Chapter 2 - First Night

CHAPTER 2: FIRST NIGHT

The house beyond the Houghton gates did not look like a place built for scandal. It looked like old money trying to behave itself: ivy on pale stone, security in tailored black, a fountain whispering in the middle of the drive.

Inside, a woman in a silver mask welcomed them into a hall filled with adults in evening clothes. Some wore masks. Some held hands. Some looked as nervous as Lerato felt.

‘First Night has rules before it has anything else,’ the woman said. ‘You choose a word that stops everything. Green means continue. Yellow means slow down. Red means stop. Nobody is owed a reason.’

Lerato looked at Tebogo. He did not squeeze her hand or make a decision for her. He only waited.

‘Red,’ she said. The word felt solid in her mouth.

‘Good,’ Tebogo said. ‘And yellow?’

‘Yellow.’

He nodded as if she had just given him the most important figures in the room. ‘Then that is what matters.’

A client manager led them along a quiet corridor and stopped at a door fitted with a small brass plaque: SEMINAR ROOM. Inside stood a heavy oak desk, a row of empty chairs and a cabinet of carefully arranged leather implements. The room should have been ridiculous. Instead, Lerato felt heat rise through her body so fast she almost laughed.

Tebogo shut the door but left his hand on the handle. ‘We can leave. We can sit and talk. Or we can play, but only as adults who know this is play. What do you want?’

She looked at the desk, then at him. ‘I want to see what it feels like when you stop being careful with me.’

His jaw shifted once. ‘I will never stop being careful with you.’