After moving into a quiet lane Arjun kept noticing the married woman next door. One rain-soaked evening the wall between their houses finally stopped mattering.
The car was still running. She climbed into my lap, pulled her panties aside, and sank down onto me before I could even put it in park. We never left the parking lot.
No text. No warning. I opened the bedroom door and she was already face-down, ass up, panties around her knees, dripping onto the sheets. I didn’t even take my shoes off.
No words. She walked out onto the balcony, pulled her panties aside, and sank down onto me while the city lights watched. We never even made it inside.
The doors closed. My hand was already under her dress. By the time the elevator reached the 12th floor she had already come once and was begging for more.
A remote cottage. A week alone to finish a book. And the quiet man who came to check the generator and ended up rewriting everything I thought I still wanted.
Four nights of the festival. Husband away. The quiet man from the next house who had been watching me for months finally stopped watching and started taking.
We had talked about it for months. Fantasised. Argued. Almost backed out a dozen times. Then the night finally came, and my husband sat in the chair and watched another man ruin me for him.
Three years of mutual dislike. One city-wide blackout. Two apartments plunged into darkness. By the time the lights came back, we had used each other in every way except kindly.
Five years of careful distance. One cancelled midnight flight. A single hotel room left in the entire airport hotel. By morning there was nothing careful left between us.
Eleven months of silence. Eleven months of being treated like glass. Then one quiet evening the neighbour who had been quietly looking after her stopped being careful.
Three years of quiet loneliness. One empty farmhouse. And the man who looked at me like I was still alive. That weekend I stopped performing and finally let myself feel.