A blob of fur scampered down the granite dome ahead and dove into the grass lining its base.

“Unusual to see them in the middle of the day,” said Hansie thoughtfully.

He led his guest into the shade of a mopane tree, where the two of them caught their breath under the welcoming canopy.

Removing his hat, Hansie tilted his head back and drained the last few mouthfuls from his water bottle. He was in his late twenties, somewhat shorter than average with a determined face and cropped ginger hair and the bulging thighs of a front rower, a position he played in Zimbabwe’s national rugby team. An entrepreneur, he specialized in supplying production management systems to customers across southern Africa.

“What a beguiling creature!” exclaimed Kayla, “What is it?”

Kayla was the daughter of a close friend of Hansie’s mother. She normally lived with her mother in far-away Durban on the South African coast but had arrived in Zimbabwe for a brief holiday. Hansie had been tasked with showing the city girl the real Africa.

“But Mom, I have a really busy week, I don’t have time for this,” Hansie had objected.

“Why don’t you take her out to see the Matopo’s?” said his Mom, her deft fingers fastening yet another pea vine to a stake amongst the profusion of plants in her backyard, “it’s an easy drive and there aren’t any lions to worry about.”

It’s true that there are no lions in the Matopo’s, thought Hansie, but what his mother didn’t appreciate, is that within the bounds of the Matobo National Park resides one of the largest concentration of leopards in the whole of Africa. His mother probably also did not know that averaged across the world, you were statistically much more likely to be killed by a leopard than by a shark. Especially in the Matopo’s, where there was an abundance of leopards and no sharks. Even if you avoided being caught in the gaze of this big powerful cat hidden up on the branch of a tree, there were plenty of black mambas in the scrub below, any one of which could ruin your day if you didn’t pay careful attention to where you walked.

But he knew better than to argue with his Mom and the next morning found him driving his battered Landy through the potholed streets of Bulawayo to pick up this Kayla from the lobby of her hotel.

She was standing in front of the bellhop station, spinning her hat between slender fingers. Tall, she wore a semi-translucent white blouse that revealed just enough of the upper curves of her breasts and no more. A good firm handshake. Long springy curls and caramel-blonde hair. An enquiring look he found difficult to meet, perhaps due to the mocking tilt to her mouth.

Uncommonly beautiful, despite her sensible khaki trousers and good walking shoes.

Deep inside him, thoughts and hormones collided with each other in an energetic and confusing way.

Ever since leaving school, his twin obsessions had been playing rugby and chasing down his ideas on production management gained from working for Uncle Willem in his industrial plant. The software Hansie produced during three years of sleep deprivation had now gained sufficient traction amongst local manufacturers that he was making more money than he knew what to do with.

But he was a young man who had not dated since he left school.

Hansie came to himself with a start, still staring at her shoes. His wiped a hand over his hot brow. How long he had been in a dazed state? He managed to recover sufficient mental capacity to request that she follow him outside to the waiting Landy. Which, to his relief, she did.

It was a forty five minute drive out to the Matobo park. They sat in strained silence for the first ten minutes, he buried in thoughts of his social incompetence and she mulling over the inconvenience of being stuck with a complete idiot in a strange place.

“Sorry about what happened back there,” he said at last, “I’m actually quite normal, it’s just that you weren’t quite what I was expecting.”

“And what were you expecting?”

“Oh, a troll or orc or something worse, I never know with my Mom’s friends.”

The tension disappeared in the warmth of her laughter. They spoke of many things the rest of the way to the park – about books, music, movies and anecdotes from their respective childhoods and Hansie answering Kayla’s questions about local people and wildlife.

They began their walk and saw two little klipspringers, a dense conglomeration of nests making up a weaver bird colony, a faraway herd of impala and even a rhino, head down in the veldt beneath a mass of kopjes. She got very excited at seeing the rhino. Then she asked about the little furry blob running down the granite dome ahead of them.

“It’s a dassie, or more properly a rock hyrax,” he answered pulling his saturated shirt away from where it clung to his torso during their brief pause under the mopane tree, “it has little tusks in its mouth – believe it or not, that little creature is related to the elephant.”

“Looks like a tasty little morsel for some predator or the other.”

“Yes, the black eagles love them, leopards too.”

The landscape around them was suddenly dimmed and the chattering of birds ceased, before resuming at a muted volume. Hansie strode out from under the tree and looked up at the cannon bursts of cloud unfurling against the mottled sky.

“There’s a storm coming. We should make our way back.”

But the storm was quicker than them. The sky went black, thunder rolled and the first fat raindrops began striking the dust at their feet.

“There’s a cave nearby. But it’s slippery in places. You need to watch your step. Tell me if I’m going too fast.”

