I’ve seen men build great things. I’ve seen other men destroy it all in half the time. I’m a man, and I’ve lived in the world of men for a long time. I understand the brick and mortar of the world, the meat of life. I understand the necessity of keeping the cross beams of a house perfectly balanced to support the ceiling, and how to work and push through and exert your will. The world I’d made for myself for years now was strong and logical and orderly. It was built by a man.

And it only took one woman to come in and change it. As I made my way over to the gallery (the gallery? The gallery?!) she had invited me to, I watched helplessly as my whole inner world suddenly seemed wobblier. Women… I don’t know. They don’t build or destroy. A woman can just walk into a room and make it feel like the sky is falling, no matter how well you thought you constructed the cross beams. Just the idea of a woman had its own gravity. What the hell had I been doing with my life all this time? I took a deep breath and told myself to relax. It was just a date. I once was married for over a decade, what the hell was I scared of?

She had called me out the blue, just like that, and told me to meet her at this gallery. She wanted to ‘show me something’. I never agreed to something so fast in my life. That was yesterday, and now I was here, wearing the closest thing in my closet that didn’t make me look like a washed up divorcee and bitterly wishing I had listened to Hugo when he nagged me to come to gym with him.

I found the place. All open at the front with windows and brightly lit. There were giant photographs on the wall, exactly the kind you’d expect. Soulful black and white portraits of vaguely ethnic looking people. Shots of skinny dogs in dirty alleyways. I took a deep breath and went inside, noticing how everyone in there seemed my daughter’s age.

It wasn’t difficult to spot her in the crowd. She was the crow. Clara had been… well, I didn’t like to think about Clara anymore. But Clara was sweet. Her body was made, top to bottom, from pink cotton candy. This woman I spotted now, standing in front of a photograph, her back to me… she was something else. Everything about her was crisp. She was like a sketch, made only in black and white, capturing only the most essential shapes – her high cheekbones, the swooping line that seemed to travel all the way from collarbone to ankle. She was as refined-looking as a thoroughbred racehorse. I instantly regretted not wearing something nicer.

I walked over and stood beside her, trying to look at what she was looking at. If she noticed me there, she made no sign of it.

“What do you think of this photograph?” she said. Her voice was crisp too. Like she was giving a diction lesson to a girl’s comportment class. I tilted my head and looked at it. An old man sat on a plastic bucket inside a stone door frame, his gut hanging low, a wizened look on his face. He was naked, and though the picture was in sepia browns, I just knew the balls balanced precariously on the bucket were deep purple. I cleared my throat.

“It’s, uh…”.

Shit. What did I know about art? It was some naked old guy on a bucket, for some reason, that’s all.

“It’s, uh…”

“Just say precisely what you’re thinking,” she said, still not turning to look at me. “I really want to hear your honest opinion.”

I laughed to myself.

“Well, I think it’s kind of clever how they…”

“Your honest opinion,” she said and turned to look at me. Her smile was naughty as hell.

“Honestly? I hate it,” I said. Her eyes sparkled.

“Tell me more,” she purred.

I looked at it again.

“Well… the whole photo’s taken like something amazing is going on here, you know? The whole thing, it’s just so damned big. There’s a lot of arrogance somehow. But this old guy? He’s just sitting on a bucket. No big deal. It’s the guy looking at him that wants to make a scene. But this old guy makes the photographer look like an ass.”

Her laugh was beautiful.

“Bravo, that’s wonderful. You have a good eye, huh?”

I followed her as she walked off to grab two flutes of champagne from a waiter passing by with a tray.

“A good eye?”

“It takes a good eye to see that the emperor has …well, horrible grotesque balls, in this case,” she said and laughed to herself, then took a dainty sip of champagne. I did the same. She was such a strange woman: sophisticated but vulgar somehow. Icy cold and yet with something weird and hot and naughty behind that severe black makeup.

“You invited me out to see an exhibition of photographs you hate?” I teased. The bustle in the gallery was enough to push us close together. She smelt expensive.

“It would appear that way,” she smiled. “Actually, now that I think of it, do you want to play a little game with me?”

Internally, I said fuck yes. Externally, I smiled and said “sure”, like she wasn’t the most gorgeous thing that had looked my way in years.

“Okay, well… one of the photographs here is mine,” she said, leaning in a little closer.

I looked back at the giant guy on the bucket.

“Oh god, it’s not…?”

She laughed.

“That? Please, no,” she said, haughty. “Although I was asked to submit a piece I’m not particularly fond of.”

