I’d spent too long on my hair. Too long staring at the mirror, pulling the soft black curls into place, smoothing them down just so. The dress—I didn’t even hesitate. The little black one, the one that made him stop mid-sentence the first time I wore it. Tight, with those off-the-shoulder sleeves that framed my collarbones and let a daring line of cleavage peek out, just enough to tease. He always said it drove him mad. I suppose that’s what I wanted tonight. To drive him mad. To remind him of what we had—what we still had, even after all these years.
Twenty-six. That’s not a small number. You don’t survive twenty-six years of marriage without battle scars and rituals, private jokes and silent cold wars. But anniversaries… anniversaries mattered. At least I thought they did.
I lit the candles at seven. The dining table was dressed for two. Wine breathing beside the plates. My heels clicked against the wooden floor as I moved, just a touch wobbly already—I’d started sipping early. The clock ticked on. Twenty minutes. Thirty. An hour.
When the doorbell rang, my heart jumped stupidly.
It was Jack. My son, standing there in his usual slouch, holding a modest bouquet of lilies. Not roses, not the red ones his father would’ve chosen. His expression gave it away even before he spoke.
“Hey, Mum…” he said awkwardly, pushing a hand through his hair. “Dad asked me to give you these.”
I blinked, silent.
“He’s… um, he’s not coming. Business trip came up. Last minute. He’s flying out tonight.”
I swallowed. The flowers trembled slightly in his hand until I reached out to take them. My smile was tight. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
He didn’t know what to do with himself. Jack stepped inside, lingering near the hallway, eyes flicking to the table, the candles, my dress.
“You look… wow, Mum. You look amazing. Seriously.” He tried to smile, but there was guilt in it as he couldn’t take his eyes off my upper body. “Listen why don’t I stay, I will have a drink with you.”
I let out a breath that came out more like a laugh. Not a happy one. Just… tired.
“You don’t have to, Jack,” I said softly, turning away, trying to pretend I hadn’t noticed his lingering glance. “Go home. You’ve done your part.”
But he didn’t move. He just stood there awkwardly, watching me with that tilt of the head he’d had since he was a boy—curious, stubborn. Like he was trying to see through me.
“No, I want to,” he said finally. “You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
My lips parted to argue, but the silence in the room won. That familiar ache of an empty chair across the table, of the absence that hung heavier than any argument. I nodded once, and without a word he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
“I’ll pour you one,” I murmured, reaching for the second glass on the table. My heels clicked softly as I walked, hips swaying under the tight hem of the dress. It was a little shorter than I remembered. Or maybe I just felt more bare without the eyes I’d worn it for.
I heard him exhale behind me. “Still can’t believe Dad didn’t show. That’s… low. Even for him.”
I passed him the glass and shrugged, watching him sip like he wasn’t used to red. The candlelight caught the side of his face—he’d grown more handsome than I remembered. No longer my baby. Broader in the shoulders now, jawline sharper. I felt a swell of something unplace able. Nostalgia, maybe. Regret.
We sat. The silence wasn’t as awkward as I expected.
“How’s uni?” I asked, finally.
Jack laughed under his breath. “Mum, I graduated two years ago.”
“Oh God.” I winced, covering my face. “That’s the wine talking.”
He grinned. “No, it’s you being stuck in your own time capsule.”
The words struck closer than he knew.
The wine loosened me. Or maybe it was the fact I hadn’t been looked at like a woman in so long—not properly. And Jack… he was looking now. Not in a grotesque way. But with a sort of unguarded honesty, like he was seeing me. As a person. As someone… hurting.
His eyes dropped again, quickly—too quickly—to the neckline of my dress. My cleavage pressed softly against the fabric, rising each time I breathed. The straps had slipped down a little, baring the tops of my shoulders. The dress fit tighter when I sat, hugging the shape of my hips, the soft swell of my thighs just visible beneath the flicker of the candlelight.
