Chapter 1: Stepping Into the Noise
The suitcase wheels thumped rhythmically over the pavement cracks, a tired counter-beat to the bassline already thudding from her family’s house halfway down the block. Yaa stopped, the handle slick in her palm. Neon light—a sickly purple—pulsed from the front bay window. She’d texted she was coming home for a quiet weekend. Kwaku had replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
Quiet. Right.
She hauled her case up the steps, the music vibrating through the front door. Inside, the hallway was a dumping ground for jackets and discarded heels. The living room was a haze of smoke and strobe-light chaos. Bodies pressed against each other on velvet couches the colour of bruised plums, shouting to be heard over a track she felt in her molars. The air smelled of spiced rum, sweat, and the cloying sweetness of mango flavoured vape.
“Yaa-bear!”
Kwaku emerged from the crowd like a charismatic torpedo, all teeth and sharp cologne. He scooped her up in a hug that lifted her feet clear off the floor. “You said you were coming at nine!”
“It is nine!”
“Exactly! Party started at seven! You’re fashionably late, little sister.” He set her down, his arm a heavy weight across her shoulders. He was already conducting the room with his free hand, a beer held aloft. “Everyone! This is the brainiac! My baby sister, Brighton University, final year psychology. Don’t let the height fool you, she’s terrifying.”
A few whoops and drunken cheers echoed back. Yaa forced a smile, her cheeks aching. She felt microscopic and hyper-visible all at once, a specimen in her own home. She scanned the room, a habit born of social anxiety—identify the exits, the bathrooms, the quiet corners.
Her gaze snagged.
In the archway to the kitchen, leaning against the frame with the easy authority of someone who owned the space, was Effie.
Efua Asante. Family friend. Kwaku’s old classmate. The girl who used to let Yaa braid her hair when Yaa was thirteen and Effie was a lofty, unapproachable eighteen. Effie hadn’t changed much, and yet she was entirely different. The softness Yaa remembered had been honed into something lean and assured. Her dark braids were gathered in a loose knot, highlighting the clean lines of her jaw and neck. She wore simple black trousers and a white vest that showed off the defined muscle of her arms. She was nodding at something someone said, but her eyes—sharp, amused—were already locked on Yaa.
A bolt of pure, undiluted heat shot straight to Yaa’s stomach. It was a different feeling than the nervous flutter she got around boys she thought she should like. This was a plunge. A recognition. It left her slightly breathless.
Effie’s mouth curved. Not a full smile, just a tiny, knowing tilt at one corner. She lifted her chin in a slight nod.
Yaa looked away, panicked. Could Effie see it? Could she smell the gay panic, as Kwaku would crudely put it? She focused on a stain on the rug.
“You remember Effie, yeah?” Kwaku was saying, his attention already straying to a guy waving a bottle of gin. “She’s doing big things in music. Beats and stuff. Effie! Come say hi to the scholar!”
Effie pushed off the doorframe and wound her way through the crowd. She moved like the music was a physical thing she was parting with her hands. She stopped in front of them, and Yaa was acutely aware of the four-inch difference in their heights, of the soft, clean scent of sandalwood cutting through the party fug.
“Little Yaa Mensah,” Effie said. Her voice was lower than Yaa remembered, a warm rasp. “Look at you.”
“Hi, Effie.” Yaa’s own voice came out embarrassingly squeaky. She cleared her throat. “You look… good.”
“You too. University suits you.” Effie’s eyes travelled over Yaa’s face, her short afro, the strap of her dress where it had slipped off her shoulder. It wasn’t a brotherly once-over. It was appraisal. “Psychology, yeah? Figured everyone out yet?”
“Not even close,” Yaa laughed, the sound too loud. “Mostly just figuring out how much coffee I can mainline before my hands shake.”
Kwaku clapped his hands, suddenly distracted. “Ah! The mix is lagging. Effie, fix it. You’re the pro. Yaa, get a drink. Mingle! Don’t hide in your room reading.” He was already moving away, bellowing at someone about the ice situation.
The silence he left behind was dense, filled only by the pounding music. Effie watched Kwaku go, then turned back to Yaa.
“He’s a lot,” she said.
“Always.”
“You’re not hiding in your room, though. That’s new.”
“I just got here,” Yaa said, defensively. Then, softer, “It’s a bit overwhelming.”
Effie took a slow sip from her drink, her eyes never leaving Yaa’s. “You used to sing for me. Show tunes. Very dramatic.”
