She had done almost everything in her power to try and make Noko’s brother happy with no luck. Once married, she figured that if she tried hard enough, eventually he might even see her in a better light but there was no replacing Mabotse. And Boledi wished that she had refused to replace her sister in her husband’s life in the first place. She lived with her ghost almost every day when she and Nare were together. He was always angry, comparing her to Mabotse especially in the looks department.

Mobotse was beautiful and she used her beauty to get her way all the time, even if it was just getting out of doing chores. She slaved herself and her in the process that it spoilt Mabotse to be selfish and self-centred. Looking up into Noko’s eyes, she remembered the look of hard anger in the same eyes when she told him that she was marrying Nare.

She had kept herself from feeling anything for Noko because she knew that his friendship was only his way of getting close to her sister. As she had watched a dozen men using her to be in her sister’s good books. But something deep inside of her had been opened and bleeding since the day she saw contempt in Noko’s eyes the day she married Nare.

As much as she tried to ignore that feeling, she realised she did care about Noko. And what he thought of her mattered to her more than what anybody else thought. They really got to be close, especially when their siblings were married to one another and they were almost the same age.

Even with the years that he had been away and visited once or twice a year, they had always found things to talk about. But that changed after she married Nare. Noko somehow became a stranger to her. When they met, he would avoid her and that hurt her a lot.

Something inside of her came alive as his arms held her. It was like a torch light burning in the dark, waking her dormant heart.

The appalling decision that the family had come up with for her to sleep with Noko to have his baby, secretly started warming her heart. But she refused for her mind to dwell deeply on it because cheating on her husband with his brother would be another sin.

Noko felt stupid to have agreed to do what they suggested because he had sworn that he would never be pushed into a corner to do something that he didn’t want to do. It wasn’t like he would be forced if he refused but he could also imagine how humiliating and hard it would be as a man if he couldn’t father his own children. There were doctors in the city to help with that, but his brother was stubborn he would never to want to go see a specialist.

Looking deeply in Boledi’s eyes, his pulse started accelerating hard in his veins and he remembered how he used to feel when they were young – alive. He moved his arms automatically over Boledi’s rounded figure, rounded in the right places. The look in her eyes burned him down to his shoes that without thinking at all, he pulled her closer into his arms and slowly bent his head to kiss her lips.

The kiss startled her. It was something new. It was an art that he learned in the city himself and enjoyed quite a bit. He swept his tongue in her mouth, she shivered and tried to move away but Noko pulled her head with one hand, while the other rounded her waist, easing her on the grass into the alcove of the rock that hid them from view.

“We can’t,” Boledi protested breathlessly trying to move away but he stayed her with the hand on her waist.

“Where but here,” Noko silenced her with soft kisses on the neck, pulling her down in a sleeping position. “This is what you all want anyway, where it takes place doesn’t matter.”

Tell us: What do you think of Noko and Boledi?