“You really do look beautiful,” he said suddenly, quieter this time. “Dad’s a bloody idiot.”
I paused. My heart thumped hard in my chest. Something unspoken hovered in the air, thick and trembling.
“Don’t,” I whispered, eyes meeting his.
He nodded quickly. “Sorry. I just… hate seeing you like this. You shouldn’t be crying over him.”
I didn’t realise I had been. My fingertip brushed under my eye, catching the streak of mascara I’d missed. I laughed again, bitter and embarrassed.
“I dressed like this for him,” I said. “I wanted to remind him. Of when I was younger. When I was… desirable. I even left my knickers off for him, shit sorry.. Never mind.” I stopped myself as I blushed.
“You still are,” Jack said before he could stop himself. “And be careful you don’t catch a draft haha.”
“Trust me even a draft is more than what I get lately,” I felt sad as I poured another drink.
1 hour passed.
We was laughing and play fighting drunk on the floor. He then pinned me to the floor tickling me.
“haha stop it, I am… ticklish,” he suddenly stopped still his body heavy on mine.
“I can’t believe your not… wearing any knickers,” he said as he said while I was pinned underneath him.
“Yeah I know, I shaved down there and…” I stopped why was I telling him that. He rocked gently against my groin by accident but it felt good. He then started kissing my neck slowly for a while and one hand started squeezing my breast through my dress. Fuck, my pussy started to tingle, this was crazy, why didn’t I stop him. Not sure why I said what I said next, “put it in me if you want.”
He then fumbled beneath us, he was trying to get his dick out. Then moments later he had his dick sliding up and down my gash and then… he sank deep inside.
A gasp tore from my throat, sharp and stolen. It was a sound I hadn’t made in years, a sound of pure, unthinking shock and sensation. The feeling of him filling me was so absolute, so complete, it obliterated every other thought. For a dizzying second, there was no anniversary, no absent husband, no son—only this impossible, undeniable heat stretching me, claiming a part of me that had been dormant and cold for a godless amount of time. The hard wooden floor pressed into my back, a grounding, painful reality check against the searing pleasure that was beginning to bloom deep in my belly.
His body was still, poised above me, his weight a heavy, trembling question. I could feel the frantic beat of his heart against my chest. He wasn’t moving, just breathing in ragged, shallow bursts. I opened my eyes and met his. In the flickering candlelight, they were wide with a terrifying cocktail of lust, horror, and disbelief. He looked like a boy who had just broken the most sacred rule in the world and was suddenly realizing the consequences.
“Mum…” he breathed, his voice a raw, broken thing. The word was a slap of ice water. Mum.
My own breath hitched, a sob catching in my throat. “Jack… oh, God… what are we… ahhh…” My words dissolved into a moan as he shifted, an involuntary clenching of his muscles that sent a jolt of pure fire through me. My hips lifted off the floor to meet him, a betrayal my body committed without my mind’s consent.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” he rasped, his eyes squeezing shut. He started to pull away, a motion of pure panic, but my hands, acting on some primal, selfish instinct, flew to his hips and held him there.
“No… don’t,” I whispered, the words choked with a shame so profound it was almost exhilarating. “Don’t… stop.”
That was all the permission he needed. The hesitation shattered. He surged forward, a deep, powerful thrust that drove the air from my lungs and a cry from my lips. “Ohhh, fuck… yes…” The sound was guttural, animal. It wasn’t me. It was some other woman, a woman who had been starved and left to wither, now feasting on forbidden fruit.
His movements found a rhythm, frantic and desperate. It wasn’t gentle or loving. It was raw, punishing, a physical manifestation of our shared confusion and guilt. The little black dress was bunched up around my waist, a constricting band of velvet and regret. His hand, the one that wasn’t braced on the floor, found my breast again, his fingers kneading the flesh roughly through the fabric. “You’re so… ungh… so soft…” he groaned, his face buried in the crook of my neck. His stubble rasped against my skin, sending shivers down my spine.
