Lives Between Walls

The title was Before Nine.

She almost closed it.

Then she saw the first sentence.

She arrived at work before anyone else because she had spent the whole night pretending she was not going to.

Nandi sat up.

Kabelo snored softly beside her.

She continued.

The woman parked in the basement at twenty minutes to eight. The office lifts were still quiet. Most of the lights had not been switched on.

Only the writer was there.

He stood near the boardroom windows, holding a cup of coffee.

“You’re early,” he said.

“So are you.”

“I was waiting.”

“For who?”

The writer smiled.

Nandi’s finger stopped moving.

The story described the woman’s clothes.

A white blouse.

Black trousers.

Gold earrings.

Nandi looked down at herself as though she might already be wearing them.

The woman tried to walk past.

The writer caught her wrist.

Not roughly.

Just firmly enough to make her stop.

He asked whether she had decided how the story should end.

She told him to let go.

He did.

Then she remained where she was.

Nandi swallowed.

The prose changed there.

It slowed.

The writer moved closer. The woman backed against the boardroom door. He asked once whether she wanted him to stop.

She did not answer.

He touched her face.

The story described the heat of his palm, the pause before their mouths met, the way her breath caught when he kissed the corner of her lips instead of her mouth.

Nandi scrolled.

The woman pulled him closer.

His hand moved to her waist.

The locked office held them like a secret.

The suspended ceiling pressed down, forcing their bodies nearer. The glass walls reflected them from every angle, multiplying the betrayal until there were dozens of versions of the woman surrendering at once.

Nandi’s hands began to tremble.

The writer kissed her properly.

The story described her fingers inside his shirt.

His mouth against her neck.

The sound she made when he lifted her onto the edge of the boardroom table.

Nandi closed the page.

Her breath came shallowly.

The house held its.

Beside her, Kabelo moved.

She placed the phone beneath the duvet.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

He looked at the clock.

“It’s midnight.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

He reached for her.

Nandi flinched.

Kabelo withdrew his hand.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been strange for days.”

“I said nothing is wrong.”

He stared at her for a moment, then turned away.

Nandi waited until his breathing deepened again.

She felt bad, but she just couldn’t tell him.

Otherwise she would have to admit to him that she had read the book he had told her not to read.

She opened the blog.

The story continued.

It was not explicit.

That made it worse.

Thabo had stopped just before the act itself, leaving the rest inside suggestion: clothing disturbed, breathless laughter, a locked door, the woman’s underwear abandoned beneath the table.

The final paragraph returned to the beginning.

At nine, the rest of the office arrived.

The woman was already at her desk.

Nobody noticed that the top button of her blouse had been fastened incorrectly.

Nobody except the building.

The building noticed everything.

Nandi locked her phone.

She felt exposed in her own bed.

Guilty.

Dirty.

As though through reading, she had committed the act.

The next morning, she dressed deliberately in blue.

No white blouse.

No black trousers.

No gold earrings.

She arrived at work at twenty past nine.

The office was full.

Thabo was at his desk.

He looked up when she entered.

“Morning.”

She walked past him.

“Nandi?”

She kept going.

At ten, she went to the bathroom and reread the story.

It had not changed.

She took screenshots.

By eleven, she was sitting in her manager’s office.

Mrs Mokoena closed the door.

“What happened?”

Nandi placed her phone on the desk.

“One of my colleagues is writing sexual stories about me.”