I looked around at the huge images all around me, and the people milling around them.

“Tell you what, if you guess which picture is mine, I’ll give you a kiss,” she said.

My breath caught in my throat. I laughed and rubbed the back of my neck. I downed the rest of my champagne and casually handed her the empty glass. She watched me with interest as I walked around the room, taking a few moments to ponder each one. She followed me, smiling secretly. I paused in front of a picture of two girls in white dresses playing hopscotch with the light making strange shapes on them. I passed it by. I found another, an aerial shot of some boats in a river. I walked on.

Then I saw it. The picture was slightly out of focus, as though taken in a hurry. In the center of the picture was a middle-aged man in black, bent over some camera equipment on the ground and looking off to the side at something out of frame. All that could be seen of what he was looking at were some bright white strips of fabric. The hems of half a dozen skirts? The side of a wedding marquee? Whatever it is, it’s blowing gently in the wind and capturing all his attention, so much so that he looks clumsy, scrabbling for a camera, his forehead wrinkled and the back of his shirt riding up a little to reveal a slightly hairy lower back. It’s a ‘candid’ shot, but the opposite of the other picture. This is definitely a photo of something. The curious thing is that it’s so hard to tell what it’s of.

“This one,” I said confidently.

The look on her face was priceless.

“I… didn’t expect you to guess correctly.”

I spun around to look at her. Fuck, neither did I.

“Really? This is yours?” I said. I think I must have been half bullshitting, but now that I was apparently right, I suddenly considered the possibility that I was really some closet art genius. It was only a half second that her eyes lingered on my lips, but I noticed it all the same.

“Oh, it’s very obvious,” I said, putting on a snobby accent.

“Is it really?” she said and took a slow sip of champagne.

“Oh yeah. It’s got you written all over it.”

We both turned to face the picture, but it didn’t escape my attention that her shoulder was brushing softly against mine. I’m a tall man, but she stood alongside me, just as tall.

“What do you see?” she said quietly.

I cleared my throat again. The champagne had gone to my head for sure.

“I see… a woman who understands how much you can say when you don’t say anything. How it’s not just about what you show, but what you don’t show. I think you like things a little complicated. You like a challenge. What’s the point if things are too easy? In this picture… you make the person who’s looking do some of the work for you. It’s a bit voyeuristic, this whole thing. It’s not really a picture, just… a suggestion,” I said. Fuck, I was just running my mouth now. I had no idea what I was saying. But something about Kay made me feel like nothing I could say would be unwelcome.

She nodded slowly.

“Well, fair is fair. It appears you’ve earned a kiss. And for such an astute critique of my work, I should probably give you two,” she said and turned to look at me frankly. My heart pounded in my chest. Right there, hemmed in on all sides by people, she slinked her hand lightly over my shoulder and pulled me in. Her kiss was self-assured and generous. She kissed me like she already understood how much I’d wanted it since I first saw her two days ago. Her lips were soft but firm. I don’t think, till that moment, I had been kissed. Kissed other people, sure. But received a kiss, just like that, like it was a gift?

I stood there, stunned, as she pulled away.

“Let’s save the other one for later, okay?” she said.

“That sounds fair,” I said, and I tried my best to keep my composure. The people in the gallery swarmed around us like they didn’t give a damn about how epically my world had just changed.

We looked at more photos together, and she asked me what I thought of this, what I thought of that. She seemed amused at everything I said. Eventually she grabbed my hand and told me she was hungry. We left and strolled down the street, peering into restaurant windows until I suggested one that looked good. She nodded happily and we went inside.

They didn’t make women like her anymore. Calm, self-assured, dripping with glamor. It was like I was temporarily living in an old movie. Most of the time, I keep to myself. But with Kay, it felt so easy to speak honestly. She understood. I would never have guessed that someone like me would get on so well with such a high-toned woman but… it was happening. I was slightly intimidated by her. And as the evening wore on, that intimidation turned to curiosity, which turned to attraction. At least, that’s what I thought was happening. I only felt partly in control, when she smiled and listened to me, like something was always going on behind the scenes with her.

“Oh god, the truth is that I’m a big chicken, honestly,” she said, and took another bite of her food.

“You? I don’t believe it. Why don’t you have your own exhibition then? You know, with all the art you really want to make?”

She had a distant smile on her face.

“I don’t know. Fear? I like to think of myself as this edgy woman, right? As super in control, but truth be told I’m a big scaredy cat” she laughed. “Too afraid to push the boundaries too hard,” she said and took another bite.

