【Me · The Regular】
That year I was traveling for work, and the company had booked the wrong hotel. I circled the outskirts of the city for ages, and finally, following the GPS, I turned into an alley with almost no streetlights. At the end of it stood a two-story detached villa, an unremarkable wooden sign hanging by the door that read “short stays available.” I had no real hope; I knocked only to ask for directions. She was the one who opened the door.
【Me · The Regular】
To this day I remember that first glance. The door opened a crack, warm yellow light leaking out from behind her, lighting up the side of her face first. She wore a beige, loose house dress, the neckline not cut low, but the skin over her collarbone gave off a fine, thin sheen under the lamp. Her hair was gathered loosely at the back of her head, a few strands falling down to cling to her neck. She asked what I wanted, her voice pitched low, the tail of it carrying a hint of a smile, and the moment she spoke, the “excuse me” in my head simply jammed.
【Her · The Mature Woman】
Another one who had lost his way. I have seen far too many young men like this — their eyes are all panic when they knock, but the moment they get a good look at me, that panic turns into something else. I am forty-six this year, a number I never hide from anyone, yet I never bring up on my own either, because when I do, no one believes it. I have kept myself well; my skin, my figure, that bit of looseness seeping out from the very marrow of my bones — none of it is anything a girl of twenty could fake. I watched the young man’s Adam’s apple bob once out there on the doorstep, and I knew: he was not leaving tonight.
【Me · The Regular】
She said there happened to be a room free upstairs, and asked whether I wanted it. As if bewitched, I nodded — no, that word is too light. I was, clearly and fully, hooked by her; knowing this place was strange, knowing that a woman living alone in a big house like this reeked of something off in every corner, I still carried my luggage inside. On the shoe cabinet in the entryway sat a pair of men’s leather shoes, the expensive kind, polished to a shine. I looked a beat too long, and following my gaze she gave a little smile, and offered no explanation.
【Her · The Mature Woman】
Those shoes were his. The man who kept me. He came two or three times a week; the rest of the time, this house was mine. I owed no one an explanation. I have lived the first half of my life by the rules — married a man, bore a child, discharged every duty I was supposed to — and only at this age did I finally understand one thing: my body is still warm, so by what right should it be made to go cold? So when he pressed the key to this house into my hand, I took it. I am not divorced, I even have a boyfriend I get along with just fine, but none of that stops me from being, within these four walls, thoroughly and joyfully myself.
【Me · The Regular】
That night we did not do anything. She brewed me tea, and we sat talking in the living room downstairs. She sat cross-legged on the sofa across from me, the hem of her long dress sliding down a little, baring a small stretch of her calf — not the shriveled kind, but a calf with flesh on it, round, the skin drawn taut, the ankle very slim. When she talked she would lean forward, and the beige fabric hung loosely at her chest, hanging down into a deep shadow. I fought to nail my gaze to her face, but those eyes of hers were even more lethal — when she smiled there were the faintest lines at the corners, and those lines did not make her look old at all; if anything they added another measure of allure for her.
【Her · The Mature Woman】
I knew he was holding himself back. Young men are like that — the more they want it, the more properly they behave. So I made a point of teasing him. I got up to fetch more hot water, and passing in front of him, I deliberately let the fabric of my dress brush his knee. I bent down to refill his tea, letting the neckline fall open naturally, and I did not move to cover it. I could feel his breathing change. That is the advantage of forty-six — I do not have to rush, I understand everything, I know that one look, one brush of the body, one careless bend at the waist makes him itch inside far more than if I stood stripped bare before him. Not tonight. Let him keep thinking about it, and next time he will come on his own.
【Me · The Regular】
I barely slept that night. The bed in that upstairs room was soft, but I tossed and turned, my head full of the shadow inside her neckline when she bent over, of the lamplight glinting off her calf, of that low, pressed-down “get some rest.” Early the next morning I should have checked out and rushed off to my meeting, but instead I dawdled downstairs until nearly noon, just to see her one more time. She came down in a robe, her hair unpinned, spilling over her shoulders, her face still carrying that soft, slack languor of someone just woken. She smiled at me and asked whether I wanted to stay for a simple meal.
【Her · The Mature Woman】
He stayed. I knew he would. I cooked him a bowl of noodles and watched him wolf them down, and that sweetness of being longed for was more satisfying than anything else. For the first half of my life I was someone’s wife, someone’s mother, for far too long — long enough that I nearly forgot I was a woman at all. It was in this house, it was thanks to these young men who came crashing in one after another, that I remembered again — that I am still wanted. When he finished the noodles and looked up at me, his eyes were scalding. I sat down across from him and said slowly, “Next time you come, just give me a heads-up first.” That was the permission I was granting him.
【Me · The Regular】
I saved her number. As I drove away from that dark alley, I glanced back in the rearview mirror at the villa glowing with warm yellow light, and I knew, clearly, that I would come back. And more than once. At the time I still did not understand what I had stepped into; I only felt the fire in my chest burning so hard I could not sit still. Only later did I understand that some women sink a hook into your very bones, and she, at forty-six, was exactly that kind of woman.