Yaa’s face flamed. “Oh god. You remember that?”
“I remember you had a good voice. You stopped when you hit, like, fifteen. Got shy on me.”
“I got taller. Not much taller, but… you know. More aware.” Of you, she didn’t add. That was the year Yaa had started noticing how Effie’s laugh made her own chest feel tight, how the casual drape of her arm over the back of the sofa seemed like a promise of something.
“Awareness is overrated,” Effie said. She shifted closer to be heard as the song swelled. Her shoulder brushed Yaa’s. “It just complicates things. You want a drink? Something that isn’t whatever swill Kwaku bought in bulk?”
“Yes. Please.”
Effie led the way to the kitchen, a path clearing for her without a word. Yaa followed, mesmerized by the shift of muscle in Effie’s back, the confident set of her shoulders. In the brighter light of the kitchen, Yaa could see the faint freckles across Effie’s nose, the silver hoop in her cartilage.
Effie opened the fridge, bent over to peer inside. Yaa looked resolutely at the ceiling.
“Wine? I have a bottle in here somewhere. Not the party stuff. My stuff.”
“That sounds great.”
Effie emerged with a bottle of red, dexterously uncorking it with a drawer-held opener. She poured a generous measure into a clean-ish glass and handed it over. “So. Brighton. What’s the scene like?”
“It’s… good. Seaside. Lots of students.”
“Lots of students,” Effie repeated, a smile playing on her lips. She leaned back against the counter, her arms crossing. “Meet anyone interesting?”
The question hung in the air, loaded. It wasn’t the generic are you seeing anyone? It was specific. It sought a specific answer.
Yaa took a too-big gulp of wine. It was rich and dark, nothing like the cheap boxed stuff at uni parties. “I’ve been… exploring. Sort of.”
“Sort of.”
“Figuring things out.” Yaa met her eyes, emboldened by the alcohol and the thrumming bass and Effie’s unwavering attention. “It’s different there.”
“I bet it is.” Effie pushed off the counter. She was standing very close again. The noise of the party faded into a distant roar. Yaa could see the individual lashes framing Effie’s dark eyes, the faint sheen of sweat on her collarbone. “It’s different here tonight, too.”
“Why?” The word was a whisper.
“Because you’re looking at me,” Effie said slowly, deliberately, “and you’re not looking at me like Kwaku’s little sister anymore.”
Yaa’s heart hammered against her ribs. There was no point denying it. The truth was a live wire between them. “Maybe I’m not.”
Effie’s smile finally broke through, wide and brilliant and a little dangerous. She reached out, not touching Yaa, but gently tapping the side of her wine glass with a fingernail. Tink.
“Finish that,” Effie said, her voice a low hum just for Yaa. “The party’s just getting started. And I want to hear more about this… exploring.” She winked, a quick, devastating flash, then turned and slipped back into the swell of the living room, leaving Yaa alone with the thunder of her own pulse, the taste of good wine, and the certain, thrilling sense that the ground had just shifted forever.
She winked, a quick, devastating flash, then turned and slipped back into the swell of the living room, leaving Yaa alone with the thunder of her own pulse, the taste of good wine, and the certain, thrilling sense that the ground had just shifted forever.
For a while, Yaa floated. She found a sliver of space on a crowded sofa, a plate of soggy spring rolls and plantain chips balanced on her knees. She fiddled with the thin bracelet on her wrist, the one with the rhinestones in the pink, purple, and blue. She’d bought it online, a secret she wore every day. Was it too obvious now? Had that been too bold? Effie’s wink played on a loop behind her eyes.
Across the room, Effie was at the makeshift DJ booth, leaning in to talk to Kwaku’s friend on the decks. She’d point at the laptop, suggest something, and moments later the beat would morph—from pulsing Afrobeat to a dancehall riddim that made the whole room buck and sway. Effie commanded the energy without even trying, a satisfied smirk on her lips as she watched the bodies come alive.
“Yaa Mensah! Look at you, oh!”
A cloud of sweet perfume enveloped her as two of Kwaku’s friends, Abena and Ama, collapsed onto the couch cushions beside her. They were in their late twenties, glamorous in a sharp, city way.
“Your brother said you’re almost finished! Final year! What are you becoming, a doctor?”
“Psychologist,” Yaa said, forcing a smile.
