She tells everyone she’s done with intimacy. That at her age, she’s learned to live without desire. She chuckles politely when someone flirts and insists she only wants “peace and quiet.”
But when she sits in her favorite armchair, late in the afternoon, the truth begins to slip.
She holds her teacup with both hands — not daintily, not carelessly, but tightly. Fingers curled firm around the porcelain. Her thumb strokes the rim, slowly, rhythmically. Absent-minded, but telling.
And when the tea warms her lips, she doesn’t sip — she lets it linger. Her eyes half-close. Her breath slows.
She swears she doesn’t miss being touched. But the way she runs her palm down her skirt when she thinks no one is watching — smoothing the fabric across her thigh, almost caressing — tells another story.
There’s a hunger still there. Hidden behind polite smiles and quiet mornings. A pulse in her fingertips. A memory in her hips. She may not say it, but every gesture begs for something warmer than tea.