike the others I had never completely given in. Somewhere deep in my mind I preserved my adult side. It lay dormant, walled off, for days now. Even when the police woman asked those questions is wasn’t enough to break through because it didn’t change the facts that made me want to regress. But this revelation that mummy was leaving, this broke that barrier down in a flash.

Waking up from the toddler mind-set was becoming a feeling I was actually used to now. But each time it was a little harder as I was coming from deeper down. I felt my emotions come back under my control and ceased my screaming. I could feel and taste the salty tears staining by cheeks. I became aware of the seat belt pressing against my skin, all of my skin. I was almost naked, wearing only… oh God, a nappy. I wiggled experimentally and discovered it was indeed a bit wet. Ugh, what a nightmare. It was incredible to suddenly be so alert, so able to think about more than just my immediate needs and desires. But I didn’t dare speak up, not when I was naked and strapped into a car seat like this. Instead I had to take in my surroundings.

We were on a motorway and it was late at night, it had to be since the traffic was so light. What was going on here? Everyone knew the dangers of driving in Joburg after dark. I was able to read the exit signs as we passed them and I could see the glittering skyline in front of us so I knew we were headed south on the M1, straight into the city centre, an area that was dangerous in broad daylight never mind after sunset. There was a reason all malls, banks and supermarkets closed before sunset in this city. And if she stayed on the motorway past the city centre then we were headed straight for Soweto, the largest township in the country. What the hell was Elly doing?

“Don’t worry sweeties, I promise I’ll see you again very soon,” she was saying, trying to calm down Timmy, who was still crying loudly.

She looked in the rear view mirror at us, so I quickly began pulling my foot back and forth and wiggling the toes like a moron, hoping she wouldn’t notice the returned focus in my eyes. She didn’t seem to though, she seemed preoccupied with other things. And I soon saw why.

Elly took the next exit, onto Houghton St, and I recognised the tower blocks the car was now facing instantly. It turned out we weren’t going into the city centre or Soweto, it was far worse than that. We were now headed straight for Hillbrow, the most infamous suburb in the country. Elly was no fool either, as evidenced by her failure to stop at any red lights once we were on surface roads. She knew stopping at an intersection here was something you did only if you had a death wish.

The tower blocks of Hillbrow had once been the hip and young section of the city, filled with students, young professionals and start-up companies. Now the abandoned high-rises had been turned into vertical townships, forty-storey slums populated by violent thieves known as tsotsis, drug running gangs and thousands of illegal immigrants, mainly from Nigeria. The murder rate was triple that of Detroit or New Orleans, the most dangerous cities in America. And this was apparently where Elly was taking us.

She finally slowed the car down in front of one of the many completely darkened high-rises, stopping just in front of the main entrance. She didn’t pull to the side though. Instead she hit the horn twice and waited, nervously looking left and right and checking her mirrors, ready to floor the gas in case of a car-jacking attempt. Suddenly the doors of a plain white van parked in front of us popped open and two men emerged. They were huge, muscular black men and they were dressed like thugs, but Elly didn’t seem afraid of them. She twisted around to face Timmy and I, a serious look on her face.

“Okay boys, these nice men are going to take you now. You be good for me and I’ll give a treat when I come to get you next week,” she assured.

It was total bullshit and I knew it. She was nothing more than a human trafficker, and now she’d sold us on. I felt like the biggest fool in the world. I’d let my penis trump my brain, let my desire for a mummy to baby me lead me down this dangerous road. I knew Elly wasn’t to be trusted right from the start and if I’d been thinking rationally I never would have ended up in this position. But as I watched her wave the thugs over, her motherly aura completely gone, I knew it wasn’t entirely my fault. Whatever that programme on the phone was, it had clouded my mind, tricked me into trusting her. This was her doing and I wanted badly to make her pay for it. But there was no time to anything right now.

The men were already on either side of the car and one knocked twice on the window next to me. Elly pushed the unlock button and the doors slid open immediately. The men gave me only a cursory glance, unbuckling my belt and roughly picking me up by my armpits, then swinging one powerful arm under my nappied bottom and carrying me like a real baby out into the street. I didn’t know what to do or say. If I revealed my working mind they might just shoot me right here for being a witness. If I said nothing I had no idea where they’d take me or what they’d do to me. But I decided that was still better than being shot. A glimmer of hope beats no hope at all. The last I saw of Elly she was throwing the minivan in reverse and rocketing it away, not even glancing back at us. Then I was shoved into the van and lost sight of her.

A part of me still couldn’t believe that after all that she’d just abandoned us this way. It made me angrier than I could ever recall being. She’d held me in her arms, nurtured me like no one before and then just cast me off to two dangerous and surely armed thugs in one of the world’s most dangerous places. I’d never forget the look of cold indifference on her face as the men carried Timmy away even as he screamed for his “Mummy” and reached his arms desperately in her direction. The betrayal cut me right to the core and I didn’t need to put on an act to cry my eyes out like a baby separated from his mummy would.

Strapped into a new car seat much like the one in Elly’s car the men then paid Timmy and I no real attention. They got back in the front and started driving, leading us out of Hillbrow and onto a different motorway. It soon became clear we were leaving Joburg long behind us after all. But where we were going was still a total mystery. I had the sinking feeling that it would be out of the frying pan and into the fire.