Fleur

Fleur came back from class three hours ago and has been quiet since. Not the unhappy quiet kind. No, she is carrying something that she is not ready to say out loud yet.

She turns onto her side to face you, silver hair loose across the pillow, and kisses you. Familiar and completely unhurried. Her hand curls at the back of your neck and she hums against your lips. Then she stops and draws back a few centimeters. In the dim light she is biting her lip.

She reaches past your shoulder. There is a small click, and the lamp comes up to full, and the room goes from brown to gold. Everything in it is suddenly, ordinarily visible. The freckles across her nose. The pillow crease on her cheek. Her.

She brings her hand back down very carefully, the way you set down something that might go off.

"Leave it. Please." Her tone is hard and she flinches. Then she continues softer. "Sorry. Sorry, that came out wrong, you can turn it down, I don't mind, honestly, it's only that..." She is rambling now, while her ears have gone red. "Somebody at class said something to me this week. About the way I hold myself. That I move like I am hoping nobody looks."

She breathes in, all the way. Then she hooks a thumb under the strap of her slip. The one that always falls off her shoulder on its own. The one she has never once in ten years bothered to fix. She pushes it down herself.

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"I want you to look at me." Her voice is very small, and she does not look away while she says it. She shudders for a moment. "That's all. That's the whole thing. I just want you to look at me, with the light on, for once. I want you to see me, while we..." She swallows hard, her face turning red.

The coffee table is against the wall. The rug is rolled back halfway. One of the cats has relocated to the top of the bookshelf and is taking the whole business personally.

Fleur has been orbiting the room for ten minutes. She fills the kettle and doesn't switch it on. She straightens a cushion that was already straight.

Then she plants herself in the cleared space and looks at you.

"Can I show you something?" Her thumb is already on the screen. "It's from class. It's not, I mean, it's nothing impressive, it's the same figure over and over, that is apparently the entire point of it." She laughs at herself and it comes out thin. "Sorry. This is silly. You've been at it all day, you don't have to. Really, you don't."

She does not sit down. She does not put the phone away. She stands there in the middle of her own living room and waits.

"My trainer sent me the track," she says, mostly to fill the silence. "She says you can't learn a rhythm you only ever hear in the room."

The music starts. Something old and unhurried, three beats to the bar. She dances.

You know this step. She showed it to you back when she started, holding both of your hands, using you for balance, laughing every time she lost the count. She is not holding anything now. Her arms are up in a frame around a partner who is not there, her chin is lifted, and her feet know where they are going without being asked. It is five minutes of nothing much. A box, a turn, a box.

Halfway through, something changes. She stops checking your face between the counts. Her eyes close. She is still dancing for you, and she has stopped watching to see whether it is working. external image: i.postimg.cc

The track ends. She opens her eyes. Her chest is going. Her cheeks have gone blotchy red. She pushes the hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist and finds the rolled-up rug very interesting for a second.

Then she looks up anyway.

"Don't tell me it was nice. Tell me what you saw."

The rain came back tonight, steady against the windows. The lamp in the corner is the only light on. There is Fleur's favorite cup of herbal tea on the side table that went cold an hour ago. One of the cats is stretched along the back of the couch behind you, dead to the world.

The front door goes. Keys into the bowl. The bag against the wall instead of onto the hook. The quiet swearing of someone getting out of wet shoes in the dark.

Fleur comes in still in her leggings, her hair half out of the knot. Her cheeks are pink. She does not go upstairs nor does she put the kettle on. She comes around the end of the couch, stops in front of you.

"Jacky kept us late." She starts. "I mean my trainer. She says I hold my frame like I'm apologizing to it." She snorts a short laugh. "She isn't wrong."

She lifts the cat off the back of the couch and deposits it on the armchair, entirely unbothered by the outrage this causes. She pulls the blanket off you and drops it over the arm.

Then she puts one knee on the cushion beside your hip, and the other on the other side. She lets herself down slowly and sits down on your lap.

She holds still for a moment. Then her hands come up to steady her. Her eyes wander to your chest, the color of her cheeks darkening, before she looks up at you again for a moment.

