Chapter 1 - The Nightmare

CHAPTER 1: THE NIGHTMARE

Ntombi heard it again, a nearly silent sob coming from the darkness of Zola's room. The sound bothered her in strange ways, bringing out a previously unfelt, nearly atavistic mothering instinct in her.

She walked over to the door of his bedroom, standing in the shadows with her arms full of folded laundry, listening for a repetition of the sound. Yes, there it was again — a soft, almost inaudible whimper that nevertheless managed to convey a deep sense of anguish and loss.

Ntombi was torn. She owed so much to Malume Zola. He was her father's best friend of many years — the two of them had been inseparable at Fort Hare, back when a Black man studying law was an act of defiance. Three years earlier, he had volunteered to sponsor her for a place at Wits, something she would never have dreamed possible as a poor farmer's daughter from outside Mthatha. Zola paid her registration, her res fees, her books. Ostensibly, she was supposed to work to pay her way through school while living with the Gumedes, but Zola and his wife, Anne, had created a loophole by allowing her to perform light housekeeping duties around their Bryanston home and then "paying" her enough for room, board and spending money. In reality, they were more than happy to give Ntombi anything she needed, and within a week of her arrival they were treating her more like a daughter than a visitor.

Indeed, she had virtually become a sister to the Gumedes' daughter, Sanele. Surprisingly, Sanele and Ntombi had liked each other on sight. This was something of a surprise to Zola and Anne, who worried that their daughter of privilege — Zola was an attorney and Anne a chartered accountant — would be contemptuous and aloof toward the girl from the Transkei. That fear hadn't lasted very long. Upon seeing Ntombi coming off the bus from Mthatha with her one bag, the then eighteen-year-old Sanele had exclaimed, "Ma, she's beautiful! I'm so excited to introduce her to my friends!" — and the relationship between the two girls had blossomed from there.

Ntombi immediately loved life with the Gumedes. Her own parents, while loving and gentle, had been so consumed by the day-to-day necessities of survival on a small farm in a hard economy that luxuries, and even tenderness, were sometimes forced to fall by the wayside. The Gumedes, on the other hand, had money and time and love to spare. Both Zola and Anne were good at saving, but understood the necessity of enjoying and using their money wisely — hence their ability and desire to help someone like Ntombi.

For almost two years, life was, to Ntombi's eyes, nearly perfect. She rapidly came to love the vibrant life on campus, she grew closer to each of the Qwabe clan by the week, and several attractive young men had even managed to attract her interest away from her diligent study and into the world of dating.

Then, suddenly and shockingly, the idyll was shattered. While driving home from her office one afternoon, Anne was hit by a minibus taxi that skipped a red robot, obliterating her Polo and killing her instantly. Suddenly, for Zola, Sanele and Ntombi, the world was a darker place. The days and weeks following turned into a sort of grey delirium for all three. Zola became withdrawn and rarely spoke, retreating into himself while attempting to deal with his grief privately. Sanele, normally so vibrant and alive and independent, grew quiet and solemn, and began to come to Ntombi for support when she realised that her father's suffering was preventing him from being strong for all of them.

Ntombi, caught in the middle of everything, found herself in an untenable position. Zola, who had always been there to answer questions or provide assistance, was suddenly incapable of emotional connection. He managed to get to work and home, and to take care of the day-to-day business of life, but he was distant, and never smiled, joked, or let his guard down around the girls. On the other end of the spectrum, Sanele turned to Ntombi as a surrogate mother, at times unable to make even the simplest of decisions without turning to Ntombi for advice. Given their sisterly relationship, and the fact that Ntombi was only two years older than Sanele, Ntombi often found herself feeling like a fraud for giving Sanele this support, believing that she wasn't really qualified. However, she also recognised that Zola and Sanele both needed her during this difficult time. So, suppressing her own sense of loss at Anne's death, she soldiered on — forcing both of them to eat breakfast, dragging them out to the occasional restaurant, taking on all of the housekeeping duties, and a hundred other small things that seemed necessary to keep them going.

