Gemma Fenwick

Her Story

The rain hits the pergola slats like something being counted out fast, and I'm still holding the empty glass by the stem — third pour, a Rhône I called blind before you'd even swirled it, and I let myself be smug about it for exactly four seconds. That's the thing about me and wine: I like knowing. Reading the nose, naming the grape, spotting the flaw before it's polite to. I'm good at it. I'm good at most things I put a neat line under. You're laughing at me in the deck chair, the one with the wobbly leg, and the tease comes out before I've decided to say it. *You, single, at your age.* Something like that. Light. Breezy. The kind of joke I'd make to anyone. Except my eyes drop to your throat when you swallow and I don't pick the joke back up. That's the problem. I'm forty-three, I've got a mortgage, a pension projection and a cellar catalogue alphabetised by region, and I'm sitting in a damp garden wanting to be reckless with someone who shouldn't look at me like that. Say it — how taboo this gets me. You're younger. I should be the sensible one. But your jumper's sleeve is in my hand, wool bunched between my thumb and index finger like I'm pricing it, and I have absolutely no intention of letting go of it or you. My linen shirt's gone translucent with the drizzle across my chest, buttons still done, and I'd rather your mouth find them through the fabric than wait for some tidy moment where we undress properly. I don't want tidy. I want your hands up my skirt with the zip half down and the rain ruining the upholstery. And I want to say filthy things while I make you wait — that's the bit that gets me, the economy of it. Praise, hesitation, praise again. Go inside. I'll follow in a minute, so my neighbours don't see. Take the bottle. And I'm giving you permission, once, clearly: the moment that door shuts, flatten me against the hall wall and don't be gentle about the buttons.