"I don't know how you do this part," she says, to her own hands, which are flat on your chest. "I have never done this part. I always let you lead."

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She takes your hands off the cushions. She puts one on her hip, the other against her breast. She presses down once making sure they stay, then she lets go of them.

She leans in and kisses you. Tentative at first, a little clumsy even as it grows hungrier and more urgent. Her hand finds the back of your neck as she pulls you closer.

When she breaks it she keeps her forehead against yours. Her eyes remain shut. She is breathing heavily.

"Okay, that was fine. I think I can do this." There is almost nothing behind her voice. She does not open her eyes as she grinds down on your lap. "Not slow tonight. Let me lead, please, I need to learn this. I need to understand the difference."

The class has broken up and is filtering out past you in ones and twos, all of them carrying that loose end-of-evening walk. Beyond the doorway the room consists of a large wall mirror and pale sprung floor. It smells of floor polish, hairspray and worked up bodies.

Fleur is still out there with her back to the door, running something through on her own. Right shoulder, quarter turn, stop. Again. She has not seen you.

"Well. The scout."

Jacky is against the door frame with a towel around her neck, and she has been there long enough to have watched you watching. Up close she is taller than she looked across a competition hall. The green in her hair has gone dark with sweat. She puts out a hand.

"We've met. Badly, on my part." The grin says she is not especially sorry. "Jacky."

She has a good handshake and she does not make it last. Then she turns to the floor, folds her arms, and watches Fleur run the same quarter turn for the fourth time.

"She carries everything in her left shoulder," Jacky says, conversationally. "Doesn't show unless she's tired. Right there." She tips her head. "Thirty-one hours I've had her. Thirty-one, and I know her shoulder. You've had twenty years. I'd put money on you never having seen it." It is said lightly. She is still looking at the floor when she says the next part.

"Thursdays are wasted on her. It's a beginner group and she isn't a beginner, she just hasn't been told yet. I want her Tuesdays as well. Private hour, my rate, which she will argue about." She looks over, direct and utterly unapologetic. "That's your evening I'd be taking off you. So I'm asking you and not her."

Out on the floor Fleur has stopped moving. She does not turn around straight away. "Don't." She arrives breathless, hair stuck to her temple, and she is talking to Jacky. "Don't do that. I haven't said yes to anything."

"No," Jacky agrees pleasantly. "You haven't."

She peels off the door frame. Then she takes a black jacket from the back of a chair, and goes to deal with the last two students without another word.

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Outside it is cold. Fleur does her coat up wrong, undoes it, does it up again. There is a motorcycle parked under the light at the end of the lot that can only be Jacky's, and she does not look at it once. She stays quiet until the car.

"Thirty-one hours." She is looking at the windshield. "She counted them."

Then it comes out fast. "Is Tuesday all right? I know it's another evening gone. I would be back by ten. Ten thirty at the outside, and it's only until the spring block is over. I'd drop it the second it got in the way of anything. I can pay for it out of my own account so it isn't..."

"Sorry. I'm doing the thing again." She takes a deep breath. Then continues calmer. "I want to say yes to her. You have supported me all this time. You got me into dancing. I find it only fair to talk to you before I answer her."

Tuesday. The kitchen still holds the residual warmth of the oven. Two plates are set on the table, and between them the short candle from the drawer is lit, maybe a centimeter gone.

The front door opens and shuts. No keys into the bowl. Just her footsteps, fast, straight down the hall.

Fleur stops in the kitchen doorway in her leggings and the loose top she dances in, hair coming down. The dance bag slides off her shoulder and she lets it land with a thud. Her eyes go to the plates, then to the candle, then to you.

"You cooked." It comes out quiet.

She does not sit down. She does not go and wash up either. She walks around the table, takes your face in both hands and kisses you, hard enough that the chair scrapes back under you.

"Sorry." Breathless, against your mouth. She does not let go. "Jacky had me start the same figure for an hour tonight. Over and over. She says I spend so long deciding that I miss the beat." Her eyes flick to yours when she says the name, and away again. "I don't want to miss it. I also don't want to miss this."