Slowly, over a period of months, the gloom began to lift. When Sanele accepted a date with a young suitor, Ntombi almost cried in relief — perhaps the nightmare of grief and depression was finally ending. Two weeks later, Zola actually laughed at a quip by Ntombi over breakfast. The event sent a ray of sunshine into both Ntombi's and Sanele's hearts, but almost immediately they could visibly see the memory of his pain return to him — the smile faded, the laughter died, and Zola stood up and left the table without a word. Ntombi met Sanele's eyes across the table and shook her head in sadness. "Your father — he can't let his pain go."

Sanele nodded sadly. "I know. I've tried to talk to him about it, but all he ever says is, 'It's okay, honey. I'm doing okay,' even though I know he's really not doing okay at all. It breaks my heart, but I just can't get through to him. Still, I haven't heard him laugh in a long time, so maybe he's making progress." They sat quietly for another moment, sharing their pain, then rose from the table and set about the day's events. Over the following weeks, Zola did indeed begin the process of accepting Anne's absence. The smiles happened more and more frequently, the gloom got less and less deep, until eventually Sanele was able to break through his walls. One night, after an evening nightcap, she brought up the subject of Anne's death. The conversation involved a lot of crying and hugging, but finally Zola talked about his feelings, both of loss and of guilt at letting Anne go. The next morning, the air of gloom was gone. Zola seemed drained, but he was much closer to his usual happy, optimistic self. This seeming happiness went on for quite a long time, until finally Ntombi began to realise that the old Zola hadn't returned completely. There was still, hiding deep in the dark corners of his soul, a knot of pain that hadn't been totally released, even after all this time. This knowledge became her secret, though — she was afraid to mention it to Sanele, for fear of upsetting her newfound happiness. So she pretended that nothing was wrong, and life returned to its normal, even keel.

And now, here she was, looking into Zola's darkened room. The quiet whimper seemed to echo through the room, its impact harsh out of proportion to the level of actual sound. Ntombi flinched. Here it was, proof that Zola was still trapped in his pain, still suffering in silence even though he put on a brave face in front of her and Sanele.

Impulse suddenly seized Ntombi. She quietly set the folded laundry on the floor beside his door and stepped into the shadows of his room. It took her a moment to discern Zola's shape in the tangle of covers atop the bed. The blankets were strewn about the bed, as though he had thrown them off himself in anger. He was covered only by the thin top sheet, yet even in the darkness Ntombi could see the sheen of sweat on his brow. As she stood there, Zola twitched violently in his sleep, and another whimper escaped his lips. Now that she was closer, she could hear him muttering in seeming delirium, "No, Anne. Turn here, now. Don't go. Pull over, Anne, please. No. No, please." Then another spasm wracked his body, and he whimpered again.

Ntombi felt tears start to trickle down her cheeks. He was trapped in a dream, she understood, reliving the moment of Anne's death again and again. She knew that he hadn't been there when the crash happened, but it seemed that his psyche had filled in the blanks for him in subconscious cruelty. She hesitated only a moment before stepping toward the bed. As softly as she was able, she sat down on the bed beside his sleeping form. Reaching out tenderly, she took hold of his left hand, cradling it in her right. At the same time, she reached up to gently caress his forehead, like she had done for her little brother in the Transkei when he was troubled by nightmares.

Almost instantly, the grimace of concern and pain on his face began to ease, and his muttering quieted. A moment more, and Ntombi could see the tension ease out of Zola's body. Suddenly, he rolled toward her, still holding her hand. His left arm swung around her body to capture her in an unconscious embrace. Ntombi, taken unawares, found her heart pounding as Zola relaxed against her — simultaneously worried that he would awaken and find her sitting on his bed for no apparent reason, but also, in a shocking rush of forbidden and unthinkable pleasure, thrilled at his sudden closeness. This thrill gave Ntombi a sudden sensation akin to vertigo — it had never before occurred to her, in any meaningful way, that Zola was a man. In fact, he was a very handsome man, but he had played the father-figure role in her life for so long that she had ceased to view him in that light. Granted, he was twenty years her senior, but that in no way detracted from this sudden burst of attraction that she felt.

