Thank you for the correction! Here's the revised Chapter 2 with the accurate Mitchell backstory:
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Finding Daddy
Chapter 2: What Motjatjo Knows
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Saturday arrives like a verdict.
I spend the morning in a fog, packing school bags, signing permission slips, nodding at Karabo's chatter about a boy in her class who "doesn't even know I exist, Mom, it's so unfair." My youngest, Lerato, is still young enough to need help with shoelaces and old enough to resent it. Normal life. Ordinary chaos. All of it happening while my brain circles one question:
What did Motjatjo keep from me?
By 3 p.m., I'm in the car, heading toward her apartment in Menlyn. The bottle of rosé on the passenger seat feels ridiculous—like bringing flowers to a funeral. Whatever she's going to tell me, wine won't soften it.
She opens the door before I knock. That's how Motjatjo has always been—anticipating, hovering at the threshold of whatever comes next. But today she looks different. Softer, yes, but also sharper somehow, like a blade wrapped in silk.
"Come in, chomi."
Her apartment is all cream couches and abstract art and the smell of expensive candles. We've sat here a hundred times, a thousand, dissecting men and careers and the particular exhaustion of being women who carry everything. But today the space feels foreign. The air is thick.
I set the bottle on her counter. "Just tell me. Before I lose my mind."
Motjatjo pours us both glasses, takes a long sip, and sits.
"Her name is Lomile."
Two syllables. That's all it takes to change everything.
"She was Vincent's—" Motjatjo hesitates, searching for the right word. "His person. For a while."
I grip my glass. "How long?"
"Three years. They lived together in Alberton."
The words land like stones in my chest. Alberton. Together. Someone cooked for him, slept beside him, woke up to him every morning. Someone lived with him in ways I never have.
"She wasn't his first," Motjatjo continues carefully. "There was someone before her—Mitchell. White girl. They met at TUT, back when they were both students."
I've never heard this name before. Mitchell. A ghost I didn't know existed until now.
"She was thirty, he was twenty-two. Young, both of them, but she... she had experience. Real experience. She was a true submissive masochist—knew the life, knew herself, knew what she needed. And she shaped him. Taught him everything. Not just the moves—the mindset. The psychology. The power of surrender and control tangled together."
I try to picture it: Vincent at twenty-two, raw and unformed, being molded by a woman who understood submission so deeply she could teach him to be the Master he is today.
"What happened to her?"
"Her family moved. Australia. She graduated from TUT and they left—right after. Just like that." Motjatjo snaps her fingers. "One day she was there, the next she was gone. He never saw her again."
The silence in the room feels heavy.
"But Lomile," Motjatjo says, "Lomile was different after. She was the closest he ever got to what Mitchell was to him. His center. The one he truly opened up to. The one where he felt totally in control and completely vulnerable at the same time."
My throat tightens. "And you sent me to him knowing this?"
"I sent you to him because it was over. Three years over. She moved to Cape Town, got married, built a life. I thought—" Motjatjo shakes her head. "I thought the past was the past."
"But it's not."
"No." She drains her glass. "She's back. I saw her last week. At a gallery opening, of all the cliché places. We spoke. She asked about him."
My stomach turns. "What did you say?"
"That he's happy. That he's with someone good. That she should leave him alone."
I want to thank her for that. I want to scream at her for everything else.
"You should have told me, Motjatjo. Before I called him. Before I knelt. Before I—" Before I fell in love with a man I'm still not sure I know.
"I know." Her voice breaks. "God, Lethabo, I know. But I also know Vincent. I know what he was like with her. And I know what he's like with you. They're not the same. You're not the same."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I watched him with her. And I watch him with you." Motjatjo reaches across the counter, takes my hand. "With her, there was always this... performance. The Master, the Daddy, the whole aesthetic. Even when he was vulnerable, it felt rehearsed. Like he was playing a part he'd written for himself. With you?" She squeezes my fingers. "With you, he forgets to perform. He's just him. The man underneath. I didn't know that man existed until you."
I want to believe her. God, I want to believe her.
But belief has never been my strong suit.
We talk for another hour. About Mitchell, about Lomile, about the years I'll never get back and the truths I'm only now uncovering. Motjatjo cries. I don't. I'm too empty for tears.
By the time I leave, the wine bottle is empty and so am I.
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I drive home in the dark, the highway lights blurring past.
Mitchell. Lomile. Alberton. Three years.
My phone buzzes at 7:48 p.m.
Daddy: Where are you?
I shouldn't answer while driving. I shouldn't answer at all until I've sorted through the wreckage of this afternoon. But my thumb moves on its own.
Me: On my way home. Been with Motjatjo.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Daddy: Come to me instead.
Not a question. Not a request. A command, dressed in three words.
Me: I can't. The girls—
Daddy: The girls are with their grandmother until tomorrow. You told me last week, remember?
I did. I forgot. Or maybe I didn't forget—maybe I was saving it, this rare night of freedom, for something I needed more than him.
Daddy: Lethabo. Come.
My hands tighten on the wheel. The exit for his building is two kilometers ahead.
I take it.
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His apartment is all glass and steel and the particular silence of places designed for adults. No toys on the floor. No cereal bowls in the sink. No evidence that children exist anywhere in this world.
