2. Amara

The first tearfalls when I put my earring in. They"re bronze, over-sized, tear drop earrings Wren bought me for our anniversary last year. Bronze earrings, for a bronze wedding anniversary. Perfectly chosen for me because they"re overstated, eccentric and eye-catching, all things I like my style to be, but that"s Wren. They know me so well.

I just don"t feel like I know them very well at the moment.

Maybe that"s why I start to cry. Or maybe it"s because I miss them. I miss their eyes on me as I get ready. They used to watch me get ready all the time, like it was their favourite part of an evening out.

I look in the dressing table mirror and see the empty bed behind me. That"s where they used to sit or lie and watch me. They"d make jokes about me taking so long, and yet they"d not lift their eyes from me the whole time as I went through the motions of putting my make-up, my jewellery and my perfume on.

How I miss Wren"s eyes on me. How I miss Wren, full stop.

My eyes catch on the photo stuck in the corner of the mirror and my heart sinks further. A selfie Wren and I took of us on holiday in Tuscany two years ago, it's possibly the time I last remember being truly happy, truly in love with Wren, truly loved by them.

It"s hard to say exactly when things started to change. We"ve both changed so much over the last eight and a half years we"ve been married and, even in the years before, we were a very different couple. During our marriage the biggest change has been Wren coming out as non-binary just over three years ago. It wasn"t a big shock to me, and at the time I"d also not expected it to be a big transition. But in reality, it took a little longer and a little more of me than I expected for us to settle again.

But we did settle.

We had that glorious summer two years ago when I took a rare three weeks off work and we rented an old farmhouse a half hour outside Lucca. Every day we woke to the sound of a nearby rooster that Wren would always grumpily threaten to catch and roast for dinner that night. We spent our days reading books in the shade until Wren made fresh focaccia and salads for lunch, and in the afternoon we would prepare food for a barbecue, all while we drank prosecco and listened to a local radio station that played Italian songs we made up the words to. As the sun set, we would go inside and make love in the kitchen while cleaning up, or on the sofa before picking our books up again, or later, in bed, where we fucked for hours forgetting again and again that an old Italian cockerel was waiting to wake us up at sunrise.

Last year I"d suggested we go back. I"d even contacted the owner and found out the availability. But Wren said no. They said they had too much work. They said they didn"t want to get woken up by "that damn cockerel". So we"d stayed in London.

Well, that wasn"t strictly true. I"d ended up in Dubai, Greece, Portugal, and Morocco at various points in the summer months, not to mention a handful of weekends in Paris and Berlin. It had been too easy to say yes to work trips when I knew Wren didn"t want to go away. I still say yes to work trips too easily.

So, no, I can"t really put my finger on when I started to feel Wren pull away, but I know it was when they told me they didn"t want to go back to Tuscany that I felt myself start to do the same.

Another tear falls, and another. I sniff, and dab at the moisture with the back of my hand, careful not to smudge my make-up, and I focus on putting my second earring in. I"m about to reapply some powder when my phone buzzes and the screen displays an email notification from Shola, my assistant. I tut because she shouldn"t be working at this time at night, but when I open the email and read it, my hypocrisy hits me.

It"s nothing urgent - a document I asked her to prepare for me before a lunchtime meeting on Monday - and I write a quick reply thanking her and insisting she get offline and go enjoy her weekend. Her response is even quicker and before I"ve even come out of my inbox I see her one-liner email: "Same backatcha boss x". That makes me smile briefly but by the time I look up at my reflection, the curl in my lips has gone.

I take a long, slow look at myself in the mirror. A pair of big brown eyes stare back at me, and my full mouth naturally finds itself pursed, wrinkling my plump lips, so I do my best to smooth them out. My shoulder-length, chemically relaxed, black hair is styled back off my face, a little volume giving it a quiff look at the front, and the light brown skin of my shoulders is exposed thanks to my spaghetti strap red silk dress.

Wren always says they love red on me. Or rather, they used to say that.

Objectively, I think I could still be called beautiful. Two years shy of forty and I"m aware of the changes in my body and face. It"s not just that everything - EVERYTHING - is heading south, but more that the shapes of my body and features are shifting, morphing into something softer. I"ve never been soft. My Ethiopian mother blessed me with her lean limbs and high cheekbones, and my Greek father gave me my angular jaw and striking nose. I think I have them both to thank for the stellar metabolism I am fortunate enough to have.

Even my personality is more hard than soft. I"m a go-getter who has been running her own highly successful international PR firm since she turned thirty. I"ve steered my company through more than one hostile takeover attempt, securing countless multi-million-pound contracts, and adding a Manchester, Berlin and Paris office to our London headquarters. I"m an extrovert and professional social butterfly who knows how to host a party, how to connect people who should work together, should try dating or should simply fuck. I have a rigid daily routine that ensures that not only is my company running smoothly but that I"m exercising enough, getting the beauty treatments I so enjoy, and also indulging my love for socialising and networking.