She pulls you up out of the chair by the front of your shirt. She pulls you two steps back with her until the edge of the counter is against her hips. She hitches herself up onto it, takes the hem of her top in both fists and drags it off over her head. Then she drops it on the floor with the kitchen light full on her.

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She laughs, a startled little sound. Then covers her face with her forearm. For about a second.

Then the arm comes down. She hooks her fingers into your waistband and pulls you in between her knees.

"The food's cold already anyway..." she says, already working at your belt, and she does not look at the table again.

The bedside lamp is on full. The duvet has mostly ended up on the floor, and one of the cats has taken that as an invitation.

Fleur is lying on top of you with her chin propped on her folded hands on your chest, and she has been talking about class for ten minutes. About a lift the group is nowhere near ready for. About Jacky's knee, which Jacky says is fine but is not fine. About how Jacky made everyone run the closing figure with their eyes shut, and half of them fell over, and Fleur didn't.

"Jacky says I have good feet." She wiggles them against your shins as evidence.

Then she stops talking. She kisses your chest, then your throat, and her knees settle either side of your hips, easy and unhurried. Her breath goes warm and uneven against your ear.

And then she goes still.

"Can I ask for something?" Barely out loud. "You can say no. You can laugh, I would laugh. Just don't say anything until I've said it, or I won't."

She rolls off you onto her back and pulls you over with her. She screws her eyes shut. It takes her two tries to get the breath in.

"Hold my wrists." Eyes still shut. The flush is going all the way down her throat. "Up here. And not gently. I want to not be able to move them." Her voice nearly goes and she pushes through it. "I want to feel like I can't get away. And then I want you to take me like I am nothing but a toy for your entertainment."

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"Sorry. That's... sorry."

She takes another deep breath, her cheeks deep red.

"Take me, make me yours. Let me feel your claim."

Sunday. The back door is already open, letting in the smell of wet earth and cut stems, and the sun is out for once. Fleur is in the garden in a tank top and old shorts, kneeling in the grass with her back very straight, silver hair pinned up in a loose knot. Her shoulders have gone pink and the freckles are coming out across them. There is a row of deadheaded roses beside her and two cups of tea on the step. One of the cats is asleep in the flowerbed she is trying to weed.

She is counting under her breath. One, two, three. One, two, three. The pruning shears keep time.

The boards squeak and she turns, and grins at you with dirt on her chin.

"Don't look at my posture, I know." She straightens a fraction more anyway. "Jacky says if I garden hunched over I'll dance hunched over. She's right, it's annoying." She sits back on her heels and wipes her palms on her shorts. "I couldn't sleep, so I came out. I got carried away. I always do."

She reaches for the second cup on the step and holds it up to you.

"I made you tea. It's gone lukewarm, obviously." She laughs. "Jacky calls this grandmother tea. I told her grandmothers know things." She waves the shears at the house. "And there are scones inside, the ones you like. I didn't eat any yet. Jacky says sugar before a session is a crime, and then I remembered it's Sunday and there isn't a session, and I still didn't eat one. So she's in my head now, I suppose."

She squints up at the roses along the fence, pleased with them.

"She rode past here once, did I tell you? On that bike. She said the roses were showing off." She tugs a weed out, and the cat finally gets up and leaves in protest. "Oh, and her knee's better. She finally let someone look at it."

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She pats the grass beside her, then thinks better of it and shifts over onto the step instead, making room.

"Sit with me." She tucks a loose strand behind her ear, squinting at you in the sun. "I'm all yours today."

The motion light over the front step clicks on. A long while later it clicks off again. The door has not opened in between.

When it does, Fleur comes in with a paper bag from the bakery by the studio held against her chest. She puts it into your hands before she has her coat off.

"The almond ones. They were closing, they practically gave them away." She does not let go of the bag straight away. Then she does, and puts her arms around you instead, and holds on.

"Hi. Sorry. Hi." Into your shoulder. "I love you."

She steps back and starts on her coat. One arm comes out of it, and she stops.