I was lost. The world had shrunk to this single point of friction, this searing connection between us. My legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper, demanding more. Each thrust was a nail in the coffin of my old life, and I welcomed it. “Deeper… Jack, please… ahhh…” I was talking, moaning, a litany of filth and need spilling from my lips. I could feel my own wetness slicking his shaft, making his frantic pace easier, slicker. The sound of our bodies slapping together echoed in the quiet room, a scandalous percussion against the gentle tick of the clock on the mantelpiece.
“Mum, you feel… oh god… you feel so… fuck… so tight,” he panted against my ear, his hot breath making me shudder.
The words, the wrongness of them, should have horrified me. Instead, they fueled the fire. He was seeing me, feeling me, in a way his father hadn’t in a decade. He wasn’t seeing a tired, aging wife. He was feeling a woman. And I was feeling like one for the first time in an eternity. A coil of heat tightened low in my belly, an unfamiliar, ferocious tension that was both terrifying and addictive. It was building, a wave I thought my body had forgotten how to create.
“I’m… I’m close, Mum… I’m going to…” he gasped, his rhythm becoming more frenzied, more desperate.
“Me too… oh, Jack… look at me,” I begged, needing to see his face, needing to anchor this impossible moment in reality.
He lifted his head, his eyes locking with mine. They were glazed with pleasure, but underneath, I saw the panic, the dawning horror. It was that look, the sight of his guilt, that pushed me over the edge. The world fractured into light and heat. My back arched violently, a cry tearing from my throat that was equal parts pleasure and pure, soul-shattering anguish. My insides clenched around him in wave after wave of release, a climax so intense it felt like I was breaking apart. The force of it triggered his own. I felt him shudder deep inside me, his powerful body going rigid as he poured his release into me, a hot, flooding pulse that felt like the ultimate sin, the final seal on our shared damnation.
He collapsed onto me, his full weight pressing me into the floor, his face buried in my hair. We lay there for a long moment, tangled and slick with sweat, the only sound our ragged, shuddering breaths. The air was thick with the scent of sex, wine, and lilies.
Then, the cold began to seep in. The reality.
He scrambled off me as if he’d been burned, his movements clumsy and panicked. He turned away, fumbling with his jeans, his back to me. The silence was deafening, broken only by the rustle of his clothing. I slowly, achingly, pulled my dress down over my thighs. It was wrinkled, damp. Ruined. Just like everything else.
I sat up, wrapping my arms around myself. The floorboards were cold against my bare skin.
“Mum…” he finally whispered, his voice hoarse. He still couldn’t look at me. “I… I’m so sorry. Oh, God. I am so, so sorry.”
I couldn’t speak. I just stared at his back, the broad shoulders I used to carry when he was a baby. A single tear, hot and thick, traced a path through my makeup. I swallowed, the sound loud in the tomb-like quiet. “I know,” I managed to choke out.
He finally turned. His face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed. He looked broken. He took a step towards me, then stopped, as if there was an invisible wall between us now. “I have to go,” he said, his voice barely audible.
He didn’t wait for a response. He snatched his jacket from the chair, not even bothering to put it on, and practically fled to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob, his shoulders slumped in defeat. Without looking back, he whispered, “I’m sorry,” one last time, and then he was gone.
The click of the door shutting echoed in the room, a final, definitive sound.
I was alone again. But the hollow ache from before was gone. It had been replaced by something infinitely heavier. A nauseating, soul-crushing shame that settled deep in my bones. I looked around the room. The candles had burned low, wax dripping like tears onto the polished wood of the table. A wine glass lay on its side, a dark red stain spreading across the floor like blood. And in the centre of it all, the forgotten bouquet of lilies stood pristine, their funereal scent now seeming chillingly appropriate. They weren’t an anniversary gift anymore. They were a wreath on the grave of the woman I used to be.