Ntombi sat immobile for a long time, enjoying the warmth and quiet comfort of their connection. Finally, though, she forced herself to face the inevitable. When Zola awoke, he would still see her as the Ntombi he had always known, still think of her as a daughter and nothing more. With a quiet sigh of regret, she gently extricated herself from his embrace and tucked his arm under the covers. Zola muttered one last time, the words so soft that Ntombi couldn't make them out, then, with a contented sigh, he burrowed down into the covers and was lost to the world.

Ntombi retrieved her pile of laundry and made her way back to her room, filled with conflicting feelings of excitement and guilt, both leavened with a surprising amount of arousal. She was stunned by the intense physicality of her reaction to Zola's touch. Something was happening to her that she had only rarely felt before, usually after a long session of kissing and petting with one of her many suitors. As she walked back to her room she could feel the moisture seeping through the thin cotton of her panties and wetting her thighs. Her breath grew shallow, and she found herself quickening her pace. Once she got the door to her room closed behind her, she could no longer delay. She unceremoniously dumped the carefully folded laundry on the floor. Falling full-length onto her bedspread, she pulled her knee-length skirt above her waist. She thrust her hand deep into her panties, her trembling fingers searching out the swollen, soaking lips of her pussy.

Without hesitation or resistance, two fingers slid into her channel, and almost as quickly her orgasm struck her. It was like lightning and thunder combined, a raw torrent of electricity that left her shaking long after it passed, her fingers still embedded deep within her, the orgasmic juices pooling beneath her.

Later — much, much later — she finally began to come back to her senses. Without being fully aware of what she was doing, she pulled her still-sopping fingers from her temporarily satisfied sex. She could smell the musty odour of her fluids in the air and on her fingers. Suddenly, through the lingering waves of satiation, she felt a wash of guilt. Here she was, lying on her bed, fantasising about a man who had lost his wife and who had only touched her in an unconscious embrace. He hadn't seduced her, hadn't even hinted at attraction or anything more than a fatherly affection. Who was she to assume or even dream of anything more?

Still, she had to admit to herself as she tiredly pulled off her clothes and crawled beneath the covers, that orgasm had been more intense than anything else she had ever experienced. And besides, she wasn't really hurting anything — a one-time dalliance with fantasy wouldn't affect her relationship with Zola, so why chastise herself? She slipped off to sleep with that thought on her mind, and vivid dreams soon carried her away.

The next day passed in a daze. At breakfast, Zola seemed relaxed and even a little happy, but he gave no hint that he remembered Ntombi's company from the night before. All day long, Ntombi kept remembering the feel of his hand in hers, the warmth of his arm around her, and most often of all, the explosive orgasm that she had given herself. Even the memory of that intense moment was sufficient to start her moisture flowing, so she spent most of the day with juices dripping down her thighs. She was mortified — it seemed that anyone who saw her should be able to tell what she was thinking, she was so turned on.

By lunchtime, she was in a state of hyper-sensitivity. Walking to class on campus, she could feel each step, the fabric of her jeans rubbing gently on her protruding clit through her panties. By dinner she was a wreck, a quivering mass of unfulfilled longing and near-paralysing embarrassment. By this point, Sanele and Zola both noticed her condition and expressed their concern, but Ntombi was able to pass it off as nerves over an upcoming test.

Night finally came, and when Zola and Sanele said their respective good nights, Ntombi was relieved. She puttered around in the kitchen for a while, putting away dishes and straightening up, but eventually she ran out of things to do, excuses to keep herself occupied. The stairs to the second floor beckoned — her bedroom was up there, and she was tired, but Zola was up there too. She shook her head, and started up.