"Class was good. Jacky kept me after for the turn out of the hold, the one I keep losing. She said I can't feel the weight change if I've got room to cheat. So she put me back against the mirror and held me there, and..." Her hand has gone up to the side of her own neck. It stays there. "Anyway. I've got it now."

Her coat is still hanging off one shoulder. She looks at you for a long moment.

"Sorry," she says again.

She takes the paper bag back out of your hands and sets it on the stairs. Then she takes hold of your shirt and walks backwards down the hall until her shoulders meet the wall, pulling you with her.

She takes your hand and lays it against the side of her neck, exactly where her own hand was, and presses it there.

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"Let me make it up to you." Her mouth is already on yours. The coat slides the rest of the way down onto the floor. "Please. I want to make it up to you."

Saturday. The front door opens a little after five, and her practice shoes come off in the hall, one and then the other. They are new. They have a heel.

Fleur comes into the living room in a wrap skirt over her leggings, the kind cut to move, hair down and damp at the neck. She is humming. Not a waltz. Something with a beat under it, and her hips are keeping it without her.

"Saturdays now too. Jacky says you can't get real floor hours out of two evenings a week, and she's right." She drops her bag on the chair. "And we started Latin. Rumba. Oh, you should see it."

She crosses the room to you and does not slow down when she gets there. She takes your hand, pulls you up, and heads for the stairs with it. She does not look back to check that you are coming.

The bedroom is full of late afternoon light, gold across the floor. She stops in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror and puts you behind her, and faces it.

She unties the skirt and lets it drop. She pulls her top off over her head. Then she stands there in the light and looks at herself, turned half to the side. Her hands go to her waist, to the soft place above her hips.

She does not pinch. She runs her palms slowly down over it, and watches herself do it.

"Jacky says hips aren't a problem in Latin." She says it to her own reflection. "She says they're the whole point."

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She reaches back for your hands and brings them around to her waist, and holds them there. She moves under them. Two, three, four-and-one.

In the mirror her eyes find yours, and stay there.

"I want you. Now." She is already sliding one of your hands lower. "And I want to watch."

It is late, and it has started the way it did months ago. Under the covers, on your sides, her back against your chest. Your hand is moving in slow circles over her hip, and she is making the small soft sound.

Then her hand closes over yours and stops it.

"No." Very quiet. Her whole body has gone tense against you.

She does not let go of your hand. She lies there a moment holding it still. Then she lifts it off her hip.

"Not like that." Her voice shakes a little. She keeps going anyway. "Not gentle. Not tonight. I've been wound up since the studio, since Ja..." She swallows the rest of it. "Since class."

She rolls away from you onto her front. She reaches back without looking, finds your hand again, puts it in her hair at the back of her head, and closes your fingers around it.

"Like that." Into the pillow. "Hold on. Don't be careful with me."

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Then her shoulders draw in.

"Sorry." Barely audible, muffled by the pillow. "I'm sorry. It's not that I don't love it when you're gentle. I do. I always have." She takes a long breath. "I just don't want it like that anymore."

The studio is nearly empty. One bank of lights is still on and the rest of the room has gone grey in the mirrors. The last class left twenty minutes ago. Fleur is in the changing room. You came early.

Jacky is sitting beside you on the edge of the low stage, elbows on her knees, a water bottle hanging from two fingers. She asked how the two of you met. That was a while ago. Since then she has not checked her phone, has not looked toward the changing room, and has not made a single joke.

"You broke his nose." It is not a question. She turns the bottle slowly in her fingers. "Just a kid. For her."

She is quiet for a moment.

"Nobody ever..." She stops, and looks at the bottle. Then the grin comes back, half a second late. "Good. Good for you."

The changing room door bangs.

Fleur comes out with her bag on her shoulder and her hair still wet, and stops dead when she sees the two of you sitting side by side. Her hand tightens on the strap. Then she crosses the floor quickly, a smile already in place, sits down close against your other side, and puts her hand on your knee.

"What are you two talking about?"

"Your knight in shining armor." Jacky tips the bottle toward you. "Good story."

Fleur's smile stays put. Her eyes go to Jacky, and stay there.

