Angela
She was seventeen when she realised that being the smartest person in the room could be a lonely thing.
Angela was head girl of her grade, the type of student teachers held up as an example. She came second in the top ten of her year, always just behind Sharnay van der Merwe, the one person she could never quite beat no matter how hard she tried. Academic scrolls. Cultural scrolls. Debate trophies. By the time she matriculated, she’d collected six distinctions and a shoulder load of expectations. Maths core was never really her strong suit, but she more than made up for it everywhere else.
People always forgot that clever girls could be beautiful too. Angie’s freckles spread across her cheeks, her hazel eyes made people look twice, and her juicy lips that seemed too perfect to be real. She wasn’t only the girl with the highest marks or the sharpest arguments. She was the girl people noticed when she walked into a room. Because she was gorgeous.
She’d just won the district debating championship, the trophy heavy in her hands, while her mother’s carrot cake sat untouched on the wooden dining room table. The neighbours smiled, patted her on the head, and praised her like she was some clever little achievement they could show off. Angela grew up in a small Afrikaans town where everyone knew everyone, and everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business too. The houses were neat, the gardens were trimmed every Saturday morning, and gossip travelled faster than the local newspaper. She couldn’t wait to leave. She wanted to study law, disappear into a city where nobody knew her surname, and build a life that belonged to her.
“You know what’s funny about people that think they’re smart? ” her mother asked later as she washed the dishes in the warm yellow light spilling across the kitchen. “You spend so long judging everyone else’s intelligence, that you forget people can still fool you.” She smiled to herself before adding, “It’s a hard lesson to learn, but you’ll get there eventualy.”
Angie laughed. “Ja, ja, Ma. Ek hoor jou,” she said with a grin. “Ek sal mos uitvind.”
She was already thinking about nationals. About studying law. About the apartment she’d have one day, where no one would comment on what time she got home.
By twenty-three, Angela finished her law degree, wrote her board exams and completed her articles. For the first time in her life, she could afford a place of her own in a big city. So, she got that flat in Brooklyn, Pretoria. Not the one in New York, the one where students, young professionals and diplomats all seemed to end up. It was a tiny place above a takeaway shop that always smelled of vetkoek and frying oil, but it was hers.
Pretoria felt anonymous. That’s exactly what she’d wanted. She walked around naked after a shower because no one could tell her not to. Some nights she’d eat cereal for supper at midnight simply because she felt like it. She’d worked too hard for this freedom not to enjoy it. By day, she was building a career in family law. Every course she completed, every certificate she earned and every achievement she added to her CV felt like another layer of armour.
Richard walked into her life at a legal conference in Centurion. He was fifty, the kind of man who looked comfortable in his own skin. The grey at his temples was starting to show, not in a way that made him look old, but in a way that made him look established. His shirts were always neatly pressed, his shoes polished, his watch expensive but understated. He wasn’t the loudest person in the room. In fact, he rarely needed to be.
Years in courtrooms taught him how to listen, when to speak and how to make people feel like they have his full attention. He remembered names. He remembered small details people mentioned in passing. He asked questions and waited for the answers. That was what people liked about him. Richard had a way of making you feel like you were the only person in the room, even when he was surrounded by people who wanted something from him. He carried himself with the quiet confidence of someone who spent decades building a reputation. The kind of man younger lawyers looked up to. The kind of man older colleagues trusted.
Angela noticed all of that before she noticed him. They met over coffee during a break between sessions. She was standing near the coffee station, scrolling through notes on her phone and trying to remember the points she wanted to raise in the next panel, when Richard started a conversation. Not with a rehearsed compliment or some obvious attempt to impress her. Just a simple question.“You’re the one who raised the point about children’s rights earlier, aren’t you?”
Angela looked up, surprised. “Was it that obvious?”
“No,” he said with a smile. “You just looked like someone who actually cared about the answer.”
It was a small thing. But Angela noticed. Most people asked about her work because they wanted something from her. A contact. A favour. A way into a conversation. Richard seemed genuinely interested.
They spoke about the conference, difficult cases, and how emotionally draining family law could be. He didn’t interrupt her. He didn’t turn the conversation back to himself. He asked questions and actually listened to the answers. By the time the break ended, Angela realised something unusual. She’d spent the last twenty minutes not trying to prove how smart she was. She’d just been herself.
Before they went back into the conference, he returned with another coffee and handed it to her. “You know,” he said, “you spend a lot of time talking about everyone else’s problems.” Angela smiled. “Occupational hazard.”
