What would the Eliza in Melbourne have done in this situation? She probably wouldn’t have even been out. She’d rarely socialised in all the years she worked with Gillian. What would Rose advise her to do now? What would her mother say? She began to imagine and then she stopped herself. She was thirty years old. She was a single woman. He was a single man. A single, attractive, kind, smart and sexy man.

They started kissing even before they stepped inside his flat. While his front door was still open.

He lived on the ground floor of a Georgian building. They’d made their way there in near-silence, the attraction between them growing with each step. His hand once again a gentle touch on her back as they walked. It felt like a promise.

At the doorway, he put the key in the lock, turned to her to say something. But then he didn’t speak. He leaned down towards her and she tilted her chin and they met halfway, a soft touch of their lips that quickly became more. He drew back first, opening the door, his arm around her waist, the two of them in his hallway now, no lights on, the front door shut, the street light sending a glow through the front window, shadows and light. There in the semi-darkness, lips on lips again. She could feel his body against hers, her own hands now on his arms, his shoulders, each of her caresses matched by his.

They could have kept talking. He could have showed her his paintings. Made her coffee. But neither of them wanted that now. The apartment stayed dark. They moved from the hallway to the living room. She saw in the dim light a wide sofa, a lamp, walls with paintings in shadow, but she was too conscious of his hands on her, his lips on hers, her clothing being inched aside so his fingers could touch bare skin, her pulling at his shirt too, feeling the smooth warm skin of his back. Then they were on the sofa, more kisses, more skin against skin, clothing being removed even as their kisses became more urgent. He breathed her name. She said his in return, a question, an answer, that meant they stood again, barely clothed, and she followed him, his hand in hers, through the room, into his bedroom.