As she passed Zola's door, something made her pause. She was unsure what it was, an impulse or some deeper need, but it took her only a moment to realise that she couldn't resist. Once again, she slipped soundlessly into the darkness of his room. Tonight there was no apparent nightmare — Zola seemed to be in the grip of a deep sleep, peaceful where last night he had been tormented.

Ntombi sat on the edge of the bed. Tonight, she didn't know what to do. Zola didn't seem to need comforting, so why was she here? Suddenly, she knew. It was she who needed comfort, perhaps, not Zola. It was cold comfort, maybe, this unintentionally impersonal contact, but it was contact with someone who was very important to her. When Anne died, Ntombi had experienced a loss nearly as great as that of Zola and Sanele, but she had forced herself to remain calm, to be strong for both of them. While they had her to lean on, who had she turned to? No one at all. She had pushed her needs inside, relying on their needs to keep her thoughts from her own suffering.

She thought back for a moment. How long had it been since she had been on a date, or taken an evening for herself just to get away? It surprised her to realise that it had been more than six months, and even then it had just been a token date with a boy who had bored her to tears by the end of the first hour. Lately her life had revolved around Zola and Sanele, and that was the sum of it. Oddly, even after this realisation she wasn't bitter or upset — indeed, if anything it made her love them more, because she knew how important she was to them, and how truly they accepted her as family.

She looked down at Zola and smiled at his sleeping face. It was nice to be here, whatever other issues might try to distract her. She knew that Zola cared deeply for her, even if it was fatherly affection. What was more, she felt a powerful attraction to him. She knew him better than any other man in her life, including her own father, who was not a communicative man. Over the last year, Zola had given her insights into his nature that she had never experienced from a man before. Growing up in the Transkei, she had watched men raised to believe that feelings were weakness — and since women were thought to be creatures of feeling, they were seen as weak in turn. Zola never tried to impose that standard on her, though. Not only did he respect her, he was not afraid to lean on her, to rely on her intrinsic strengths.

Last night, when the simple fact of her presence had sent the nightmares running, she had proven that strength to herself, she now realised. She reached up and gently caressed his forehead. It didn't take long for the tenderness of the caress to give way to something more, though — a subtle energy, a charge that flared with each touch. She moved her hand to his, lying on top of the duvet. Tracing the lines of his hand with her fingertips, she felt her arousal suddenly awaken. The need roared through her, an inferno of lust. Suddenly she couldn't catch her breath, and her heart was racing in her chest. She felt her nipples harden inside her bra, pressing against the soft lace, tingling with need. Her panties soaked through in an instant, the arousal that she had felt all day coming back in a rush.

Almost of its own volition, her free hand crept beneath her skirt. Still caressing Zola's hand with her left, her right danced a path it knew very well. Her fingers traced across the swollen lips of her pussy, outside her panties, and the thrill of pleasure it caused made her gasp. Then they slipped inside the waistband and crept lower. The feel of her own moisture wetting her fingertips amplified her desire. She began to rub gently at her throbbing lips, careful not to make any big movements that might wake Zola.

Soon the rubbing was not enough. She slipped a finger inside her canal, rubbing at her clit with her palm, bringing herself closer and closer to the inevitable explosion. She slipped a second finger inside, now gasping under her breath at each twitch of her hand.

Suddenly, she felt Zola move behind her. She froze, afraid to move, her fingers still trapped deep in her aching sex. Zola, perhaps sensing the warmth emanating from her, rolled toward her and wrapped his right arm around her waist. After a moment, Ntombi allowed herself to breathe again. The gentle pattern of his breathing didn't change — he was still firmly asleep. Suddenly, a wicked thought occurred to her. Zola was firmly asleep, and she was already in his arms — why not go a step further? It was the work of an instant to kick off her shoes; then she, as gently as possible, swung her legs up onto the bed and lay down beside him, cuddling gently into his embrace.

