Older, Bolder, Colder by Barry Denson

I met her at a gallery opening—the kind where the wine is dry, the chatter drier, and no one under forty admits to not understanding the art. She stood out—not because she was loud or loud-looking, but because she moved like someone who’d long since made peace with herself. She offered her name like it was optional.

I was twenty-six and still apologising for my existence. Recently broken up with, newly freelance, barely formed. When she asked what I did, I muttered something about design. She said, "That’s cute," and walked away. But not far.

We crossed paths again by a sculpture of a rusted bird in flight. She touched its wing, like she was checking it for heat, and said, “Do you think it would hurt more to fall, or to stay still forever?” I didn’t know what to say. She liked that.

The third time, I asked if she wanted to grab a drink. She smirked. “No. But you’ll come to mine.”

Her flat looked down over the city with the air of a queen bored with her kingdom. No overhead lights—just candles, jazz without melody, and shadows that knew where to linger. I sat on the velvet couch while she moved in and out of the room like smoke, returning with two glasses and a bottle so dark it felt like a dare.

She poured without asking. I drank without thinking.

“I like your throat,” she said. “It looks like it hasn’t swallowed too many lies yet.”

I laughed, but too fast. She noticed. She always noticed.

She kissed me like I was the last scene in a play she’d seen a dozen times, each time with a different ending. I followed her to the bedroom, pulse loud in my ears, unsure whether I was devouring or being devoured.

She undressed with the ease of someone shedding weather, each garment falling away without apology or flourish. Her skin carried the scent of sandalwood and wine, her presence rich and unhurried. No words passed between us, only gestures—deliberate, assured—that pulled me deeper into her gravity. Time bent strangely in that room, stretched taut by anticipation.

I knelt between her thighs as I drank Malbec from her navel, the curve of her belly warm and faintly trembling beneath my tongue. The wine tasted deeper for having touched her. Then I ventured south, drawn by a heat more ancient than fire, to imbibe an entirely different drink—one she offered without words, only a sigh and a knowing tilt of the hips.

Afterwards, she lit a cigarette and didn’t offer me one.

“You’ll write about this one day,” she said. “Not now. You’re still too close. But one day, when someone younger than you asks what seduction really means, you’ll think of this room.”

I smiled, not sure if I felt chosen or used.

She smiled too, then turned away to sleep.