Summer afterparty

It is the last day of Cape Town Summer. Autumn came last week but Summer has dropped back in to pick up the last of her stuff before she moves up north. We've had a three day party for her, a Summer Farewell, but now she's overstayed her welcome and left her underwear on the sofa.

My fingers still tingle with the chilli I sliced up yesterday. My body is sweaty-warm as I write. My thighs hot. Listless and grumpy, the air is so still it hangs around my ear-lobes. I feel like I am bathing in the headiness.

I have woken, worrying, in the dark for several nights now. Too hot to sleep, I get up to open the windows; to let in the air and let out the demons. But they keep coming back in to look for Summer's underwear.

This afternoon, I have taken my own underwear off. I am partly naked and partly not. I lie here, skirt pulled up above my knees and feel hot and tired from the nights. The smells of the afternoon, of chilli , of me, fill my senses and cover my fingers.