Chapter 3 - Filmed In A Threesome

Have you ever done something that makes you wonder who you really are?

I rock back and forth on the sofa, my fingers gripping the card that Thorn left on the bed sheets. It's a black rectangle with a rose on one side, ten intriguing digits on the other. And it's the only link I have to a man who has rewired the pleasure centre in my brain.

After exactly 2.7 seconds of deliberation (ok, zero) I decide to call. Don't pretend you wouldn't have done the same.

My heart pounds as I punch the numbers into my phone. Not because I think that Thorn's going to answer, but because of what it means if he doesn't. This mysterious stranger has been the most exciting thing to happen to me since SARS auto-assessed my return and paid out a refund of thirty-seven rand and fourteen cents.

Thirty-seven rand. Fourteen cents.

I got the SMS at four minutes past six on a Tuesday morning and I sat up in bed to read it. Twice. That is how much was going on in my life. Up to this point it's been a soul-crushingly dull routine—study, work, study, work, obsess about my filing system. And what has it brought me? A tiny room in a shitty house in Melville, a shitty low-paid job in HR and a (now ex) boyfriend who couldn't have been more shitty if he tried.

Not exactly YOLO, is it?

So yeah, the idea that my ride with Thorn might already be over is enough to make me weep into my Merlot.

At first there's nothing but silence. I double, triple check the numbers in case I've made a mistake. Then—

"Where did you get this number?"