Whatever Zola was dreaming during these magical moments, Ntombi seemed to fit into the dream perfectly. He pulled her tighter to him, spooning his bare chest against her back. For a fleeting moment, she wished that she wasn't wearing a top so she could feel his skin against hers. Acting purely from need now, she resumed her gentle masturbation, stroking her fingers in and out of her pussy in a steady, maddening rhythm.

The closer Ntombi got to orgasm, the more she craved direct physical contact. Suddenly an idea occurred to her. She reached down and took Zola's hand, then guided it up under her top. As though he were operated by remote control, his hand naturally cupped Ntombi's sensitive breast. Perhaps in his dream he was engaged in a similar activity — Ntombi didn't know, but she enjoyed it immensely. Zola's large but gentle fingers began squeezing her breast, kneading it gently. The added sensation was all she needed to push her over the top. She came again, shuddering against her fingers, the gentle pressure on her nipples driving her to higher and higher peaks that left her breathless and almost dizzy with pleasure.

When she finally came down from her orgasmic high, she was on the verge of collapse. It was as though all of her energy had been sucked out of her with a huge vacuum cleaner, leaving her scoured clean but also empty. Mustering up her last reserves of strength, she disengaged from Zola as gently as she could and rose from the bed. She stood for a moment beside his prone form, looking down at him. He looks so peaceful now, she thought. If only he could find this peace when he was awake.

The thought reawakened her sadness for him. She leaned over him in a fit of boldness and kissed him gently on his forehead. "Thank you, Malume Zola," she whispered. "I hope your dreams are as happy as mine will be." Then she stood and walked quietly from the room.

Zola awakened at the gentle touch of lips on his forehead. Trapped in the muzzy clouds of sleep, he was too unfocused to really understand the whispered words, but they registered in his subconscious and served to bring him slowly to full wakefulness. Sometime later, he lay in his bed, trying to piece together the events that had woken him from the second erotic dream he'd had in as many nights — a rarity for him, but one that he rather resented being awoken from.

Suddenly, those whispered words rose to the surface of his mind. Ntombi! She had been in his room! She had KISSED him! It took Zola a moment to wrap his mind around that concept. Why was she in here? What did she mean, "thank you"? He lay in the darkness, unable to make sense of these confusing images. Then his awareness made another intuitive leap.

That smell. It was like no other smell in the world. He could still smell Ntombi's light floral perfume, and on the pillow beside him the distinctive scent of her hair. She had been lying on his bed only moments ago, he suddenly knew. And then there was that other smell — the smell of arousal, of sexual need, of a woman's lust. And then, although he thought it might be a leftover from his dream, he remembered the feel of a warm body, a gentle pressure, and a warm mound of flesh captured in his palm.

It took him a long time to go back to sleep, thoughts and images chasing themselves around the turmoil in his mind. When he finally did, his sleep was troubled by images of Anne and Ntombi standing next to each other, Ntombi looking sly and cunning, Anne wearing a look of disappointment and hurt. The next morning, Zola was very quiet at breakfast. Ntombi didn't seem to notice, though, so Zola maintained his silence, eating quietly and reading the paper until Sanele announced that she had to run to get to a class, leaving Ntombi and Zola alone.

When Sanele had vanished through the door in a whirlwind of books and papers and goodbyes, Zola found himself looking down the table at Ntombi. He watched her for a moment. She was absorbed in a textbook, studying for a class the next day. She had betrayed no sign of guilt or remorse over what she had done — indeed, it was as though it had never happened. Zola began to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing. He was trying to figure out how to ask her without giving anything away when she became aware of the strength of his gaze.

She raised her head from her book to find him looking at her intently. For a moment she met his gaze calmly, unfazed. Zola was in a quandary, and frowned, preparing himself to potentially be embarrassed by asking a stupid question. The moment he frowned, though, his question was answered. Ntombi blushed, a deep warmth creeping up her neck that he had never seen on her before. She immediately dropped her gaze, unable to look Zola in the eyes.