“I’m serious.” He nodded towards her notes. “When was the last time you did something just because you wanted to? Not because it was expected of you. Not because it looked good on paper.”
Angie opened her mouth to answer. Nothing came out. And that was what stayed with her. Not the coffee. Not the compliment. The fact that, for once, someone noticed how tired she was.
It started with coffee after work. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that felt like a line being crossed. Just conversations that went on longer than they were supposed to. A coffee after a difficult day in court. A quick catch-up after a conference. The kind of meetings that were easy to justify because they still felt harmless.
Then came the drives. Richard would offer to drop her off, and sometimes they’d end up taking the longer route through Pretoria instead. No real destination. Just traffic, music and conversation. His BMW always smelled faintly of leather and coffee. Springsteen played quietly through the speakers, and Angela found herself laughing at stories she’d normally never tell anyone.
They spoke about work, books, politics, and the strange gap between the lives they imagined when they were younger and the lives they actually ended up living. Around Richard, Angela didn’t have to perform. She didn’t have to achieve. She could just exist. And that was what made it dangerous. For a while, she told herself that was all it was. A friendship. An escape from the pressure of always being responsible. Nothing more.
He mentioned his wife early on. They were sitting in his car after coffee when Stacey came up naturally in conversation.
“Stacey and I’ve been together a long time,” he said. There was no anger in his voice. No dramatic complaints. He didn’t call her difficult or blame her for everything that was wrong in their marriage. He spoke about her the way people sometimes speak about relationships that have gone quiet. Not with hatred, but with distance. Like they become two people sharing the same routines, the same responsibilities, the same history.
“We’re not really happy anymore,” he admitted.
Angela didn’t ask too many questions.
Maybe because she didn’t want to hear the answers. And Angela, who spent her whole life believing she could read people, filled in the blanks herself.
The first time was in his car, parked behind the conference center, the engine ticking as it cooled. Richard leaned across the gear shift and kissed her, his hand rough on her jaw, and Angela climbed into his lap because she couldn't wait, because she was starving for something she couldn't name. Her black pencil-skirt hiked up around her waist, her red panties pushed aside, and Richard's fingers found her first, two thick digits pushing inside her without preamble, making her gasp against his mouth.
"You're wet," he growled. "Fuck, you're so wet for me."
"Yes," she breathed, fumbling with his belt, his zipper, freeing his cock. It was thick, veined, already leaking at the tip. She stroked him while he worked her with his fingers, the heel of his hand grinding against her clit, the rhythm building fast and desperate in the confined space.
"Now," she demanded, lifting herself up. "Now, Richard."
He guided himself to her entrance and she sank down, taking him in one smooth motion, her head falling back against the headrest as he filled her, stretched her, hit places inside her that made her see stars. Richard's hands gripped her hips, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and he thrust up into her, meeting her downward grind with sharp, upward strokes.
"Fuck," he panted, his face buried in her neck. "You feel…fuck…you're so tight."
Angela rode him with abandon, her knees braced against the leather seats, her breasts bouncing in her blouse with every impact. She was usually so controlled, so careful, but with Richard inside her she felt wild, unmoored. She came with his cock buried deep, her pussy clenching around him in rhythmic pulses that made him groan.
"Again," he demanded, flipping her onto her back across the passenger seat, her legs spread wide, her red heels on the dashboard. He fucked her hard then, pounding into her with a violence that should have frightened her but only made her wetter, his hips slamming against her thighs, the wet sound of their joining filling the small space. When he came, it was with a roar, his cock pulsing inside her, filling her with heat.
Afterwards, he drove her home.
L The conversation was lighter than usual, but something felt different. Richard seemed distracted, one hand on the steering wheel and the other occasionally reaching for his phone at the red lights. When he pulled up outside her flat, Angela waited for the usual moment. The lingering goodbye. The reassurance. Something that told her this meant as much to him as it did to her. Instead, he leaned over, gave her a quick kiss and smiled faintly.
“Text me when you’re inside, okay?”
It sounded caring. But it felt routine.
Angela opened the door and stepped out.
“Night, babe,” he said.Then he drove away. She stood outside her flat, watching the BMW disappear down the street, trying to ignore the strange feeling settling in her chest. She should’ve noticed the pattern. The way he was always checking his phone. The way his eyes drifted to his watch even in the middle of a conversation. The way he never stayed the night. The way he seemed completely present in certain moments, but distant almost immediately afterwards. The rest of the time, part of him always seemed to be somewhere else.
