It was his birthday again. Five years had passed, yet the date never slipped by unnoticed. It seemed to arrive in the body before it appeared on the calendar, as if memory lived deeper than thought. Not the cake, not the candles, not the laughter that should have filled the day. What returned was the other birthday. Theirs.
They had been strangers then. It had started with a shared love for music, for humour. Messages becoming more flirty, more intimate. They were strangers who wanted too much, who admitted it too easily. It might have stayed suspended in words and distance, but she was invited in by his partner. Curiosity turned suggestion into plan. That was all it took. All three were driven by lust, anticipation, and a deep understanding of each other.
When they first saw each other, it was at the doorway. She rang the bell, and he opened the door. For a heartbeat they only looked. Then he pulled her in and kissed her before she could speak, before nerves had the chance to rise. The kiss was urgent, disarming. They made love there and then, sober and unguarded, while the house was still quiet and his partner had not yet returned.
Afterwards there was a pause, a different kind of silence. They lay together, skin still warm, catching their breath, almost laughing at how sudden it had been. They studied each other in that new closeness, the way strangers do when they have already crossed too far. That hour held a different intimacy, quieter, stretched thin with anticipation of what would come once she arrived.
When his partner returned, the atmosphere shifted but did not break. What had begun in urgency unfolded into something broader, more daring. Smoke clung to everything, and the sharpness of what they swallowed tilted the hours. Her heart raced too fast, her mouth dry, nerves dissolving into hunger. Clothes scattered across the floor, the room thick with heat and breath. His hands found her hips, his partner’s fingers traced her back, his mouth pressed against her neck. The light above them shifted colours, cycling through red, blue, violet. Green lingered longest, washing over their bodies as if it wanted to mark them.
There was a moment when she wanted to look away, the intensity too much, as though being seen so deeply left her exposed. He hovered above her with an astounded smile, and with quiet command he moved her arm from her face. Look at me, he said, his voice so certain it broke her open. The force of it scattered her, a million pieces of lust and desire, shattering under the weight of being seen.
And his voice again, later. That more than anything. We will keep her.
The words pierced deeper than any touch. They were not light. They were not a joke. They carried weight, heavy as a brand. Her body had tightened at the sound, and she believed him. For a moment she belonged. To him. To her. To both.
The weekend blurred. Sheets damp, tangled. Laughter breaking into moans. Her own voice raw, unfamiliar, rising again and again. The three of them insatiable, restless, as if the birthday itself demanded nothing be left untouched.
And then it ended. Celebrations always do.
Silence followed, heavier than words, and it grew quickly.
Final, unyielding.
Every year the memory returned. The door opening. The kiss. The quiet hour before his partner arrived. The smoke, the heat, the weight of their bodies. The way he moved her arm, the words he spoke, the way the light turned green and seemed to hold there.
They had been strangers then. They were strangers again. And five years later it was still painted green.
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fijne verjaardagsweek 💜
reflections of an unquiet mind 