Risenga warmed up by herself on the smooth floor behind Auntie Wheels’s house. She was jittery with nerves. Suppose Vukosi went back on their agreement? What was she going to do? He was late.

Then he came strolling round to the back of the house, and her heart seemed to stop. Next thing, it was beating crazily. He was wearing a vest, some sort of loose black pants, and thin-soled takkies. She hadn’t remembered wrong. He truly was seriously hot. Those lean but muscular arms, his gleaming, powerful shoulders …

Auntie’s phone rang just then, so it was left to Risenga to greet Vukosi.

“Here.” She gave him a sheaf of A4 paper. “The South African Dance Foundation’s competition rules. I’ve highlighted the ballroom bits. I printed it out at work.”

He looked amused.

“And it’s a pleasure to see you again too, Risenga,” he quipped, taking the papers.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I said I would.”

“Not everyone keeps their word.”

“I do,” he said, suddenly serious.

Auntie was still talking, so he started flipping through the pages of regulations. After a few moments, he started to laugh.

“This ballroom dress code for females! No G-strings and no lace panties? As if there’s anything sexy about boring ballroom in the first place.”

Auntie Wheels was putting away her phone as Vukosi spoke. She and Risenga looked at each other.

“Let’s try him with the tango first, Auntie,” Risenga said, mischief making her eyes extra bright.

“I thought the tango was Latin American dancing,” Vukosi said.

“That’s the Argentinian tango,” Risenga answered him. “The ballroom tango is different. It’s all in the shape of the embrace.”

“Embrace?” Now he was intrigued.

“Yes.” Auntie’s smile was wicked. “In ballroom tango, the partners keep contact at the hip.”

“Let’s try it!” Vukosi was suddenly eager, his face alight as he looked at Risenga.

Why had she made such a stupid suggestion? The moment Auntie let them try together, after explaining the tango more fully to Vukosi, Risenga felt as if she was on fire or something. How could she ever dance with someone who made her feel like this? Any physical contact between them was dangerous.

She glanced at his face – when she was supposed to be staring over his left shoulder. Yoh! That smouldering look was perfect for the tango.

She and Dzinga had been good together, but she had always worried that his neutral facial expression, hers too possibly, might count against them.

Now she understood that dancing with Dzinga had been all technique. This, this – with Vukosi – there was feeling here. And help, oh God, she was melting.

Risenga started to think Auntie was being deliberately sadistic, the way she kept them working at the tango. This business of their lower bodies touching, the sheer sensuality of the music, and the intensity of the dance, with its head-snaps … She couldn’t take much more.

“That was awesome!” Vukosi exclaimed when Auntie finally let them pause while she changed the music.

“So now you like ballroom,” Risenga teased, her breathing still shallow and fluttery.

“So far,” he laughed. “Girl, you are sensational.”

Was she? If so, he made her that way.

“Wena, let’s see how you like the waltz,” Auntie Wheels said, with an evil glint in her eyes, and Vukosi groaned in disgust.

He didn’t do too badly. That was because he had the gift of letting the music take him, as well as having energy and rhythm. Risenga sensed his impatience with some aspects of the dance, like he wanted to break loose and do his own thing.

Auntie saw it too. “It’s too soon,” she said. “First learn the discipline of the dance, then get creative.”

At the end of the class, Risenga looked at her and said, “So, Auntie? Can we be ready for Bushbuckridge?”

“You’re assuming I want to go on with this,” Vukosi said.

Risenga’s heart gave a jump of fright. He couldn’t back out now–

Then she saw how he was trying not to let his lips curl into a smile.

“You do want to,” she said with absolute confidence, and he laughed.

“As long as you don’t get too bossy.”

“I’m the bossy one here.” Auntie said as she wriggled her skinny eyebrows. “It’s going to take hard work, but you could be ready. Could. You’ll need to choose your music soon and get it on to a CD for the organisers, and make sure your clothes and shoes meet the rules, all that sort of thing. I’ll arrange transport as usual, for Dzinga and Mburi too. Dzinga came and asked me.”

Dzinga. Risenga gave him a passing thought, almost like a goodbye, as she and Vukosi left.

“Clothes?” Vukosi said. “I saw what it said in the rules. I need to warn you now: I’m not paying for that sort of thing. Can’t pay. I need every cent I bring in for my half-brother and sister. The kids you saw yesterday.”

“Are you responsible for them?” Risenga felt all right asking, as he was the one to introduce the personal topic.

“Since the cancer got my mother.” There was a weight of loss in the words. “That’s when I stopped dancing, when she got sick and needed looking after, those last months. My step-father took off years ago, and my own father died when I was a little kid.”

“Difficult days.” Risenga felt her heart opening in sympathy.

“I’m not the only one. Everyone has a story.” The evening darkness was striped with bars of light coming from houses, and she saw how his eyes gleamed as he sent her a questioning look. “You too, I bet?”

“Not as sad as yours. A sudden gambling addiction, the main breadwinner gone.” Risenga didn’t like talking about it. “So where are you working?”

“One of the big farms down Ohrigstad way. Paprika. I got lucky; they’re training me for a junior management position, but first they want me to get to know every aspect of the business, from planting to drying the capsicums. It’s a long way to travel; I can’t have the kids with me in the farm housing, so I’ve had to stay living in Moremela. The first months I was tired all the time – partly why I never went back to dancing after my mother died. But now, it’s like I’ve adjusted, and I’ve got all this spare energy again.”

“I could tell.” Risenga gave him a small smile, and he smiled back.

“I want to know something,” he said. “If the ballroom tango is about contact at the hip, where is the contact in the Latin America tango?”

“Top half. The … um, chests and heads are closer together, the hips more apart.”

He thought about this for the space of several steps as they walked.

Finally he spoke. “Then I say ballroom is sexier.”

She laughed, thrilled with his enthusiasm. She even leaned towards him slightly – until she noticed the big expensive car slowing down and the backseat passenger taking a good look at them.

“Urrgh.” She straightened away from Vukosi, feeling invaded by the eyes watching her from the car.

“That preacher from the tent,” Vukosi recognised the man. “So he’s also got Leroro in his greedy hold.”

Risenga felt good. Dancing and a shared dislike of Marule. She and Vukosi had things in common. She liked it.

***

Tell us what you think: Will the physical attraction between Risenga and Vukosi be good for their new dancing partnership, or could it become a problem?