My husband gives me his usual bullish fucking, then gets up to leave. I lie in bed listening to him use the bathroom. The shower clicks on, clicks off. His shaver clicks on, clicks off. At 6am precisely the buzzer trills; the car is here to take him to the airport. He's running late. I hear him bumping about and swearing and he leaves without saying goodbye. As the door clicks closed, I feel a mix of emptiness and relief. I roll over to avoid the wet patch, pull the covers back up, and fall asleep.
I lie there for hours, dozing, dreaming. I'm still in bed at ten when the door clicks open again: the maid. "Fuck," I mutter, then call out "Hello!"
The maid appears in the bedroom doorway. She looks embarrassed and says "so sorry."
It's a new girl, I notice, dark-skinned, possibly Indonesian. Our eyes meet, and neither of us looks away. Silence. Something passes between us then; I don't know what it is. Seconds pass as she stands there in the doorway. Eventually I look down, and hear myself apologising back: "No no, I'm sorry. Just give me a few minutes and I'll be out of here". She waits in the hallway while I pull on a blouse and trousers and slip out of the flat.
I grab coffee in the lobby bar at the Four Seasons and spend the afternoon shopping on Orchard Road. But my mind keeps drifting back to that maid; to that look that passed between us. What did it mean? What did I feel? Showering before dinner I think about her again, and to my shock I experience a flush of arousal. I find myself going back to the bed, lying where I lay, looking up to where she stood, touching myself.
The next morning I lie in bed again, but I can't sleep. I'm feeling confused; aroused; apprehensive. Ten o'clock comes and I hear the click of her key in the door. She appears again in the bedroom doorway, unbidden this time. I feel myself blushing. She looks just as I remembered; impossibly young and slight, and strikingly attractive. The gaze and the feelings are the same.
"Come here," I say.
Holding my eye, she crosses the room and stands right next to me.
"Sit down."
She sits beside me. I look at her: the gentle curve of her hips; her slender arms; her delicate lips. She wears a sweet, cheap perfume, but there's a musky scent beneath that's all her own. Gingerly, I touch her on the arm. She doesn't pull away. Still looking into her eyes, I find myself leaning closer; kissing her on the lips. The kiss is soft and beautiful and I feel her body respond.
Lying back in the bed, I gently guide her down next to me, and we go on kissing, long and slow. Our tongues touch, and we sigh with pleasure.
"Take your clothes off," I say, surprised now by the urgency in my voice.
She sits up and shrugs off her blouse and her bra, revealing small breasts, like a teenager's. She sits like that for a few seconds, regarding me with a look of sheer lust, and I feel a rush of desire. Then she slides down her skirt and knickers, and slips into bed beside my naked body. We kiss more deeply then, running our hands over each others' breasts and hips and thighs.
I squirm with pleasure, as I feel her fingers begin to circle round my clit. I swear and moan uncontrollably. She kisses and sucks at my nipples, and strokes my clit faster and faster until even my breathing falters, and everything seems to fall away. As the wave of the orgasm passes over me, she's there, smiling, still gazing into my eyes. We kiss and kiss, 'til its darkening outside, and she tells me she has to go. I realise hours have passed. She dresses and gets up to go to the door. I ask her name.
"Shira".
It's six more days until my husband returns, and I fill those days with Shira. At ten each morning I hear the click of her key in the door, and moments later we are in each others' arms. We pass whole days kissing, staring into each others' eyes, and making love. Around six o'clock each day she leaves, and never says where she is going. Each evening I take dinner with the other currency traders' wives, and say nothing about her. Instead I listen to them talking about shops and dinner parties, about their husbands' career plans and ambitions, about whether and when and where to have children.
I keep a vibrator in my top drawer by the bed. One day I take it out and show it to Shira. She smiles. It's a smooth, half moon shaped thing, from a boutique in Far East Plaza. She takes it, and just the sight of her holding it fills me up with desire.