I smiled and tucked into my own food.

“After my husband died …you already know about him, of course… well, things changed,” she said, and the smile dimmed.

“If you don’t mind me asking…”

“It was cancer,” she said matter-of-factly.

I pricked my ears.

“Yup, boring, predictable, horrible old cancer. It was three months from diagnosis to death. Just three. Barely enough time to get your head around things.”

“Oh, Kay, I’m… sorry. We don’t have to talk about—”

“Oh please, there’s no need to apologize. He’s dead, right? He won’t mind,” she said and laughed. I was taken aback.

“Wow. You don’t seem very…”

“Upset? Well, grief takes many forms, as they say,” she smiled. “If you’d lost a spouse you’d understand.”

I caught her gaze.

“Well, I did lose a spouse,” I said. Her expression crumpled, but she said nothing for a moment.

“How long…?”

“Not a year yet,” I said and looked down at my food.

She nodded quickly.

“Hey, you know, I hope you’re not offended or anything. It’s still raw for you. But it won’t be forever, I promise. When Andre passed away it took me a year just to feel like a normal human being again. But you do move on,” she said confidently.

“Do you though? Why don’t you move out of that big house of yours then?”

I could tell I’d hit a nerve, but she didn’t flinch. I had spoken in earnestness about Clara, about any damn thing for months and months. And yet somehow an hour after meeting this woman it felt like the most natural thing in the world to bare my soul to her. She smiled wistfully.

“Like I told you, I just look like I have my shit together. But I’m a big scaredy cat, remember?” she laughed.

For a moment we just sat in silence, taking one another in. I say ‘silence’ but it was impossible to really be silent with Kay. Even when we stopped talking, the conversation continued on with our eyes. There was something so wonderfully mature about her. Just a deep, satisfying feeling that nothing we could do would be out of bounds, no look I could give her right now that she wouldn’t know how to deal with.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m waiting for something? Death is weird, and I hated having to deal with it, to be honest. When your husband dies, it’s like …you didn’t realize how much of yourself you built up around them. And then they disappear and you feel… you feel almost naked now, without them around.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” I said.

She took a sip of her wine and leaned in.

“Enough about my sob story. You don’t talk about your time in the military, why not?” she said. God I loved how blunt she was. I sighed.

“Well, all that I have to say about the matter has been said already.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“It’s true. That was another life for me.”

“So this is it for you? To be a detective at some crummy police station? You’re far too interesting for that.”

I put my fork down.

“I um… how could I put this? I guess I’m settling down a little. I’m in a different phase of my life now,” I said thoughtfully. She burst out laughing.

“God, the way you talk it’s as though you’re planning to retire or something.”

I’ll admit it, that stung a little.

“Well, what’s so wrong with that? I’m getting on, I’m…”

She laughed again.

“Getting on? No, stop, I can’t stand to hear this anymore,” she laughed.

“Well, I’m just being practical…”

“Practical? Oh, god no, you’re too good-looking to be practical,” she laughed, and then all at once her hand was across the table and on mine.

We both stared down at it.

I was a vet and a widower. I wasn’t as energetic as I used to be, I wasn’t as hopeful. Life had given me a good few knocks and I was cautious. I knew that I wasn’t 100% ready for …well, whatever the hell this was. Was I really going to throw myself into some fling with a woman I’d just met?

“You know what I think? I think you’re a scaredy cat too,” she whispered, close enough that she could have kissed me again if she wanted to. It was a struggle to focus on her words with the look she had on her face right now. Yes, I was a scaredy cat. I, too, was waiting for something.

“If I remember correctly, I still get one more kiss,” I said.

She grinned.

“Well, I’m not stopping you…”

I leaned in close to her, her hand still on my arm, and gently grazed my lips against hers. I fluttered my eyes closed and felt her tongue respond to mine. It’s hard to say what makes a person a good kisser. But it’s immediately obvious. Her lips and tongue were warm and reactive against mine. It was the sweetest, briefest glimpse of something even sexier still. Kay was a woman who didn’t just kiss, she kissed. There seemed to be no reason to stop. So, we didn’t. When her lips paused on mine I could feel her breath fluttering. She nuzzled her nose against me and pulled back, smiling shyly.

“Seriously though, you really do have a good eye,” she said, a little bashful.

“And you have a good tongue,” I blurted, without thinking.

She immediately dissolved into giggles and peered at me through the hands she held up at her face. I blushed hard.

“Why thank you,” was all she could say, and I couldn’t help but laugh with her.