They left the path and stumbled their way across the stones amidst a cacophony of thunderclaps above their heads, faces lit by the searing bolts of lightning and soaked to the skin in the drumbeating rain.

“This way,” yelled Hansie.

Kayla followed as best she could. How he found his way through the tumult, she had no idea, but after what seemed an age of tripping across thickets and sliding across slippery stones, she felt his strong hand pull her up into the shelter of the cave, where she stood shivering in her sopping clothes, teeth chattering uncontrollably.

She heard the click of a lighter and saw Hansie’s face and hands as he felt around the cave floor to gather twigs and leaves into a pile. The flame grew and she felt warmth on her face and hands. She stripped down to her underwear and squatted down before the fire, now crackling and popping in front of her. Her shivering eased.

“How did you know about this shelter?” she asked.

“There are actually a lot of caves in this area,” said Hansie. “The most famous is Nswatugi Cave. It has world-famous San paintings of giraffe, kudu and other animals. Whereas I came across this other cave by accident. It is bigger but doesn’t have any rock paintings.”

“What is this one called?” asked Kayla.

“Some of the Shona tribes call this cave Vakatukwa which means cursed, while others call it Kudenga meaning heaven,” said Hansie.

“How strange,” said Kayla thoughtfully, “for a cave to have two such different names.”

Unnoticed by either of them, two unblinking eyes stared at her from the broad rock shelf at the rear of the cave.

“The Shona believe there are two different sides to many things. Even their god Mwari is believed to be both male and female at the same time.”

“How is that possible? Men and women are so different,” said Kayla.

“Are they though?”

“Yes they are! I have studied this very question at KwaZulu-Natal university. Do you want to know what the facts are?” she asked, not wanting to annoy this man despite having initially regarded him as an inept buffoon.

“Sure,” said Hansie, “we’ve come through a storm together, we’re both stripped near naked around a fire, there’s no-one else around, I’m sure we can talk about just much anything right now – go right ahead!”

Kayla shook out her hair to dry before continuing.

Hansie found it hard to tear his gaze away from her sinuous body and breasts as she did so.

“Research shows that women have greater general and emotional intelligence, greater physical fortitude and endurance and a superior understanding of mother nature. A woman also has superior psychic, nurturing and healing abilities. According to Nelson DeMille, ‘all women are nurturers and healers, and all men are mental patients to varying degrees’,” she said. “Shall I go on?”

“Please do,” said Hansie politely. Perhaps surprisingly, this was a subject he had some knowledge of. His mother and Uncle Willem held very different opinions with regards to men and women and Hansie had witnessed many passionately argued debates between the two.

“Women are also less prone to inflicting physical violence and criminal behaviour, superior at multitasking, they have higher morals and ethics and a superior understanding of co-operation, community and connection,” said Kayla.

“Is that it?” asked Hansie.

The big cat lifted its head from where it lay watchful and hungry in the shadows, its tail twitching.

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Well, I haven’t studied the topic like you have but I actually have to agree with you that, on average, women are superior in all the aspects you mention. But there’s one thing that you haven’t mentioned,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“That men, whilst being admittedly over-represented at the bottom of the tree with regards to violence, criminality and low intelligence, are also over-represented at the very top of the tree. Think William Shakespeare, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Bach, Mozart, Usain Bolt, Tiger Woods, Leonard Cohen, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking, Yves Saint Laurent, Gianni Versace, Giorgio Armani, Nelson Mandela, Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Elon Musk.”

“But that’s because women have been discriminated against over most of human history!” exclaimed Kayla.

“Perhaps,” said Hansie, placing more wood on the fire, “but equal opportunity has been in place for decades in most western countries and yet it’s still men that fill our prisons and it’s still seems to be men that are coming up with the innovations and technology.”

“Equal opportunity is not enough,” said Kayla, “women need equal outcome.”

“You mean discriminating against men using quota’s and the like?”

“Precisely.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Hansie, “I’d love it if my computer was full of technology invented by women, but I’m not sure that quota’s would ever work in practice. How would you like having quota’s to put more women in jail in order to even out the male/female prison population?”

“We can agree to disagree on that,” said Kayla, “just because quota’s haven’t worked in the past, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t work in the future.”

“Well, there may be some truth in that,” said Hansie, “but may I make a suggestion at this point?”

“Sure,” said Kayla.

“That we stand together in front of this fire and heal the male-female divide with a hug.”

With Mwari’s man-woman spirit merging inside the cave, the leopard laid down its head and returned to its slumber. This murume and mukadzi would be permitted to live.

“Did you feel that,” asked Kayla as they remained clasped together in tight embrace.

“No, what?” asked Hansie.

“Never mind,” said Kayla, “it just felt like some kind of breeze over my head. It’s gone now. Kiss me again. Harder.”