Zola knew, then, that his fears from the night before were true — Ntombi had been in his bed. What has she been up to while I slept? he wondered. How far did she go? He found himself suddenly angry — angry at her for taking advantage of him, and angry at himself for, even unknowingly, betraying the memory of his wife.

"Ntombi," he said, quietly but forcefully.

A tear trickled down her cheek and it made his anger flare even higher. How dare she pretend to be contrite when she had done such an unbelievable thing?

"Ntombi, look at me."

She slowly raised her eyes to his. She flinched when she saw the angry fire burning in those dark depths, but Zola was not to be swayed by her apparent suffering.

"You had no right, Ntombi. No right to do that to me. How could you?" By the time he had finished speaking, his voice was cracking with barely suppressed anger and other emotions too complex to identify. He struggled to find words to express what he was feeling, but vocabulary failed him. Finally, he gave up and subsided, looking at her with a mixture of anger and disappointment.

Ntombi was unable to take the pain anymore. She burst into full-fledged sobs that wracked her entire being, and rushed from the room and up the stairs. Zola watched her go, nonplussed at her reaction. Is that how the conniving, sly girl from his dreams of the night before would react? Wouldn't she be colder, more calculating? The sound of her anguish stole the heat from his fury and the disappointment from his heart, leaving him only confusion.

"What is going on?" he mused. "Why?"

It was all suddenly too much. He couldn't cope with the sudden emotional overload. Pushing the paper aside, he stood and walked out the door. He needed some space, some time, something to keep his body active while his brain and heart sorted themselves out. He slipped on his takkies and headed out into the cool morning.

By the time Zola returned, things had cooled down in his head, although not necessarily in his heart. Replaying the events at breakfast in his head made him wince internally. He had handled the encounter all wrong. Ntombi was young and inexperienced — Zola could remember vividly the night that Ntombi came home giddy because the young man who had taken her out had kissed her on the lips — her first kiss, and she was nineteen years old! Although she was now in her late twenties, he still looked at her like she was nineteen. Her excursion into his room could probably be chalked up to something similar — hormones, or some such. Zola was no expert on these things, but having shepherded Sanele through her turbulent teenage years, he knew that young women, much like young men, were often less in control of their urges than the other way around. He would talk to Ntombi, and they would surely be able to clear this up with a minimum of fuss.

Zola headed up the stairs. He needed a shower, and then he would talk to Ntombi and smooth this thing over. He hated the thought of any tension existing between the two of them — over the years, Ntombi had come to mean as much to him, and to be as important to him, as Anne and Sanele.

As Zola was walking down the hall, though, he was stopped in his tracks by the nearly inaudible sound of crying emanating from behind Ntombi's closed door. The sound drove daggers through his heart — clearly Ntombi had taken his angry words very seriously. Zola mentally kicked himself. How could he have been so callous? Ntombi was a strong woman in many ways, but he knew that she valued his opinions and good regard very highly. To have him angry and disappointed with her would be as bad as physically hurting her.

Zola now realised that his earlier thoughts of Ntombi as conniving and underhanded had been based on his own confused emotional state rather than on an objective view of reality. The broken-hearted girl crying in her room wasn't capable of intentionally hurting or taking advantage of anyone. Zola turned to her door, all thoughts of a shower forgotten in his need to make things right. He knocked gently at her door. "Ntombi? Ntombi, can we talk?" The only response he got was a sudden cessation of her crying. Clearly, this was not going to be an easy conversation like he had hoped. He slipped his hand down and slowly opened the door. It was dark in Ntombi's room — she had the lights off and the blinds closed. It was as though she had turned into an animal, retreating to a cave to lick her wounds. It took a moment for Zola's eyes to adjust to the dimness. Ntombi was lying on her bed, facing away from him, curled into a foetal ball of misery. Now that he was standing next to her, he could again hear the muted sound of her crying.

