Against her better judgement. She sent him a message. A harmless one: she was having lunch with the children and would plough her way through some work in the afternoon.
She was hoping
he would invite her to come over. She was hoping and yet it was what she feared the most.
She waited… but in the end she brought the girls back to school and drove home. Yes. It was better that way.

Her phone rang.

He said he had the afternoon free and thought she meant she was spending the afternoon with the children.
So, she’s not?
So, she’s at home?
He did not ask her to come.

Can… can I come? she almost whispered.
Yes.
I’m on my way.

She sat in her room, trying to resist the temptation to write to him, to contact him.
She opened one, two bottles of wine and downed them.
She wanted to live the feeling of being in love; that which makes the world go round.
She wanted to love him;
his freedom, his pride, this glorious, threatening man she orbited round as though warming up to a dare.
She wanted to contaminate herself with the freedom he accorded, knew she was of a similar spirit,
yet she fell short, guilt like a nail pushing up through her shoe.

Her attention kept being drawn to the place her thighs met.
She couldn’t breathe. Squeezed her hand to that troublesome place.
Felt it throb. Brought her fingers to her nose…
sighed.

She fucked her mattress
every night she found
herself alone.
Fucked the walls, the door edge, the table corner, the chair.
Anything that was hard enough.
Or near enough.

(from The Red Room)