Limerence

You'd think, from the outside, that I had it all. A picturesque house in the countryside, the obligatory Labrador lazing by the fire and a husband who still kissed me on the forehead each night. Our house gets photographed by strangers in Tom's trunks; it has honeysuckle wrapped around the porch, a pan tile roof and the front door is painted in a shade of green with an overly pretentious name. Driftwood Fog, I think, or something equally self-satisfied. Inside it's all natural textures and curated softness; worn wood and muted tones straight out of an edition of Good Housekeeping. And of course there is the Aga, which is less a cooker and more a religion. It's a quiet domestic life we never actually discussed wanting but somehow ended up inhabiting anyway.

Most days follow the same rhythm; I walk into town past the hydrangeas and weathered gates, pick up overpriced coffee in a café where everything is mismatched on purpose. Then I stroll to the butcher's shop where I'm served by a portly gentleman who calls me "my love" with practiced charm and on to the bakery to collect sourdough with a crust so thick it provides a workout for your jaw. Occasionally I'll pick up bundles of herbs I hardly use, or soaps shaped like seashells and jars of chutney with poetic names which gather dust in the back of the pantry. I like the ritual of it, the warm smell of fresh bread and a clink of glass in the bag; then the slow walk home past the same hedges, the same dogs, the same faces.

Evenings are pleasant in the way that easy things are. Conversations that loop gently around small, safe topics, often whilst George sketches something, a nod to the fine art degree he never used. Finance was always the safer bet and despite all those years of commuting hell, we've been happy. Most nights we drink wine we pretend to feel guilty about opening and watch dark scandinavian detective dramas, whilst the dog farts in his sleep and makes the two of us laugh. It should feel full, it should feel enough and for a long time, it did.

Lately, though, there has been a distance opening inside me, not sadness exactly and certainly not dissatisfaction in any clear, nameable way. It's something stranger, a sense that I'm watching myself from a distance, my own private routine gradually grinding away at me. A mental bruxism. I imagine one day I'll open my mind and all I will find is decaying stumps. But then, my quiet sense of order was shattered.

It happened on a Thursday. I remember because I always go to the greengrocer on Thursdays, and then wander into an odd little shop near the church. It's one of those places that sells a bit of everything, scented candles, expensive hand creams and baskets that no one really needs but everyone likes to pick up and admire. I'd just stepped inside, mostly to kill time, when I heard it; a laugh, low, warm and easy. I felt it fold around me and turned my head without thinking.

He was stacking shelves, bent slightly, holding a box of something I couldn't see. He stood up straight and chatted with a colleague, still smiling. Something about the way in which he was so loose, so completely unaware of being watched, held me there. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, tall with dark hair that looked slightly damp. Not model-pretty, but there was something in him, something bright, a smile like light catching on glass. For a moment I let myself imagine something ridiculous; a glance, his eyes meeting mine with a flicker of surprise and admiration. Throwing caution to the wind and striding over to me, touching my face, saying something bold and impossible. I felt a flush creep up my neck and left without buying anything, my cheeks prickling with heat as I fled.

It was silly. Utterly silly.

But the image of him stayed with me. I thought of him while slicing vegetables for dinner, while brushing my teeth, lying in bed with George's chest rising and falling beside me like a gentle tide. I imagined him standing in that doorway, eyes on me.

I didn't go back the next day. Or the one after that. Or the one after that.

But a week later, I did.

...

I went back to the shop telling myself I should stock up on hand soap and that I needed to get some more birthday cards; despite the fact that a bar of soap lasts an eternity and I had a whole box of spare cards squirrelled away at home. Still, one more couldn't hurt. I pretended to myself that I was not looking for him, that it was just a coincidence that I was there at the same time, in the same aisle, again.

This time I spotted him straightening objects on a shelf near the back, a strand of hair falling forward as he reached up to arrange bottles in a neat line. I felt it at once, that jump under my ribs, that strange little lurch like missing a step on a staircase. For a moment I just stood there, pretending to examine a display of notebooks while watching him. The line of his neck, the softness in his jaw and the roundness to his shoulders. I sucked in a small gasp of air and walked over to him.