“Same difference! You’ll be analyzing all of us soon,” Ama laughed, sipping a bright pink drink. “So, Brighton must be full of fine boys, yeah? All that sea air. You’re bringing one home for us to see?”
The familiar script. Yaa’s stomach tightened. “Not really. I was… sort of seeing someone. It didn’t work out.”
Abena leaned in, intrigued. “What happened? He was foolish?”
Yaa took a gulp of wine, the warmth spreading through her chest. The words stumbled out, awkward and too honest. “He was… very religious. Like, intense. He had all these rules. For himself, mostly.”
“Ah,” Ama said, her tone knowing. “One of those. All take, no give.”
“Basically,” Yaa muttered, staring at a plantain chip. “He was… eager to receive. You know. Oral. But he wouldn’t… it was a sin for him to do the same. Said it was degrading.”
A stunned silence burst between the two women. Then Abena let out a sharp, “HAH!”
“You are joking me,” Ama said, her face a mask of utter indignation. “So you mean to tell me, you’ve never…?” She made a crude, licking motion with her tongue.
Yaa shook her head, her face burning.
“Oh, baby girl!” Abena exclaimed, throwing an arm around her. “You don’t even know! You don’t know what you’re missing! That is a crime. A fucking crime.”
The conversation became a torrent. The two women, fueled by righteous outrage and rum, launched into a vivid, uncensored education.
“A good man—a worthwhile man—is an eater,” Ama stated, as if reciting a fundamental law. “If he’s not trying to feast between your legs like it’s his last meal, throw the whole man away.”
“It’s not just that,” Abena cut in, gesturing with her glass. “It’s the attention. The patience. Does he play with your breasts like he’s fascinated by them? Does he take his time just to hear you sigh? Or is it just, chop chop, piston motion, done?” She snorted in disgust.
Yaa was melting into the velvet couch. Her skin was prickling with heat. Their words were painting pictures, explicit and alluring, and with every sentence, her own inexperience felt like a huge, hollow space inside her. She was nodding, hypnotized, as they cursed out selfish lovers, praising the rare “good ones” with a reverence usually reserved for saints.
Then Abena, following her own train of thought, smirked and nudged Ama. “But forget men. For that, you really need a woman. A lesbian. They know.”
Yaa’s breath hitched.
“It’s true!” Ama said, her eyes scanning the room. She lowered her voice to a theatrical whisper. “See Effie over there? I heard from Sarah—you know Sarah who used to date her briefly?—that the girl has… manners. Impeccable ones. Like, PhD-level pussy-eating. Sarah said she’s patient. She’s thorough. Inventive. She said Effie doesn’t stop until you’re seeing actual stars, baby. Doesn’t stop until you’re begging her to.”
A bolt of pure lightning shot down Yaa’s spine, pooling low in her belly. She felt dizzy. Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t help it—her eyes dragged across the space, through the smoke and strobe, to find Effie.
Effie was leaning against the wall now, a fresh bottle of beer dangling from her fingers. And she was already looking directly at Yaa. That sharp, knowing gaze cut through the chaos, landed on Yaa’s flushed face, traveled down her neck to where her chest was rising and falling too quickly. Effie’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes darkened. She took a slow, deliberate sip from her bottle, her lips wrapping around the neck. She held Yaa’s stare, a silent, blatant challenge.
Eye-fucking. The crude term Yaa had heard online slammed into her mind with perfect accuracy. That’s exactly what it was. Effie was eye-fucking her right there in her brother’s packed living room, while her friends gossiped about her bedroom skills mere inches away.
Yaa wondered, the thought a raw, physical ache between her legs, what it would be like. To have that focus, that confidence, directed not across a room but against her skin. To have that mouth, those knowing hands, proving every single word Abena had just said. The fantasy was so immediate, so visceral, she had to press her thighs together under the plate of forgotten appetizers.
Effie’s smile then was slow and wicked. She gave the faintest nod, as if she could hear every frantic, wanton thought in Yaa’s head. Then she pushed off the wall and began to move, not towards the DJ, but weaving through the crowd with a predator’s grace.
Heading straight for her.
Heading straight for her.
The world narrowed to the path Effie carved through the sweating bodies. Abena and Ama were still talking, their voices a distant buzz. Yaa set the plate down, her fingers trembling.
Effie stopped in front of the sofa. She didn’t even glance at the other two women. Her focus was absolute, a physical weight on Yaa’s skin. “You’re just sitting here. That’s a waste.”