"We should go." She says it to you, not to her. "It's late."

"Two minutes." Jacky is already on her feet, the bottle left on the stage. "The turn out of the hold. You lost it twice tonight, and I'm not sending you home with it wrong." She holds out a hand. "My floor. Humor me."

Fleur looks at you. Then she puts her bag down and takes the hand.

Jacky walks her out to the middle of the floor, takes her into hold, and counts it off under her breath. The turn is quick and clean. It finishes with Fleur's back against the mirror and Jacky's hand at the side of her neck, holding her there.

Jacky does not let go. In the glass, over Fleur's shoulder, she is watching you.

Fleur does not pull away. Over Jacky's shoulder, her eyes find you too.

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"Better," Jacky says, to neither of you in particular, and does not move her hand.

It is past ten when the front door opens. The bag drops in the hall. Her shoes do not come off.

Fleur walks into the living room still in her coat, cheeks flushed, hair falling out of its knot, and she does not say hello. She crosses to your chair, pushes your knees apart with both hands, and goes down onto hers between them.

"Don't get up." Her fingers are already on your belt. "Don't say anything. Just let me."

The belt, the button, the zip. She pulls you free and does not stop to look up first. Her hand closes around you and she takes you into her mouth, slow and deep, until her lips meet her own fist. She holds there a moment with her eyes shut. Then she draws back, wet, lets you go with a soft sound, and keeps her hand moving.

"There's a competition." She is not looking at your face. She is watching her own hand. "A small one. Six hours north. The weekend after next." She drags her tongue in one long slow stroke up the underside of you, and her breath is hot on your skin when she speaks again. "Pairs. Latin and standard. The studio's entering us."

She takes you back in, deeper this time, and works you with her mouth and her hand together in a steady wet rhythm, until she has to come up for air.

"We'd leave Friday after work. Back Sunday night. The hotel's already booked." Her lips brush against you as she talks. Her hand never slows. "I know you can't come. You'd have to take the Friday off, and it's two whole days of standing around in a sports hall. It's tiny, anyway. You'd be bored stupid."

She kisses the tip of you. Then she takes you all the way down and stays there, throat working around you, until her eyes water. When she comes up she is gasping, her chin is wet, and she still does not look at you.

"Don't answer yet." Barely a whisper. "Please. I know how it sounds."

Then she does look up. Her eyes are bright and wet, her mouth swollen, and her hand is still moving on you, slow and tight. She does not stop for anything.

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"Just say yes."

She lowers her head again before you can say anything at all.

Saturday. The house is very quiet with only you in it. One of the cats has taken over her side of the couch. Your phone is face up on the arm of the chair.

Fleur, 1:12 PM Through to the Latin final!!! I can't feel my feet

Fleur, 3:48 PM WE WON Latin. We actually won. I'm shaking, I wish you had seen it Standard is tomorrow but I don't even care right now

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Fleur, 6:21 PM Still in the dress. I don't want to take it off Actually I do. I want YOU to take it off

Fleur, 6:26 PM I've been wound up since the final. Every time I close my eyes I'm back out on that floor I want you so badly it's stupid. I'm going to lie in that bed tonight and think about exactly what I'd let you do to me ❤️

Fleur, 7:03 PM Everyone's going out to celebrate, the studio's paying. Just one drink and then an early night, standard starts at nine. Talk after? ❤️❤️

Dinner for one. The plate goes in the sink. The cats get fed and then fed again, because they insist. The television runs for a while.

At 11:40 PM the phone is still face up on the arm of the chair. Nothing new has come in.

Sunday morning. The house is cold. The phone buzzes once on the nightstand.

Fleur, 6:47 AM Sorry. Dinner went on forever and I fell asleep the second I got back. Standard today. Love you.

Sunday, a quarter to eleven. Headlights sweep across the front window and cut out. It takes her a long time to come in.

When the door finally opens, Fleur is carrying too much and drops most of it. The bag, the garment carrier, a paper sack with a bottle in it. She leaves all of it where it lands and comes straight at you, puts both arms around your neck, and holds on hard.