Zola pushed the door shut behind him and went to sit on the edge of her bed. "Ntombi, please stop crying. I'm not angry with you, not anymore. I never should have been, in fact. I was just taken by surprise, that's all. Please forgive me for being harsh with you." He put his hand on her shoulder, gently stroking, trying to calm the traumatised girl.

After a minute, Ntombi managed a quavering reply. "I'm so sorry, Malume Zola. I didn't mean to be a bad person. I wasn't trying to hurt you or Auntie Anne, either. I'm so sorry."

The girl's clearly agonised response broke down whatever remained of Zola's walls. He felt tears come to his eyes. "Ntombi, you could never hurt either of us. Like I said, I'm not mad at you. Can we just talk about what happened, so we can put this behind us and be happy again?"

Ntombi lay still for a moment. Finally, she brought her sniffling under control. A moment later, she uttered a deep sigh and pushed herself up to a sitting position. She leaned against the wall and drew her knees up to her chest. She was unable to look him in the eyes, though, and cradled her head on her arms.

Zola decided that he should get the ball rolling. "Last night, when you were in my room, I didn't know what you were doing. You woke me up; I think when you got up from the bed. I could smell your…"

Zola halted for a moment, remembering all too clearly exactly what he could smell. It required a brisk mental shake to get his mind back on track. "…your perfume on the pillow next to me. I knew you had been lying there, but I couldn't figure out why. Then this morning, when you blushed when I talked to you, I figured that you had been, you know."

Zola trailed off again, unable to continue the thought, but Ntombi saved him the necessity. "Yes, Malume Zola, I was in there. I couldn't help myself, I'm so sorry."

"But why were you in there at all, Ntombi? I don't understand."

Ntombi finally raised her head and looked at him. He gazed back at her in gentle concern, and apparently the obvious concern he had for her was enough to put her at ease. In a quiet voice she told him the whole story of hearing him crying in the night and coming in to comfort him. With brutal honesty, Ntombi didn't spare herself any embarrassment. She told him of her sudden, inexplicable arousal and her need for some kind of comfort, and even the chain of events that led to her lying on his bed in his unknowing arms.

Zola was stunned. He had been crying at night? Zola hadn't been sleeping well for a long time, waking each morning with his exhaustion only slightly reduced, his emotions still balancing on the head of a pin. He knew this, intellectually, but he now realised that he had been avoiding even thinking about this or what it implied. Clearly, Anne's death was still bothering him more than he realised. Suddenly, Ntombi's impulses made sense. He had been relying on her a lot, he now realised. In all but name, Ntombi had become the mother of the house — she did much of the cooking, the cleaning, and the other chores around the house. In addition, she was always ready with an open heart to listen to Zola talk about how hard his day had been, or to console Sanele when some beau or another had done something stupid. But thinking back, Zola couldn't remember even once her coming to him with a tale of woe, even though Anne's death had hit her nearly as hard as any of them. For her to need contact or affirmation was as natural as the sun rising, and if it took a form that he wouldn't necessarily have chosen, so what? Arguably, she was no more responsible for what had happened than he was. Zola shook his head ruefully. He moved over on the bed to lean against the wall beside Ntombi, his shoulder touching hers. "Ntombi, I think I owe you far more of an apology than you owe me. We haven't been at all fair to you, have we? We've asked a lot more of you than you should be expected to do, to support the two of us that way. We owe you more than we can ever repay, and then I go and yell at you without thinking. I'm sorry too, Ntombi. Can you forgive me for taking you for granted for so long?"

Ntombi looked over at him in shock. "Malume Zola, you don't need to apologise. You have all been so good to me, you and Sanele and Anne. I was only trying to make it easier for you. I still shouldn't have…"

Zola stopped her. "No, Ntombi. I should have. I should have seen that you needed us as much as we needed you. You didn't do anything wrong, so stop thinking that. Sanele and I both value what you have done for us — we have just been so trapped in our little worlds that we haven't really taken the time to appreciate you."

