Disclaimers: This work is a work of fiction and is my property.
The story and characters are fictitious and any resemblance to anyone or any actual event is coincidental. There are three distinctly different main characters that will appear as the story progresses.
You should be legally allowed to read this type of material before continuing.
As it is based on an actual book, I had published a few years ago – free for your enjoyment – the story will not contain explicit material in all the chapters BUT don't fret, as it is more the exception than the rule.
Note that there will be a violent scenario. If this will trigger any trauma for you, please be aware of it before you start reading.
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CHAPTER TWO Daniel Matthews
I'm strolling through the vines, checking for any sign of mildew or aphids. It's near harvest time and the nets we've placed over the grapes are there to protect them against any birds that might wish to come and feast on them. This is tedious work and the spring sun shines hot on my neck and arms.
Dressed in my usual faded jeans and a khaki, short-sleeve shirt, I make my way slowly down the dusty rows in-between the vines, ensuring that I inspect the them carefully. This is my usual outfit for doing my job on the estate but thankfully, I have a baseball cap on, keeping my head and face protected from the sun's rays. Not so much my ears though. I really should get a bigger hat, but they look so uncool.
Growing up on a live-stock farm in the Kwazulu-Natal midlands, I should be used to the sun by now. Since winemaking has started to shift from the Western Cape to the Kwazulu-Natal province, mainly due to the effects of global warming, causing frequent droughts and poor harvests, I decided to study oenology and then move on to viticulture. Part of the requirements for my oenology qualification, is to work on a wine estate, in order to qualify in a few years.
You can't learn about winemaking in a classroom. Sure, there's theory and history, important for assimilating thousands of years of knowledge, but doing it practically is the essence of becoming a successful wine farmer. I'll worry more about the viticulture science stuff, when I'm done with this.
Though, I don't earn much money being an apprentice, for lack of a better word, I'm lucky that my parents send me money on a monthly basis to afford me some sort of social life.
I've been on this farm in the Stellenbosch area for over a year now and love it. The fact that I'm relatively isolated from mainstream life, like that in nearby Cape Town, is something I don't appreciate, but have grown accustomed to.
At least I go out on my off days to Franschhoek or Paarl, which are towns close by, to hang out with people of my own age.
At six foot, I'm a lean well-built twenty-two-year-old, Afrikaner man and am not too bad looking, with spikey brown hair with reddish-blond streaks in them. The do, as my friends call my hair, is now unfortunately flat under the cap, making me look like a teenager who's forgotten to shave.
That's because I have my pride and joy, a nice beard that compliments my sharp face and dark eyebrows. The locals like the look of me, especially the ladies, who I often have to disappoint when they make moves on me.
The fact is, that I'm more into guys. Have always been so.
There was one girl back home, Elize, who was a little older than me and from a neighboring farm. We dated when I was a teenager and though we tried having sex once, it was a disaster. It was actually she who first pointed out to me that I might be possibly gay.
I was horrified at the thought, at first. My parents are extremely religious and often my dad would moan about the `moffies' (gays), passing through town when the annual holidays would come around.
So, I kept the possibility a secret and when I was eighteen, while taking a dip in our dam on the farm, naked, I noticed an older guy, in his mid-twenties, on a hill adjacent to the dam, checking me out with a pair of binoculars. I went to confront him and found him seated on a rock, with his dick out, stroking himself.
I didn't know what to say or do and just stood in front of him, staring. My dick went rock hard and he took that as a sign. Putting down his binoculars, he took hold of it and gave me my first blowjob.
It was `lekker' and I've been a fan since.
After I reciprocated, of course, we would frequently meet once a week to get our rocks off. His name was Raymond and we ended up fucking each other for the first time, a few months later. It was in a bedroom of a local guest house, we'd booked for a Saturday evening, and it was awkward. It was enjoyable, but not excellent either. I've had better since, but always on the sly.
We, as South Africans, may have one of the most advanced bill of rights in the world but it isn't as accepted as people might think. In any case, I didn't want my parents to find out.
