‘Oh my goodness, thank you.’ Flavia hugs her. ‘You’re an actual angel. I’mravenous.’ And then she does another of those suggestive looks, just for me, and I’m blinking again.
We spend the rest of the day on the safari, with packed lunches provided by the lodge, and it’s as good as yesterday, even better in fact. We travel further through the yellow grasses from the lodge, we get incredibly lucky with big five sightings, and we’ve bonded as a group in a way it never occurred to me would happen. And, also, I’m riding high on having had – extremely surprisingly – hands down the best sex I’ve ever had (other than with Flavia that first time all those years ago). And maybe I’m a little delirious from lack of sleep.
When we get back onto the bus for the return to Cape Town, it feels entirely natural to be sitting next to Flavia. Better than natural: I’mpleasedto be sitting next to her (notwithstanding the fact that we really shouldn’t have had sex). It’s bizarre thinking back to how much she annoyed me on the flight. I can’t really rememberwhyI was being so intolerantly uptight about a little bit of mess and chatting.
We slot straight into our positions – Flavia with the window seat and me with the aisle one.
Flavia turns to me and says, ‘I love the way the road slices through the landscape. I’m really looking forward to seeing all the scenery on the way back,’ before falling asleep within literal seconds of our setting off.
I don’t expect to fall asleep easily myself, and reason that I should maybe spend some of the journey thinking about whether the two of us should talk about what happened this morning, or just essentially pretend it never happened – maybe our very brief conversation at the beginning was enough – only to wake up back in Cape Town outside the hotel.
I have my arms full of gorgeous, sleepy Flavia and I find myself cuddling her hard into me and kissing her cheek, before I realise that we must have moved together in our sleep and thinkwhat am I doing.
I carefully release her and gently nudge her awake.
Her eyes are unfocused initially. When she wakes properly and sees me, she gives me one of her just-for-me smiles, which I feel in the stomach like a sucker punch. It’s impossible not to return the smile.
As a result, we’re the last off the bus, because I’ve just been sitting there inanely smiling at Flavia.
Maxim sends us straight up to our rooms, with instructions to hurry back down within forty-five minutes for drinks here at the hotel before we head to the beach for a New Year’s Eve barbecue, orbraai.
We travel up in the lift with Mike who, to my relief, doesn’t seem to have noticed anything new between Flavia and me, and, until we part outside his door, monologues on the subject of South African wine, requiring no input from either of us.
Once we’re inside our room, I purposely act in a very unromantic, business-like way.
‘You first in the bathroom?’ I ask.
Flavia considers for a moment, before suggesting, ‘Maybe you first? And then I can just take the rest of the time we have left. So I don’t feel guilty for taking ages and leaving you with no time.’
‘What ifItake ages and leaveyouwith no time?’
‘Then you will be forced to spend the evening with a woman who looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards and isn’t very pleased about it and blames you and will be plotting dire revenge the whole time.’
I laugh and wonder whether this entirely trivial conversation means that we aren’t going to discuss this morning. I think I should probably show Flavia by my actions that I didn’t expect it to be more than one no-strings thing, and – obviously – discuss it if she would like to. (Selfishly I hope she doesn’t; I can’t imagine either of us would find such a conversation fully comfortable.)
‘You know what?’ Flavia says. And walks across the room to me, her hips swaying, causing me in the space of about five seconds to entirely lose the ability to do anything other than stare.
‘What?’ I croak.
‘Maybe it would be quicker if we shared the bathroom like we did this morning.’
‘Oh.’ My voice is still a croak, and – now that she’s standing only inches away from me, with her head tilted to one side, hands clasped in front of her, doing her smile – I can barely remember my own name, let alone think rationally about anything else.
‘And…’ she continues, ‘if anything should happen, it isn’t going to matter, is it? I mean… if we’ve done it once, it isn’t going to make any difference to anything afterwards if we do it again, is it?’
‘Er, what?’ Still a croak.
‘Shower?’ She looks at me as if she can’t understand how anyone can be so slow. ‘Come on.’
I am unable to do anything except follow her into the bathroom.
‘On second thoughts,’ she says, ‘I’ll go first.’
And then, right in front of me, she slowly takes her top off, and then her shorts, and then turns round for me to undo her bra, her arms raised to hold her masses of hair out of the way. My brain vaguely tells me that this might be unwise, but my hands aren’t listening, and I reach for the fastening.
And then, of course, I follow her as fast as I can into the shower.
* * *