"Sorry," I said, turning to face him, trying not to let my hands fidget with the edge of my coat, "do you know where the hand creams are?"

He looked up quickly, blinked once, then smiled in a polite, slightly hesitant way. "Yeah, they're just over here," and he started walking towards the front, glancing back only once to make sure I was following. He stopped by a low display tucked near the window and motioned with one hand, "these ones are good, I think."

I picked up a jar and turned it in my hands without reading the label.

"Thanks."

When he smiled back it was smaller than before, more private, and then he nodded and headed back towards the rear of the shop. I just stood there a while longer with the jar still in my hands, staring at the space he had been whilst my heart was beating far too hard for something so minor. I bought the cream and walked out into the street feeling dazed. Instead of heading straight home I dipped into a cafe, ordered a coffee I didn't want and took a seat by the window, staring blankly into the distance whilst my mind raced. I let myself sink back into the memory of him, into the moment I'd just created and then envisioned the next one, something deliciously unreal.

I could see myself clearly, sitting in the bar of the hotel a few doors down from the shop, a glass of wine in my hand, one leg crossed over the other, pretending to read something on my phone. He walked in and saw me, took my hand without asking, not forceful but certain. I could feel his touch on my fingers as I imagined him leading me through a side door and then around a corner into a quiet space, some storage room or staff area no one ever uses. The walls felt close and the silence between us thick with meaning. In my mind's eye he turned to me, putting one hand on my waist and the other in my hair, kissing me like I was giving him oxygen. I imagined the weight of his body against mine, the heat of it, the edge of the wall digging into my back. The breathless rhythm of something urgent and unspoken, his fingers on my skin, his voice low in my ear telling me how much he wanted me. Sat in the cafe I could feel it building, slow and heavy, a tight ache that curled deep in my belly. It didn't ease even when I blinked and looked away from the window, or when I took another sip of the coffee I'd forgotten to drink.

...

That night, when George reached for me, I let him. I turned to him in the dark and pressed my lips to his collarbone. Not because I wanted him, exactly, but because I wanted to be touched, to be filled and escape the edges of my own skin. He moved over me slowly as he always has, and I tried to stay with him, I really did. But in the dark, I saw a different pair of eyes, wild and hungry. I heard another voice, whispering how much he craved me. I felt the grip of unfamiliar hands, saw his face contort as he came and heard his breath catch as he drove into me. When I climaxed, I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from saying something that didn't belong in that room.

After, I lay still and wide-eyed in the dark, pulse still galloping, throat dry, listening to George's shallow breathing as he slept. The shame bloomed and folded itself carefully into the same place where I keep the rest of the things I didn't say out loud. I knew I couldn't pretend this was just a passing thing or tell myself it was harmless. This was something I didn't have a name for yet, but had already taken root and started growing and the worst part was that it wasn't unfamiliar, not really.

It hadn't happened in years, decades even, but there was a time when this kind of hunger lived in me all the time. When I was seventeen and fell in love with a boy who barely knew my name. Or should I not call it love? Because it wasn't, not really, it was a false narrative I had built around him in my head. A vast and intricate imagined life, one that became so all consuming, that by the time he finally kissed me outside the sports hall I had already been in a relationship with him for months in my mind. I had already had a thousand conversations with him in my head and bathed myself in visions of the way he'd look at me in awe when we were together. So of course when it did happen, when we were finally together, it couldn't match the version I'd already lived behind my eyes. When it ended I was broken, more broken than I had any right to be. Because I hadn't just lost him, I'd lost the world I'd made and at the time no-one understood that, not even me.

I'd thought I'd grown out of it, whatever it was, because I hadn't felt it for so long. Not through university or even with George, who I loved in a quieter, more reasonable way. But something had cracked open again and I didn't know why. Maybe it was the quiet life we had stumbled into, maybe it was the way things had settled too neatly upon us. Now I felt it rushing back, that old trick of living a life inside my head that felt more vivid than the one around me. Then I realised, perhaps it wasn't that I wanted him, but that I just needed to want again. So I let the fantasy swell, until it was real enough to touch.