The Lover
The Lover
It was raining that afternoon—the kind of steady, silver rain that soaks everything in a soft hush. I had been called to help a woman tidy up her place. Just for an hour, she said.
“A quick clean,” she added over the phone. “Just the studio. I’ll be in the bathroom finishing my hair.”
I didn’t know much about her. She lived alone, tucked into a small upstairs apartment filled with books and textures—soft lamps, plants, paintings leaning casually against the wall. Her space had the kind of lived-in beauty that makes you want to sit down and sip tea slowly, even if you’d only just met.
While I dusted and folded and sorted, she moved in and out of the hallway, humming slightly as she did her hair. Long, silver, cascading waves she smoothed and shaped with care. And that’s when she told me—glancing at me through the mirror with a mischievous smile:
“My lover is coming to visit tonight.”
She must’ve been in her seventies. Sharp-eyed. Confident. Gentle.
Alive.
I smiled so wide.
I hadn’t expected that word—lover.
She said it like a declaration. Not of sex, necessarily, but of possibility. Of connection. Of the fact that even after seventy-something years, you can still anticipate someone’s knock at the door with flutter and glee.
When I walked into her bathroom to clean, I saw the poster.
There it was. Bold, bright.
It said something cheeky about pleasure and desire—I don’t remember the exact words. But it stopped me. Froze me in admiration.
I thought: Yes. This is it. This is what I want to grow into.
It wasn’t just about love or sex—it was about claiming joy. It was about making space for desire even in seasons when the world tells us we should be invisible. It was about still making the bed like it matters. About lighting the candle just in case. About brushing your long, silver hair and calling someone your lover without shame.
I finished cleaning and left quietly, but I carried that image with me for days.
Still do.
That. Just that.
What a woman.
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