Has this routine become busier with longer days in the last year or so? Yes, it has. Have I said yes to more functions and events so I"m not at home as often? Also, yes. Am I doing this because I want to avoid Wren? Possibly. Am I doing it because I don"t love them anymore?

No. God, no.

I love Wren more than ever.

And I believe Wren still loves me.

We love each other in the sense of love being a state of mind. A destination. What I"m less sure of is if we still love each other in the sense of that verb being a doing word. We love each other, yes, but are we loving each other? I don"t know. Or rather, I don"t think so.

That's why I"ve organised tonight.

Maybe arranging for a private chef to do all the hard work of preparing a four-course meal while we sit in the comfort of our own home drinking three-figure bottles of wine may not seem like me making an effort, but I hope Wren sees it as me trying.

Because, while I can save any business' reputation from the gates of hell and run a fifty-person strong company, I can"t cook for shit, and Wren knows that. They would be horrified, not impressed, if I tried.

Besides, the whole point is neither of us cook so that we can talk. Because we really need to talk.

My phone buzzes again, pulling my gaze away from the mirror and my eyes, which seem duller and damper than they were a moment ago.

I open up my screen and see a notification for an email from Elite, the agency I used to find tonight"s private chef. I"ve used them countless times in the past for clients, for my work and occasionally at home when we"ve had private dinners with friends or work associates - theirs or mine. I blush as I also recall how we used them a few times in the earliest years of our relationship when we liked to add a third in the bedroom. And they always delivered.

We used to have so much fun with those wonderful women. Some of them even stuck around for a few months, one woman even lived with us for a year or so. Emily, her name was. She had long curly hair, rarely wore shoes - even in winter - and constantly sang to herself despite being chronically off-key. Six years ago, she left us to go study primate conservation in Costa Rica and she sends us postcards occasionally. At first, I thought I'd miss her terribly, but in reality, it didn"t feel like something was missing after she left. I still had Wren. I still had the person I loved.

Now it does feel like something is missing.

I miss Wren, even though they're still here. I miss the Wren who used to order me around. The one who used to think nothing of telling me to crawl to our lover, to pull down their underwear and bury my face in their hot wet cunt.

Wren doesn"t even ask me to do that to them.

I freeze before I open the notification. I don"t know what I"ll do if they cancel. It was hard enough getting tonight in both of our calendars - more my fault than Wren"s, I should admit - so I really don"t want to wait weeks, or longer, to schedule this again.

This has to happen tonight. We have to start loving each other again or I don"t know what"s going to happen to us.

Opening the email, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see it"s not cancelling tonight but rather informing me that our previously booked chef Dante is no longer available and instead another one called Katja is coming. The Elite representative assures me Katja is highly recommended and able to accommodate all our requests. There"s a link to her profile and I click on it.

When I see the photo at the top of her profile, I"m momentarily stunned. Katja is an eye-catching woman. Looking to be roughly the same age as me, she has bright red wavy hair that falls to just below her shoulders. In the headshot she"s wearing a chef"s shirt but it"s in black rather than a traditional white and it makes her pale skin look milky, no creamy, under the photographer"s light. Her arms are folded under what is undeniably a full bosom and she has a confident expression on her face, which is made up with all-natural make-up apart from a bright red lipstick. The scarlet red colour she wears should clash with her hair but it doesn"t. If anything it seems to set it alight, like fire.

And fire is something I"m abruptly aware I"m feeling as I continue to stare at this woman"s photograph.

I don"t even read the rest of her profile. I just stare at her photo as I put my phone down on the dressing table and then as if they"re moving of their own volition, my hands travel up to grab both of my barely-there breasts. My nipples are hard and hot under the smooth skin of my palms. Keeping one hand on my breast, pulling and tugging at my left nipple, I move my other hand down to grab my crotch through the thin fabric of my dress. I close my eyes and rock into my fingers, applying more pressure. I"m warm and wet and hungry. Moving the heel of my hand in a circular motion over my clit, I sigh.

As if I wake up and realise what I"m doing, my eyes dart open and I pull my hand away, quickly shutting off the screen of my phone. I shake my head and return to getting ready.

Without looking at my reflection, I spray perfume on my neck, chest and wrists, then I slide on my rings and check that my manicure from earlier in the week is still intact, ignoring the way my nipples are still hard and my core is all tight, coiled up, needing release. My nails are red to match my dress, again specifically chosen for Wren but they haven"t commented on it yet. Maybe they won"t at all.

Finally, I look in the mirror at our bed, perfectly made but completely empty. Wren"s still not here.

"Oh, Wren," I say, my hand coming to touch one of my earrings. "Where are you?"