He opens the door wearing charcoal trousers and nothing else. His chest is bare, his feet bare, his face unreadable. The man is a sculpture come to life, and I hate how my body responds even now, even angry, even afraid.
"You saw Motjatjo." Not a question.
"I did."
He steps back, lets me enter. The door clicks shut behind me.
"And now you have questions."
I turn to face him. "I have several questions. Starting with Mitchell. Ending with Lomile. And all the years in between that you never mentioned."
Something flickers in his eyes. Pain? Regret? It's gone before I can name it.
"Sit down, Lethabo."
"I don't want to sit."
"Then stand." He moves to his leather couch, lowers himself onto it, looks up at me. "But I'm going to tell you the truth, and you might want to be sitting for it."
I don't sit. But I also don't leave.
"Mitchell." He says the name like it costs him something. "We met at TUT. I was twenty-two, she was twenty. We were both still so young yet she wasn't flashy or loud, didn't need to be. She just... was. Completely herself. Completely submitted to who she was."
I've never heard him speak about anyone this way.
"She was a true submissive masochist. Not playing at it, not performing—living it. Every cell in her body understood surrender in a way I'd never seen. And she taught me. Not through lectures, through being. I watched her. Learned her. She let me inside her world, and it changed the wiring of my brain."
"What happened?"
"She graduated. Her family moved to Australia—right after. One week she was there, the next she was gone. No warning. No chance to..." He trails off.
"To what?"
"To thank her. To tell her what she meant. To say goodbye." He looks at the floor. "I've never said goodbye to Mitchell. Not properly. She's still out there, somewhere in Perth, and I don't even know if she's alive."
The weight of that lands between us.
"Then came Lomile."
I stiffen.
"Lomile was different. Mitchell built me; Lomile knew me. Or thought she did. I opened up to her in ways I never had with anyone. She became my center—the one person I could be vulnerable with and still feel in control. It sounds contradictory. It was. But it worked. For three years, it worked."
"What happened?"
He looks away. "I don't talk about what happened."
"Vincent." His name, not his title. "If you want me to stay in this room, you will talk about it."
His jaw tightens. For a long moment, I think he'll refuse. Then:
"She wanted more than I could give at the time. Not physically, emotionally. She wanted marriage. Children. A normal life with a man who comes home at six and coaches soccer on weekends." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Can you see me coaching soccer, Lethabo?"
No. I can't.
"Well I can and I do sometimes I just couldn't give her those things. Not because I didn't love her, I did. But because I don't know how to be that man. I never have. So she left. Found someone who could."
The silence stretches.
"And now she's back," I say quietly.
"Yes."
"Wanting what?"
"Closure. She says." He meets my eyes. "Maybe more. I don't know."
The honesty cuts. I wanted truth, and here it is, messy, incomplete, terrifying.
"Lethabo." He stands, crosses to me, takes my face in his hands. "I should have told you. All of it. I didn't because" He exhales slowly. "Because I was afraid."
I blink. "Afraid? You?"I'm
"Yes. Me." A bitter smile. "The Master, afraid. Imagine that."
"Of what?"
"Of losing you. Of you hearing their names and deciding I'm not worth the complication. Of " He stops. Looks away. When he speaks again, his voice is lower than I've ever heard it.
"Of you realizing that the man who taught you to kneel has spent his whole life kneeling to no one. And that terrifies me, Lethabo. Because you're the first person who makes me want to try this vanilla they call."
His forehead rests against mine. We breathe the same air.
"I don't know how to be what you need," he whispers. "I've never done this before, the real part. The part after losing control . But I want to learn. With you. If you'll still have me."
I should walk away. I should protect myself, protect my girls, protect the fragile peace I've built.
Instead, I rise on my toes and kiss him.
It's not a submissive's kiss. It's not a command obeyed. It's a choice, my choice, to stay.
He makes a sound I've never heard from him. Something broken and grateful and desperate all at once. His hands slide into my hair, and for a long moment, we're just two people holding onto each other in the dark.
When we finally pull apart, he takes my hand and leads me toward the bedroom.
For the first time ever knowing MasterV it was the first night I felt like I am really loved, this night he did not act as a Master just a man making passionate love to his woman was this how he is going to be donI want his changed. But every time I tried to think all that he would be deep in me driving me crazy orgasm after orgasm. He may have made love but control and power would never leave this man feeling it in every thrust and every moan. He tries but this is not him. But for a change I am enjoying it while it lasts.
Later, much later, I lie in his arms and watch the city lights through his floor-to-ceiling windows.
"She's coming to dinner," he says quietly. "Lomile. Next Saturday. I'd like you to be there."
My heart seizes. "You want me to meet her?"
"I want you to see that she's the past. You're the present. And if you'll have me—" He turns, looks at me directly. "You're the future too."
I should say no. I should protect myself.
But I am Lethabo Mokoena. I raised two daughters alone. I knelt for a man and found myself on the floor. I am not afraid of ex-girlfriends and expensive dinners and the complicated truth of loving someone with a history.
"Okay," I whisper. "I'll be there."
His arm tightens around me.
And for the first time all day, I breathe.