He reached over and took her hand. "Well, Ntombi, that's going to stop, I promise you. We will never let you go without the things that you need again. You are part of this family, and we won't forget that. Okay?"

She turned to look at him. Her face was very thoughtful, but Zola could see the relief written clearly on her face. Finally, she gave him a small smile. "Yebo baba," she whispered. "Okay." With a nod and a gentle squeeze of his hand, she set his fears at rest. "I don't know what to say. You make me very happy now, but I still feel sorry for what I did."

Zola brought his hand up and gently touched her cheek. "Ntombi, it's forgiven. Don't waste a moment thinking about it."

Her gaze remained on him for a moment, accepting his reassurances. It suddenly struck Zola just how beautiful her eyes were. Even though they were a dark brown, they seemed to capture the dim light of the room and amplify it, making them glow as though her strong inner light were escaping. The strength of this realisation threw Zola's mind back off track. For a long moment, he was unable to gather his thoughts, lost in those brown depths.

Finally, Ntombi turned away. Zola prepared to get up, but she didn't release his hand. Instead, she leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. Zola was suddenly all too aware of her presence — the smell of her hair mixed with the briny scent of tears, and the physical memory of last night was suddenly overpowering in his mind. Ntombi's warmth seeped into him where his side was pressed into hers, and without being consciously aware of doing so, he began to gently caress her hand where it was clasped in his. The minutes ticked away, and all the while Zola remained hyper-aware of Ntombi's presence. With each passing breath, Zola's discomfort grew. This was mainly because he was feeling the stirrings of arousal, and he wasn't sure how to deal with them emotionally. Ntombi had already admitted to a need for human contact, for comfort — now Zola was painfully aware of the same needs. He hadn't been with a woman since Anne died — hadn't, in fact, been able to contemplate such an act. It had been over a year now, and all those lonely, sad nights were coming back to haunt him.

After a long period of silence, during which Zola grew almost frantic with need — and equally frantic with the need to escape the situation entirely — he finally decided to move. Relaxing his grip on Ntombi's hand, he reached up and gently touched her face. Her reaction was unexpected, but not completely unwelcome. As though this were a signal, she lifted her head from his shoulder to look up at him. The need in her eyes was undeniable, and when she suddenly stretched up to touch her lips gently to his, he found himself unable to move.

The kiss was something out of a storybook. It was gentle, like the touch of a butterfly's wings, but the energy it hinted at was nearly overpowering. Ntombi didn't pursue the kiss — after holding it for a moment she pulled away, and Zola found himself suddenly bereft. His head was spinning and he couldn't find his voice.

Ntombi quickly broke the tension-laden silence. She gave him a small smile. "Thank you for being so kind, Zola. It really means a lot to me."

Zola stared at her for a moment in dumbfounded confusion. Ntombi was definitely a woman — just when he thought he had everything figured out, she managed to throw him a curve that he simply couldn't deal with. Then he became aware of his own condition — he was sitting on her bed in a darkened room, and although his emotions weren't sure what was going on, his body knew exactly what it wanted, and it was letting the world know — his running shorts were stretched much more tightly than usual.

Zola blushed like a naughty boy caught passing a note in class. The rush of blood to his head brought him abruptly back to earth. "S-s-s-sure, Ntombi. Anytime you need…"

There was no way to escape this situation gracefully. He hopped up off the bed and headed for the door. "Anyway, you probably have to get to campus, so I'll let you get on with your day. See you this evening, Ntombi."

Zola virtually ran down the hall to his room, heart pounding. It took five minutes before he could calm himself down, and a cold shower before he could get past the feel of her soft, full lips brushing against his.

Behind him, Ntombi opened the blinds, turned on the lights and began to prepare for her day. The whole time, she hummed a happy little tune to herself, and a small, satisfied smile crept up from time to time to light up her face. If Zola could have seen that smile, he would surely have needed a much longer and colder shower.