“I’m… people-watching,” Yaa managed.
“Boring. Come dance.” Effie extended a hand. It wasn’t a question.
Yaa’s pulse skittered. “With you? Kwaku’s— I mean, won’t that be…”
“Weird?” Effie cut her off, one eyebrow arching. She gestured loosely at the packed room. “Look around. Who gives a fuck?”
Yaa looked. She saw what she’d been too nervous to register before: pairs of bodies, regardless of gender, moving as one unit. Girls grinding on other girls, guys with their hands on guys’ shoulders, a tangled, pulsing mass of queer and straight energy all blurred by sweat and neon. No one was watching. Everyone was chasing their own thrill.
“I’m rusty,” Yaa protested weakly.
Effie’s smile turned nostalgic. “Please. You were the one winning all those dance battles at family parties when you were twelve. Shy little thing with the fucking fiercest legwork. That’s still in there. Come on.”
Her hand was still outstretched. Yaa took it. Effie’s grip was firm, calloused from guitar strings, and she pulled Yaa to her feet effortlessly.
The dance floor was a press of heat. Effie led her to a small pocket of space near the speakers, where the bass was a throb in the chest cavity. She let go and started moving, not touching Yaa, just giving her room. It was innocent at first. Effie mirrored Yaa’s tentative steps, then flipped it, hyping her up with a laughing, “Yes! See? You still got it!” She twirled Yaa under her arm, a flash of bright light and dizziness.
Yaa laughed, the sound torn from her throat by the music. The wine warmth in her veins met the rhythm, and something unlocked. Her hips found the beat. She stopped thinking about who was watching, about Kwaku, about the label on her wrist. She just moved.
Then the DJ slid into a new track. The Afrobeat turned sultry, a deeper, rolling groove with a whispered vocal hook. The mood in the room dipped, became more intense.
Effie closed the distance.
It wasn’t abrupt. It was a slow, inevitable drift. A step in as Yaa shimmied. A hand brushing Yaa’s waist, then settling. The space between them evaporated into charged air. Yaa turned, meaning to face her, but Effie’s hands on her hips stopped her. She kept Yaa’s back to her.
“Feel it,” Effie said into her ear, her breath hot. Her voice was barely audible, just a vibration against Yaa’s neck. “Just feel the music.”
And Yaa did. She let her head fall back a little, against Effie’s shoulder. Effie’s hands were possessive, anchoring, guiding. Yaa rolled her hips. The motion was natural, instinctive. She arched her back, pressed her ass flush against the firm plane of Effie’s front. A low, rough sound escaped Effie, swallowed by the bass.
They were grinding. Properly, unmistakably. Effie’s thigh insinuated itself between Yaa’s legs from behind, a firm pressure against the seam of her jeans with every downward sway. Yaa could feel the hard line of Effie’s belt, the warmth of her stomach. Effie’s hands slid from her hips to her lower belly, pulling her tighter, holding her there as they moved. It was raw. It was deliberate. Every nerve ending in Yaa’s body was screaming, alight. She was drowning in the smell of sandalwood and sweat, in the push and pull of Effie’s body against hers.
“Effie!” A shout, sharp and impatient. Kwaku’s friend, the DJ, was waving frantically from the booth. “System’s about to crash! Your fucking software!”
Effie’s body went rigid behind her. The spell snapped. Her hands reluctantly loosened. She cursed under her breath, her lips brushing Yaa’s ear. “Don’t move.”
But she was already slipping away, cutting through the crowd with a scowl. Yaa stood frozen, the sudden absence of Effie’s body leaving her cold and exposed. The music felt too loud, the lights too harsh. She stumbled off the dance floor, her legs unsteady.
She drifted for a while, a ghost in her own home. She got another drink, didn’t taste it. The images from the dance, coupled with Abena’s words, played in a relentless, heated loop. PhD-level pussy-eating. She felt swollen, sensitive, every brush of her jeans against her a cruel tease.
She needed a moment. To breathe. To splash water on her face and talk herself down from the ledge of whatever this was. She pushed open the door to the hallway bathroom.
Effie was inside, leaning over the sink, splashing water on the back of her neck.
“Shit, sorry,” Yaa blurted, already stepping back.
Effie straightened. Droplets tracked down her neck, into the collar of her vest. She looked at Yaa in the mirror, then turned, leaning a hip against the vanity. “It’s fine. Stay. The queue’s a mile long out there.”
