This story recounts an experience in 2018 with my ex, M.
I pick you up from work. It’s dark. You’re waiting outside the luxury hotel where you’ve just wrapped up your late shift. I lean across to open the car door and you slide in next to me. Long, straight black hair frames your young Chinese features and even though every line of your face is etched in my memory, I’m taken aback by how beautiful you are.
I nuzzle in and kiss your neck, whisper to you to take off your panties. It’s a game we play, you in the passenger seat naked beneath the thin veil of your skirt, me touching you as we drive along the darkened streets of the city. What you don’t know is that tonight the rules of the game have changed.
I explain I need to make a stop to pick up something for the exhibition I’m designing that opens in a few days; there’s a particular stainless steel fixing I need for the construction. Our route takes us through one of Sydney’s inner city industrial suburbs and the diversion will only take a few minutes. You nod and stare aimlessly out the window, a blur of city lights silhouetting the profile of your face.