"I missed you." Into your neck. "I missed you. I missed you."

She smells of the road and hotel soap. Her hair is scraped back and still damp. When she finally leans away, her eyes are bright and rimmed pink.

"First in Latin. Second in standard." It comes out fast, like something she wants behind her. "It's in the bag somewhere. I'll dig it out tomorrow."

She does not go anywhere near the bag.

"I got you the whisky you like, the good one. They had it in the hotel shop and it was robbery and I bought it anyway. And there's a thing for the cats. And I'm taking Thursday off, the whole day, so we could..." She stops herself and presses her forehead to yours. "Sorry. I'm talking too fast."

Both her hands come up to your face. She just looks at you for a moment.

"Can we not do the whole weekend tonight? I'll tell you everything tomorrow. All of it, I promise." Her thumbs move over your cheekbones. "I don't want to think about one single thing tonight except you."

She kisses you before you even have time to answer. Then again, her hands come down off your face to your shirt.

"Upstairs." Her voice cracks in the middle of the word. "Please. Now. I need you to..." She stops. Then shakes her head once, and takes hold of your hand instead. "Just come upstairs. Make me forget how much I missed you. Whatever you want, just take me."

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She pulls you toward the stairs and does not let go of your hand once, not even to turn off the light.

Afterwards. The lamp is still on and the duvet is somewhere on the floor again. Fleur is lying against you with her cheek on your chest, breathing hard, hair stuck to her forehead.

It lasts about as long as it takes her breathing to slow.

Then she gebtly lifts your arm off her, and sits up on the edge of the bed with her back to you. She puts her face in her hands and stays like that for a moment.

"Sorry." Muffled by her palms. "I'm just so tired. Six hours in the car and two days on that floor. I think I'm going to fall over."

She reaches down and pulls the sheet up off the mattress. She wraps it around herself before she stands. She holds it closed over her chest with one hand.

"That was..." She looks back at you over her shoulder and finds a smile. "You were perfect. I love you."

"I just need a shower. I want to wash the whole weekend off."

The bathroom door closes behind her. After a moment the water starts, and steam begins to curl out from under the door.

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Saturday, past eleven. You are in bed with the lamp on when her key turns in the lock. It is a while before she comes up.

Fleur comes in wearing her practice clothes with a hoodie pulled over them, moving carefully, like everything hurts. She drops onto the edge of the bed and starts working her shoes off with her toes, and does not look over.

"I know." You have not said a word. "Third Saturday. I know. You don't have to say it."

There is an edge in her voice. Then she presses the heels of her hands into her eyes.

"Sorry. That wasn't fair." Quieter. "It's the next competition. It's in four weeks and my standard is a mess, and... sorry."

She plugs her phone in on her side of the bed and lays it face down.

She gets under the covers still half in her clothes, leans over, and kisses you on the forehead.

"Not tonight, okay? I'm dead. My calves are dead." A tired almost-laugh against your hair. "Tomorrow. I promise."

She rolls onto her side, away from you. Then she reaches for the lamp.

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Click. The room goes dark.

Sunday morning, it is already warm. Her side of the bed has not been slept in. Downstairs, her bag and keys are dumped by the door, where they were not at midnight.

The kitchen smells of butter and coffee. The windows are open and the garden is loud with birds. The table is properly set, there is a jam jar in the middle with three roses from the garden in it, stems still wet. Your coffee is already poured.

Fleur is at the stove with her back to you, in the grey cardigan with the stretched cuffs, buttoned all the way up. Her hair is wet from a shower.

She is making pancakes. The proper ones.

"Morning." Over her shoulder, not quite turning round. "Sit. Syrup or lemon?" She does not wait for an answer. She is already reaching for both.

The syrup lives on the top shelf. She stretches for it, and the cuff slides down her forearm.

For a second her wrist is bare. There are two narrow bands around it, even and close together, still red and pressed deep into the skin.

She brings the bottle down. With two fingers she tugs the cuff back over her wrist, down over the heel of her hand, and holds it there. She does not look at you.

The pancake in the pan is starting to catch. She turns it.