The door clicked shut behind Yaa, muffling the music to a dull throb. The room was small, humid. The sexual tension, which had only been diluted by the crowd, now condensed into a thick, almost suffocating haze. Yaa’s bladder was screaming. There was no graceful way out of it.
“Turn around, then,” Yaa said, her voice shaky.
Effie gave a low, soft laugh but turned to face the mirror, giving her a semblance of privacy. Yaa fumbled with her jeans, sat on the toilet. The sound of her own pee seemed obscenely loud. She saw Effie’s reflection watching her—not leering, just watching—with a heavy-lidded intensity it before Yaa could avert her eyes and she could feel her face burn as she watched as Effie finished, rubbing her soap into her hands slowly, the movement of working the lather slow, but precise.
“Hurry up,” Effie said, her voice a rough gravel. “I’m not done with you.”
Yaa cleaned up, flushed, her hands trembling as she wrestled with her button and zip. She went to the sink beside Effie to wash her own hands, their elbows brushing. The air was ionised, crackling. She couldn’t look up. She saw Effie’s hands, strong and capable, turn off the tap.
As Yaa reached for a towel, Effie moved.
It was fast and final. She spun Yaa around and pushed her, not hard, but with utter certainty, until her back met the cool tiles of the wall. Before Yaa could gasp, Effie’s mouth was on hers.
It wasn’t a tentative first kiss. It was a claim. Effie’s lips were insistent, skilled, parting Yaa’s with a hungry swipe of her tongue. The taste of her was beer and heat and something uniquely, devastatingly Effie. Yaa moaned into it, her hands flying up to clutch at Effie’s shoulders, the corded muscle there firm under her fingers.
Effie kissed her like she was starving for it. One hand cradled the back of Yaa’s head, fingers tangling in the short curls, holding her in place. The other hand slid down Yaa’s side, over her hip, and roughly cupped her ass, squeezing hard, pulling their bodies tighter together. Yaa could feel the entire, hard length of Effie against her, and she ground up into it, a frantic, needy rut.
“Fuck, you’re so responsive,” Effie growled against her mouth, breaking the kiss to trail her lips down Yaa’s jaw, to her neck. She sucked at the skin there, a sharp, bright pain that made Yaa cry out. “All those little sounds. Been driving me mad all night.”
Her hand left Yaa’s ass, slid around to the front of her jeans. Yaa’s breath hitched, stopped. Effie’s fingers made quick, brutal work of the button and zip she had just fastened, yanking them open. The denim was tight. Effie’s hand slid inside, past the waistband of her panties, and then—
—her fingers were there.
Direct, sure, no fumbling. Effie’s middle finger slid through her folds, already slick and swollen, and pressed against her clit. A jolt of pure, white-hot electricity shattered through Yaa’s system. Her knees buckled. Effie held her up, pinned to the wall with her body.
“So fucking wet already,” Effie murmured, her voice thick with awe and lust. She stroked, a slow, torturous circle that had Yaa whimpering. “Just from dancing? From thinking about it?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She plunged two fingers inside her.
Yaa screamed. It was a raw, choked sound swallowed by Effie’s mouth as it crashed back onto hers. It was fullness, a stretch that burned so good. Effie fucked her with a deep, punishing rhythm, her palm grinding against Yaa’s clit with every thrust. The heel of her hand hit just right, the curl of her fingers found a spot inside that made Yaa see sparks behind her clenched eyelids.
“That’s it,” Effie breathed, watching Yaa’s face unravel. “Let go. Come on. I want to feel you come on my hand. I’ve wanted it since I saw you walk in the door.”
The words, the filthy, perfect skill of her fingers, the relentless pressure—it was too much. Yaa felt the coil in her belly snap. A wave of pure, convulsing pleasure tore through her, violent and utterly consuming. She came with a shattered sob, her body seizing around Effie’s fingers, her own nails digging into Effie’s shoulders.
Effie fucked her through it, slowing only as the tremors subsided, gentling her movements until Yaa was just a shuddering, boneless weight against the wall. She carefully withdrew her fingers, bringing them to her own mouth and sucking them clean, her eyes locked on Yaa’s dazed, blown-wide ones.
The sound was obscene. The sight of it—Effie tasting her—sent a fresh, sharp throb through Yaa’s spent core.
“PhD-level, huh?” Effie said, a wicked, smug smile playing on her glistening lips.