Yes, we were one of those couples (and yes I did just use the word couple)  Those couples who walked around making everyone else feel slightly nauseous by their excessive show of public affection. The kind that pawed at each other non-stop as if the apocolypse was coming and they would never see each other again. Cooing and cuddling and talking cutesy-wootesy. We were officially an item, and everyone knew it.

My aunt thought it was great- She thought we were perfect for each other. Dorcus and Precious were also very vocal about it ,

“Mmm, you must fatten up a bit. Men like woman with some meat on their bones!” They would say while shoving more food my way, they were convinced that my chances of hanging onto Riaan were greatly improved if my waistline was larger.

At one stage Precious nudged me in the ribs and asked how many uncles I had. When I replied none, she offered herself up as chief negotiator if the subject of Riaan paying labola for me ever came up. Apparently uncles were usually the go-to guys in such affairs, but Precious had insisted that she could fetch me a good price! I wasn’t sure if she s joking or not.

Mary however took the news pretty badly, apparently she’d had a crush on Mandla–the other game ranger- for over a year now and he didn’t even know she existed. And now seeing me with Riaan, was the last straw. I vowed to help her, which she was very pleased about and we started hatching a plan together during out days cleaning. It involved an extreme makeover, I intended to send Mary out into the world looking so hot that Mandla couldn't help but notice her. Clothes, hair, make-up, shoes- the whole shebang.

People were warming up to me and I was warming up to them. And as I got to know them- I realized why there was no need for TV... at all. Because what they had going on here in their staff village was a regular soap opera. The main storyline of the moment was the love triangle between Danie, Marie and Andre. It seemed that she liked them both ( and had at one point dated them both) but was now undecided. They were constantly vying for her attention to the point of ridiculousness, someone had actually suggested they duel each other and get it over with- there was a secret cash bet going on in case they did, I put money on Andre, he looked like he could bench press a water buffalo. Another storyline revolved around trying to apprehend the monkey that had been sneaking into everyone’s rooms and stealing their food. I started becoming very fond of my village and it’s inhabitants- the monkey however was really starting to piss me off.

Riaan and I got into a nice daily routine- I never thought I would refer to any routine as nice. But I found it immensely comforting to do the same things everyday. I would meet him at his room in the morning, where we would have some coffee together, before both going to work. And then in the evenings we would go to his place for dinner, DVD’s and endless hours of lip locking.  We spent as much time together as possible, but still slept in separate rooms. However, it was getting harder and harder not to stay the night and slide on into fourth with enthusiasm. We were reaching that critical point now, we were both teetering on the edge, barely able to hold on. Letting go was inevitable… This filled me with a delicious nervousness.

I had also taken on other responsibilities around the lodge, I was helping my aunt with her books. She’d asked me to take a look at something- remembering that I had been pretty good with numbers at school- and when I did, I uncovered a world of errors. Most people find it difficult to believe I enjoy maths and am good at it. But I like numbers, always have. I liked the precision and predictability of them. Numbers are cold hard facts, they do what you want them to do and you can always predict how they will behave in relation to others. They never surprise you or let you down. I like that about them for some reason.

The days ticked away and before I knew it, two weeks had gone past. And in that time I hadn’t had a single drink, acted like an idiot or put myself in a life-threatening situation. I found myself in a good place, I had clarity now for the first time in years. But the clarity also came with some realizations about myself. They were not necessarily nice ones, not the kind that  are particularly pleasant to own up to, or admit to. But they were apart of me.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I'd used and abused alcohol, partying and men as a means of escape. There was a part of me that was in so much pain and felt way too dangerous to go near, that I'd done everything I could to keep it down and push it away. Sex, shooters, shopping and stumbling on the dance floor had been the perfect combination to keep all those emotions at bay and in check. 

But without them, those emotions where starting to surface, and the amazing thing was that they didn’t overwhelm me. My previous fear had been that if I stopped, I actually stopped and thought about my mother and how much I missed her, that I might not be able to start again. Same with my dad, I didn’t want to stop and really think about how painful it was to have a non-existent relationship with him.  Instead I just acted out, trying to either punish him, or get his attention, even if it was negative. There was nothing I could do about my mother, other than grieve her properly now, but I could do something about my dad.  I wasn’t quite strong enough for that just yet, but it felt like another inevitability.

I’d put up such a front for so long. I was Zara the socialite, celebrity, gossip magazine queen. Fabulous, fashionable, don’t give a fuck, shop till I drop, drink till I fall off my heels and laugh loudly in everyone’s faces. But truthfully, I wasn’t okay underneath it all. Far, far from it. I had felt empty and desperately lonely- and that night in the car, when I thought I might actually die, I was relived. 

That's how bad it was. That I didn’t care if I died.  I'd continuously shown little to no respect for myself, especially my body, plying it with too much alcohol and throwing it at men as if I was an old pair of scruffy shoes.

But all that was different now. Riaan had shown me that I was so much more than all that, and I was just starting to feel it.  I wasn’t one hundred percent there yet, but baby steps Zara, baby steps.

“I have a surprise for you,” Riaan said during our usual early morning coffee.

“What? I love surprises.”

Riaan flashed me a look that stopped me dead in my tracks. My brain pressed pause on all sensible thoughts, my heart starting beating like a 90’s rave song and my stomach climb into my rib cage. And if that wasn’t enough, I almost dropped my coffee. Because his look said, as clear as bright, sunny daylight- “ Zara, its’ time. Tonight I’ m going to rip all your clothes off and do you until the sun comes up”

He must have seen that I'd accurately interpreted the meaning in his look, because he then leaned in and said, “So meet me here at 5:00. Don’t be late.”And then he leant in and kissed me on the cheek as he always did, except that this kiss said a very similar thing to the look.

I watched him walk away and I waited for my brain to press play, my heart to return to normal and my stomach to move back into its rightful place. But they didn't. There was no way thinking about having sex with Riaan tonight was going to have my various body parts acting normal in any way.

 Shit, were we really going to…….

Tonight??