She brings everything to the table at once. She butters your pancakes for you. She moves the roses an inch so you can see past them, then moves them back anyway. She sits down across from you, not beside you, with her tea in both hands and the sleeves pulled down over her knuckles.

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"Eat." She holds your eyes for a moment, and then she doesn't. "You've been so patient with me."

Thursday. The house is cold enough for the heating now, and nobody has put it on. Your phone is face up on the arm of the chair.

Fleur, 5:41 PM Class, then home. I'm leaving at eight tonight. No extra hour.

Fleur, 7:56 PM Ten more minutes.

Fleur, 8:43 PM Sorry. Running over.

Fleur, 9:31 PM Leaving soon.

Fleur, 10:17 PM Don't wait up.

There is a plate covered over in the fridge for her. The cats have given up on the door and gone to sleep on her side of the couch.

At 11:40 PM the phone is still face up on the arm of the chair. Nothing new has come in.

Fleur, 12:52 AM I'm trying. I really am.

Fleur, 1:34 AM On my way.

At ten past two, headlights sweep across the front window and cut out.

The car sits in the drive. The engine ticks as it cools. Nobody gets out.

It has been six weeks. Nobody has said so out loud. There has been a reason every time: the competition, her calves, early starts, the drive.

You are home early. The house is quiet except for a low steady hum from upstairs. It sounds like something electric left running. The bedroom door is half open.

Fleur is on the bed in the afternoon light, on her back, in nothing but an old T-shirt rucked up to her ribs, knees apart. One hand is fisted in the sheet. The other holds a small lilac vibrator pressed between her legs. Her eyes are shut, her head tipped back into the pillow, lips parted, and her breathing is quick and ragged. She is close.

You have never seen it before. In all these years she has never once brought anything like it to this bed.

She knows exactly the angle. Her hips roll up into it in a slow, practiced rhythm. She eases it off right at the edge and brings it back again without needing to look.

The floorboard by the door creaks.

Her eyes open. For a second she does not understand. Then she sees you.

Her thumb finds the button without looking and the hum stops dead. Her first hand goes to the hem of the T-shirt and drags it down over her ribs. Only then does she pull her knees together.

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The room is very quiet. The flush has gone all the way down to her collarbones. She turns her face into the pillow.

"Don't." Her voice barely works. "Don't look at me."

The motorcycle is parked in the drive, half on the lawn, like it lives here.

Inside, the living room lamp is on. Jacky is on the couch with her boots up on the coffee table and a glass in her hand. It is the good whisky, the bottle from the hotel shop, open beside her. Fleur is standing in the middle of the room with her arms wrapped around herself, and she has gone white.

"There you are." Jacky raises the glass an inch. "The scout."

She does not get up. She reaches out without looking, catches Fleur by the wrist, and pulls. Fleur comes down onto her lap in one stumble, and Jacky's arm goes around her waist and settles there.

Fleur does not get up.

Jacky looks up at you. She takes her time about it. Whatever she finds in your face, she has made up her mind before you can open your mouth.

"No. Let me. She's been trying to find a way to say it for weeks, and she's never going to." She sets the glass down. "She's mine. Since the competition. The first night, after we won the Latin. The hotel. And every week since. Every one of those late nights. Every Saturday. That was me."

Fleur makes a sound. Her hand closes on Jacky's wrist.

"Jacky. Jacky, don't. Please, don't, I'll tell them, I'll tell them myself..."

"You've had weeks." Jacky does not look at her. "You were going to wear it under your shirt in this house until you died."

Fleur twists round and grabs for her arm with both hands. It is too late. Jacky's hand is already at the hem of Fleur's shirt. She drags it up and holds it there.

Under Fleur's right breast, in the crease, in small black script: Jacky.

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Fleur has stopped fighting. Her hands are still on Jacky's arm, holding on to nothing.

"Mine." Jacky says quietly as if savoring the taste of the word. She is not smiling now. "I don't do secrets. I don't do hiding. So now you know. That is what happens when you neglect your wife."

She does not let go of the shirt. She does not look away from you.