Sometimes you call in sick. It is a bonus: we fuck without talking, only the call and response of our gasps. Outside the apartment, church bells measure our time together. The shutters are closed; through them bars of sunlight imprison us in bed. I make coffee after. Those are my favourite days.

Usually, though, you don’t arrive until after work, and sometimes when you remove your jacket you say you should bathe. Not yet, I say. Your smell lets me picture the train you ran for this morning; the eleven o’clock meeting you spent doodling; lunch with a client. I know you flirt with your secretary. You must have called your wife to lie about how busy you would be that evening, and while doing so you became erect underneath your desk.

I know all this from the way you press your groin to me as soon as you come in. When we fumble by the door you are already hard, and by the time your trousers fall, I have you sheathed in my hand. Your prick is baby-warm, thick and muscular. We tumble onto the bed. I slide my head down your shirt. I want to taste you, I say.

You do not answer. You come, unexpectedly, bursting onto me, somewhere. I look up at you and you begin to laugh. I search around my lips with my tongue, back and forth, up to my nose. Not finding it, I brush my face with my hand. It stays dry. I climb off the bed and go to the mirror, but still cannot see anything. In the mirror’s reflection you are grinning. Don’t laugh at me, I say.

You reach for the waistband of my panties and pull me back to bed. You bury your face in my neck.

I came so hard, you say, it’s in your hair. I find it now, like glue between my fingers. I dab some on your nose, to make us equal, then lick it off.

So we bathe. I am content; the happiness of the commonplace. I feel it also when I cook – nothing more complicated than an omelette – and look over at you, reading your papers in your underwear. But in the bath I am happiest. You slip in behind, and begin to wash me with parental vigour. Concentrating on my neck, then tracing my shoulder blades with your fingertips. Then your arms circle me, hands flat to my chest, drawing me back to rest on you. I used to be shy, I tell you. Not with you. We talk about theatre, the paperback I read, my neighbours; all the while you screw one nipple back and forth. My legs have the sheen of an inexpensive doll. Your legs flank them, their dark hairs absorbing the bubbles.

I wish our lives distilled to this apartment, to this room, to this bath and the moat of water surrounding us. It almost shuts out the world, though life steals in through your jewellery (that ring) and your wallet that lies open on the chair and contains a picture. I climb out of the bath. I drip over to the toilet and shiver on it as I sit. You watch.

You say I am too beautiful to marry and my eyes swim. What does that mean, I ask? You say you don’t know, it didn't come out right. 

You pass me two sheets of toilet paper without me asking. You have ruined the moment.

Your visits are brief points of light. Whenever I climb on top of you and you stare at the triangle between my legs to watch yourself disappear into me, we are inviolate. If I tell you that you don’t need protection, your thrusts become abandoned, your fingernails scratch my hips. You feel so big you are connecting to a central part of me. You are touching my heart, I say. This is often when you come; afterwards our resting bodies are casualties, the way we look as if we are dead; our limbs blue and fragile in the thin light. Our bones piled on each other.

After our bath, you ask if I will do as I promised. I nod. You turn me over, reach for a pillow that you place under me. You adjust me until I am just right for you. I press my face into the crook of my elbow. The bedside drawer opens. You take the tube out. I hear its contents fizz into your hand.

So cold, you say. There is a squelch as you stroke it onto your dick, and then paste it on me, like caulk. I shiver. Maybe too much, you say. You spread the excess over my cheeks, fingers extended. I like it, I say. Put more on.

You do not hear me: you brace yourself over me and press. Your muscle against my muscles until I surrender and you swoop in.

I cry out, then cover my mouth.

You go slowly, then forget yourself and you come in the distance inside me and that would be perfect enough, only it is already shadowed by an ending I can see: of a room that will be left, still shaped to you. I will watch out of windows, forever.

Okay, you ask? I nod again. I loved it, I tell you, it didn’t hurt much, honestly.

We go out. To celebrate, you say. Only to the place on the corner. You look around, and at your watch. Order champagne.

I lean over, place my fingers on the rim of your glass. I whisper: I can feel it coming out; it tickles.

But you are not listening.