7: The Mirror

Marta was biting her lip. She knew exactly what it meant when Mario's voice dropped like that.
She stood up and faced the mirror on the wardrobe door.
She saw the fine lines on her face, the muscles of her neck a little more defined than usual.
She caught herself with her free hand resting between her neck and her shoulder, phone in hand, smiling absently at her own reflection.
Had she fallen, in the end?
And for someone half her age?
That last thought made the image looking back at her turn her stomach.
"Marta? Are you still there?"
Mario's voice brought her back to reality — and to the consequences of her actions.
"Yes." She studied her reflection, searching for some sign pointing her in the right direction. "Go on."
"You said it was only one night — and yet you called me."
"I know. I don't understand myself either." She admitted.
"Can I help?"
Marta gave a short, dry laugh.
"Help me with what? Understand why I went to bed with a man I barely know and who is half my age?"
"I don't go for older women, Marta — and yet the moment I saw you, everything in my head fell apart. Can you explain that to me?"
"You have your whole life ahead of you." Marta's voice began to crack, her fingertips resting on her reflection, tracing her collarbones and the hollow where they met her sternum. "And I already have a stable life, Mario. A whole life before this."
"And even so — it wouldn't make sense not to try to know you. I can hear you holding yourself together, and I don't want to hear you cry."
Marta turned away from the mirror. Her hand covered her mouth on instinct and the tears came without warning — she surrendered to the obvious and could only voice the question that would not stop turning in her head.
"Mario — what have you done to me? I'm not the same person anymore."
A deafening silence held them both there, breath suspended, for what felt like forever.
"I also had a stable life before I met you. A job I love, plans to start something with a girl, a father who supported everything I did."
At the mention of another woman, Marta's heart contracted sharply. She understood there was no going back.
"Hearing that hurts." Marta could not hide it.
Mario waited a couple of seconds to steady himself.
"I think I know which part you mean — but to be sure, and at the risk of being wrong: did you feel even the slightest twinge of jealousy just now, when I mentioned someone else?"
"Would you believe me if I said no?" Marta gave her reflection a half-smile of surrender.
She heard him exhale on the other end of the line, and after a brief click of his tongue, he sent back a question just as raw as hers — though it sounded less like surrender and more like an offering.
"What have you done to me, that I'm not the same either?"
"I haven't done anything," she protested. "At most, I let myself go — if even that."
"If I let myself go, I'd be undressing you right now." Mario's voice dropped again, low and deliberate.
"This is a mistake, Mario — a bloody mistake!" Marta's legs gave way and she crumpled, finally breaking into tears.
"A mistake I would make as many times as it took, if you'd let me feel you once more." Mario steadied his voice and let the certainty show through. "But don't cry — it kills me."
"I'm not crying." She lied. "I just feel overwhelmed."
"Same as me — and right now I know I should stop talking and hang up, so you don't keep crying."
"I am not cry—" She heard the call go dead. "—ing."
Marta let go of the phone. It slid down her shirt and came to rest between her thighs on the floor.
"If I thought I could keep what I feel for Mario purely physical—" still sitting on the floor, still facing the mirror, she looked herself in the eye — "calling him has only made it worse."
Marta pulled herself together with some difficulty and got ready to finish undressing and put on her pyjamas.
She put on a white strappy top with pale pink shorts, and over them a short floral kimono-style robe with oversized blooms — all satin.
Eyes swollen but dry, she set about hanging up her suit on the valet stand.
She noticed the fountain pen sticking out of the jacket pocket. She picked it up and put it in her bag — she had no heart left for any more surprises that night.
She had one last thing to put away, and opened the hall wardrobe to hang up the coat she had worn to dinner with Manuel.
As she closed the wardrobe door, the doorbell rang.
Marta took a step back and looked at her front door with suspicion. She crept over silently to look through the peephole and could only make out a man standing with his back turned — but she had no doubt who it was.
She opened the door with urgency, though it felt to her like slow motion.
When their eyes met, desire surfaced in the form of tears of joy, and she reached for his hand and pulled him back inside.
"I don't want you to cry because of me." Mario managed to say, before Marta covered his mouth with hers.
He barely took off his fleece jacket — only unzipped it, since the urgency of touching her outweighed any interest in removing his hoodie. What would be the point?
Marta raised her arms and pulled them up to his shoulders. The urgency of their bodies clouded all judgement, and they were already at the bedroom door when they had to stop kissing just to breathe.
"I could get addicted to you without a single regret." Mario said, half-joking.
"What a drug to be addicted to — a body like yours." Marta said it without a filter, but with the full, urgent hunger of desire awakening after years of celibacy.