Before I Go To Sleep [antikvár]

The bedroom is strange. Unfamiliar. I don't know where I am, how I came to be here. I don't know how I'm going to get home. I have spent the night here. I was woken by a woman's voice - at first I thought she was in bed with me, but then realized she was reading the news and I was hearing a radio alarm - and when I opened my eyes I found myself here. In this room I don't recognize. My eyes adjust and I look around in the near dark. A dressing gown hangs off the back of the wardrobe door -suitable for a woman, but someone much older than I am - and some dark-coloured trousers are folded neatly over the back of a chair at the dressing table, but I can make out little else. The alarm clock looks complicated, but I find a button and manage to silence it. It is then that I hear a juddering intake of breath behind me and realize I am not alone. I turn round. I see an expanse of skin and dark hair, flecked with white. A man. He has his left arm outside the covers and there is a gold band on the third finger of the hand. I suppress a groan. So this one is not only old and grey, I think, but also married. Not only have I screwed a married man, but I have done so in what I am guessing is his home, in the bed he must usually share with his wife. I lie back to gather myself. I ought to be ashamed. 17