The bank felt quieter than usual once the main floor emptied, just the soft hum of the air conditioning and the occasional click of keyboards from the few who stayed behind. I kept the under-25s in line longer than planned, going over the numbers one more time because the competitive little spark in me would not settle until everything looked clean. One of the girls tried to slip out early with a half-finished report and I shut it down with that firm voice they all know by now. The lads glanced up, a couple of them with those quick smiles that always make my stomach tighten even when I pretend not to notice. By the time I locked my desk the sky outside had already turned that soft purple of late summer evenings, and the walk home through Hackney left my legs tired but my mind still buzzing with the quiet satisfaction of having stayed in control.
I ordered a takeaway the second I stepped through the door, kicked off my shoes and pulled on the softest onesie I own. The flat smelled of whatever spice the delivery guy brought, and I settled on the sofa with a chick flick playing low, the kind with sweeping music and perfect happy endings that always leave me a little soft around the edges. I told myself I was just going to eat and switch off, nothing more. Yet every time the leading man on screen leaned in for a slow kiss my thoughts drifted, and the pretending grew thinner by the minute.
It started with the memory of those smiles at work, the way one of the taller lads had rolled his sleeves up earlier and the quiet strength in his forearms had caught my eye for half a second too long. From there the daydream unfolded the way it always does when I am alone and the competitive edge has nowhere left to go. I pictured someone taller, darker-haired, the sort of man who would walk through my door with that same steady confidence and take the remote from my hand without a word. In the fantasy his mouth found mine first, slow and sure, the kind of kiss that makes your breath catch and your whole body lean in before you even realise you have moved. The film kept playing in the background but I barely heard it. All I could feel was the imagined weight of his hands sliding under the soft fabric of the onesie, warm palms mapping the curve of my waist, the slight press of his fingers at the small of my back drawing me closer until there was no space left between us.
The pictures grew richer the longer I let them. I felt the heat of his mouth trailing lower, the soft drag of lips across the sensitive skin just below my collarbone, then further still until the pleasure gathered in slow, deep waves. Every gentle stroke of his tongue sent little sparks racing along my nerves, the kind that make your thighs press together and your breath turn shallow. In the daydream I was already trembling, fingers tangled in that dark hair, body arching as the sensations built higher and higher until the release washed through me in long, sweet pulses that left me shaking against the cushions of my own sofa. The afterglow in the fantasy felt just as real, the way he would gather me close afterwards, one hand stroking lazy circles along my spine while the other massaged the tired arches of my feet, whispering nothing important, just the quiet promise of staying.
I blinked back to the real room with the takeaway container cooling on the table and the film still murmuring its perfect ending. My cheeks felt warm and the onesie suddenly seemed a little too soft against skin that still remembered the imagined touch. I finished the last of the food slowly, smiling at the screen even though I had missed half the plot, and let the idealistic part of me rise up the way it always does. Somewhere out there is the tall dark man who will walk through that door for real, the one who will keep the competitive fire in me balanced with the sweet, steady affection I still hope for every night. Until then these quiet evenings after late shifts will have to do, the exhaustion and the secret heat mixing together into something that feels almost like waiting for the best part of the story to begin.
