Instructed to Play. Various

before her bath, looked shocking against the cups of her bra. She ran her fingers along the lace edge to ensure perfect placement, imagining that they were his possessive fingers, and then smoothed her hands back over the black silk knickers that clung to her round bottom. She continued to think of smooth, fragrant skin as she felt herself grow into her accustomed role and click smoothly into her rightful place and demeanour.

      She smiled and applied make-up, the delicate shading and highlighting, relieved that she could put a little more shadow on her eyes now that the dark nights had gathered in. She felt competent while she tipped her head left and right to check her mascara, imagining an evening when she could flirt and laugh and tease. She stood back from her dressing table, her whispering conscience blowing gently at the dusts of powder she left behind, and reached for a simple black dress.

      Understated and graceful, it slid over her perfumed body and hid the secretive lace of her underwear beneath flowing lines. Her shoes were satin and slightly too high for her to feel relaxed going down the carpeted stairs so she carried them with her purse when she heard the sound of the door. She slipped them on as she turned the corner to greet the man she adored, the man for whom she had spent hours in preparation.

      He smiled when he saw her and breathed her in, resting his lips on her head while she filled the space beneath him. He stroked her shiny long hair and noted the brightest of red nails moments before he kissed her. Then, because she looked so sad when he drew away, he kissed her again.

      Finally he straightened his arms to hold her away just far enough that he could have a proper look, and within a heartbeat he saw it. Something was off. He took his time and looked beneath the creams and the shading, past the costume and the charade.

      His blue eyes probed, and she kept silent, letting him search, sure that he could not find what was no longer there. She smiled with longing, and when he took her hand and pulled her towards the kitchen chair she licked her bottom lip in anticipation.

      Her eyebrows drew in sharply when he pulled her onto his lap. She looked at the floor in silent offering, her knees quivery at the thought of kneeling before him in the way they both enjoyed so much. She frowned in disappointment, and decided that he had broken a man law when he ignored what she was so eager to give.

      He looked deeply into her face as if it were a page of fine print, and she wondered what sort of answers he would find there. So she told him the truth – that they had dinner reservations and that she was starving, and then gave him several reasons for their immediate departure, but when she paused to recall the exact nutritional content of her lunch her speech faltered and she fell into the silence that he laid before her like a rug.

      He sighed and cleared his throat. ‘Are you going to tell me?’

      He remained patient while she explained that there was nothing to say, and did he like her nails? And he had no idea how hard it was to get seamed stockings to go straight up the back of a leg. Her delicately constructed façade of gloss and flirtation crumbled, to her great annoyance, and she almost said how mean he was to shatter her good mood. But then she saw such love and consideration in his eyes that she forgot to say anything, and settled into silence once more.

      When she started to trace the line of his shirtfront with her finger he knew she was ready to listen.

      Her ankles lightly swayed back and forth while he talked, and her teeth gently bit her lower lip. His deep, steady voice stilled her, and despite her fear and shame she felt calm and safe for the first time that day. Truth bobbed up, desperate for air, and her hands reached for it too slowly to hide it from him.

      With one finger tracing the buttons on his shirt and her eyes never higher than his collar she told him all of it. It spilt out of her like marbles over the slate kitchen floor, a tale scattered and messy. She looked at the scene in dismay when she finished, certain she had made such a muddle that he would be so flabbergasted he could do nothing except join her in confused silence.

      She leaned against his chest, soothed by his hand rubbing small circles on her back, but flicked to alertness when his chest stiffened as though he suddenly realised he had something to do. She recognised his click into activation mode, and thought longingly and hopefully of dinner and restaurants and safe public places.

      ‘Stand up,’ he said, so casually she wondered if he might … but no, he placed a firm hand on her back, and then with just the lightest touch from his other hand he bent her over the table. She gazed at the dark oak, thinking how it was not supposed to be like this.