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Most men cheated on wives like Janet with women like Zane. Something had to be wrong with him.

I leaned back in the chair, fingers tapping the armrest. I didn’t say anything. I could tell she didn’t need my response, just someone to listen.

Instead, I let my eyes wander over her. She was pretty—short hair framing her face like a pixie’s, big innocent eyes. No makeup, clear skin, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol. She was striking. I thought about how she'd looked earlier, sitting in my lap, skin so soft, her breath warm against my neck.

The old me would’ve taken her up on her offer without a second thought. I would’ve fucked her so good, she’d walk back into her husband’s house looking at him like he was a joke.

I bet he fucked her with his eyes closed—routine, quiet, lazy.

I would’ve made her remember she was a woman—flesh and fire and need. She would’ve hated him for letting her forget.

She’d sit across from him at dinner and remember the way I made her scream into a pillow.

She’d touch herself under the sheets thinking about how I held her eyes while I was inside her.

I would’ve made her loud. Made her claw at the sheets.

Would’ve demanded she give me every inch of her body like it owed me something.

Old me would have ruined somebody like her.

But I wasn’t the old me.

Despite Janet, I still wanted a wife.

I wanted Sunday mornings and the sound of little bare feet running on hardwood.

I wanted someone who met me at the door like she was glad I made it back.

I wanted a family.

And after trying once, maybe that made me stupid. Soft, even. But I wanted what I wanted.

She kept talking, her words spilling out, her feelings, complaining about him like she’d been holding them in for years.

Then, out of nowhere, she said, “I want a baby,” and burst into tears.

I was caught off guard. She cried so hard her shoulders shook, and I saw the years of pain and disappointment written all over her face. And that made me angrier at her husband. Because what kind of man leaves a woman like her—full of want, full of love—with nowhere to put it?

What kind of man makes a woman like her beg just to feel like a woman?

“My momma didn’t like him,” she sobbed. “I haven’t talked to them in years because of him. And now… now I’m just… alone. He won’t let me do nothing.”

She cried harder for a second.

I didn’t know what to do with it—her pain, her need, the way she folded into herself.

She reached for her glass with tears running down her face. I leaned over and took it from her before she could lift it to her lips.

“I shouldn’t have given you this,” I said, my voice low.

She looked up at me, her eyes red and swollen, and for a second, I thought she might argue. But then she just nodded, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

“Your wife is old.”

“She’s 45 and I’m 35,” I rebutted.

She pouted and wiped her eyes, her tone shifting. “So? She’s still not attractive enough for you. How’d you meet her? Why’d you marry her?”