Except for Elize and Raymond, who both worked at the local steakhouse, no-one knew that I was gay. Elize always accompanied me to socials or weddings and even went, as my date, to my matric farewell in my senior school year.
I learnt later that it meant she acted as my `beard'.
Go figure, a guy with a beard, needing a beard.
Elize eventually moved to Pretoria to study psychology and I continued to help my dad out on the farm. We started getting ourselves ready to turn our cattle farm into a wine producing estate, after I'd suggested it to him. He loved the idea but insisted that I first study the art of winemaking and viticulture. And, since it was my idea to begin with, I was only too happy to go along with his wishes.
My mom wasn't too happy about me leaving though, but since she still had my older sister, who married a local young farmer at twenty-three, and lived nearby, as well as my younger brother, who was still in high school, she didn't have to deal with an empty nest when I left.
All in all, it wasn't the worst of childhoods.
It's taking me hours to check the grapes and Adam, one of the farm workers, who's joined me, is chatting away about a big local church event taking place this coming Sunday.
He's in his late fifties and has been working on the farm all of his adult life. He even lives here in a six-by-twelve foot mud house built by the estate owners for him. In fact, a few farm workers live in similar little houses with their families.
Not ideal living conditions, as they only got water and proper toilets built onto the houses three years ago and last year the owners installed electricity connections for the farmworkers after they all went on strike, demanding better living conditions and pay.
I listen to him in his animated Cape Coloured way of speaking, which is a local Afrikaans dialect with explicit metaphors and cuss words thrown into it. It's colourful and can at times be hilarious to listen to.
Adam is telling me about the upcoming singing contest and how proud he is that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Maria, will be doing a solo to impress the judges, who are in fact the deacons of the same church.
Like that, we eventually approach the main stores and I notice our foreman, Johan, walking towards us. He's a chubby man in his late forties and about my height. Not very attractive with a big belly and sun-burnt bald head. There's mousy-grey tuffs of hair on the side of it.
But that's not what makes him unattractive, no, it's his demeaning nature and the way he talks to all the workers on the farm, including myself, as if we're the scum of the earth.
Towards me in particular, he's especially condescending and tries to belittle me whenever an opportunity presents itself. He continuously calls me a `sissie' who's never had to work a day in his life and as a result I'm a spoilt little rich boy.
It's clear to me that he envies of my upbringing and potential future. We have a family farm after all, which I'm due to inherit when my dad dies one day, and he's only an employee on this estate.
As he nears us, I swallow hard and wait for whatever quip he's got in store for me today, and Adam has suddenly gone very quiet, behaving like a good little servant under the acrimonious glare of his master.
It's sickening.
"Ja bliksems. Loop julle alweer rond en fokkol doen?" He points his chubby finger at us, asking us if we're loitering and doing nothing.
"Nee, Oom Johan. Ons het die druiwe ondersoek vir tekens van skimmel en plantluise." I try and be respectful in addressing him as an uncle, because it's our traditional way to do so, telling him we were checking for mildew and aphids.
Though my mom is English-speaking, my dad is Afrikaans. They thought it best that I attend an Afrikaans school, because it was more disciplined, according to them than the local English ones. Even if I was raised in Afrikaans, I still speak to my mom in English.
"Ja, sure. Ek glo jou. Hou op lui-gat hier rondloop en gaan maak jouself useful in die groot huis. Mevrou wil he jy moet help met die donnerse toeriste wat binnekort hier n draai gaan maak." He glares at me and tells me that he doesn't believe me and that I should go help one of the owners in the main house to prepare for the tourists, who'll be arriving soon.
Johan turns away, dismissing us off-hand, and walks off to go and harass some other unfortunate employee.
He's a lazy asshole, who's been here forever and does nothing except bark out orders and spend the rest of his time in his office, watching television. I wouldn't be surprised if he watches porn on the computer, as well. He looks the type.
I just shake my head and Adam greets me, walking off to do something else. In turn and I make my way to the old manor house. It's in the unique Cape-Dutch style of houses built here, when the Cape of Good Hope was a Dutch colony in the late seventeenth century.
Come to think of it, Johan is the only thing I hate about being here. The rest makes up for it.
Thank God.