Previously, Obi thought he’d left Dacie behind with the masquerade and madness of that unforgettable night. But fate had other plans. A chance reunion at a Nairobi theatre rekindled memories he tried to forget—of silk, shadows, and the taste of red. As the show began, so did a new act between them, unfolding in stolen glances and half-whispered truths, high above the stage.

“Obi, do you like sweets?” She asked, then, crunch came the sound!

She took a piece of broken sweets from her mouth and held the red between us.

“I’ll pass, and have lemon with my drink. Thank you,” I said, casually taking a swig from the bottle.

“I waited for you to reach out,” she said, sucking on her thumb and index finger.

“There’s a reason it was a masquerade, and why we didn’t exchange numbers,” I replied, holding her gaze.

“I see,” she said.

Opting for the bar, we hadn’t gone in for the show's second half.

Admittedly, though I thought of that night occasionally, I never expected to meet Dacie again.

“Am I that easy to forget?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying?” she purred, leaning closer to my face. “Don’t say you didn’t have my number, yet you’re best buddies with Kot.”

Should I tell her that I sometimes wish the escapade in the smokeroom never ended, that the taste still lingered in my mouth, the soft rustle of clothes pulling overhead, the whimper from the bites on her neck, and the intoxicating scent of her hair still haunted my fantasies.

Or that I knew who she was, not just a beauty, but a vigorously intelligent heiress. She could have her pick of anything she wanted to do or be, but instead moped around in infamy, hoping to spite her family even more after breaking off her engagement.

No doubt she echoed other people’s black-sheep ideas due to the irritation caused by a lack of mental freedom and perhaps wanted to show her feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of her family.

A pliable imagination persuaded her, I suppose, for a brief moment that I could play a part in her mummery. She must have done her due diligence and knew that I was an insidious buffoon, and that must have greatly captivated her fancy; otherwise, why were we here?

“Can I tell you a story?” I asked, still holding her gaze.

“Your voice is honey over thunder. How lucky is a girl to have you as a bard?”

“A young lady of the last "romantic" generation who after some years of an enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have married at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's Ophelia.

Indeed, if this precipice, a chosen and favourite spot of hers, had been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most likely the suicide would never have taken place!”

After a long silence, she said, “Tragic. Now what?”

“I’m having a bit of an identity crisis,” I began, took a swig, wiped my mouth, and went on.

“I’ve always prided myself on being…well nuts, but in this table, I find myself falling in the sane category.”

“Obi, you need me. You need us to have a thing!”

“Need? As much as I want you, desire you even, I certainly do not need you,” I replied nonchalantly.

“OK. Watch my drink,” she said, and got up abruptly, heading for the lady’s.

When she retook her seat momentarily, I sensed a change in her. There was a little wild in her dark eyes.

“I do have intentions,” she began. “My intentions are to go beyond the ‘bad Obi’, which I’ve been trying to do since we met, by appealing to the good. But it appears to me that perhaps I should be appealing to the naughty.”

“I’m not certain you’re up to the task,” I said softly.

With one swing, she downed her glass of wine, set the glass on the table, and looked at me, her eyes smoky and glistening from the sting of the wine.

“You don’t know me, Obi!” She said in silent defiance, took out a wrapped napkin from her purse, and gave it to me. “A little something for you,” she said, giving me her card, a wet kiss on the cheeks, and cat walking out.

Inside the napkin was folded a cloth of white lace.