As the club scene faded around them, Aphrodite held another glowing sphere in her palm. The hourglass continued its languid descent, each grain taking its time to join its brothers below.
"Before we continue," she said, her voice carrying that blend of authority and tenderness that made her so captivating, "there's something you should understand about these globes." She stepped closer, studying his face with those impossibly deep eyes. "They don't create fantasies – they reveal them. Every scenario comes from within you."
She traced a finger along his collarbone, her touch electric. "When the next scene unfolds, you'll feel memories that aren't quite yours, emotions that seem foreign yet familiar. Don't resist them." Her smile held a hint of mischief. "They're all parts of you, desires you've kept hidden even from yourself."
The globe in her hand pulsed with a warm light. "This one," she whispered, "speaks to your desire for the forbidden. The thrill of being chosen over another." Her eyes locked with his, knowing and nonjudgmental. "The appeal isn't in causing pain – it's in being wanted so completely that someone would risk everything."
The light began to envelop them, reality shifting once again. Before it completely transformed, Aphrodite's voice floated to him like smoke: "Remember, in here, there are no consequences. Only desire in its purest form."
As the scene crystallized around them, Zafron felt new memories flooding in – a life not his own, yet somehow familiar. Aphrodite stood before him transformed again, her presence both new and achingly familiar. The hourglass continued its slow count, marking time in a place where time had no meaning.
***
Another desire globe shimmered into reality, weaving memories into reality of some kind of sort. To Zafron it felt like he was starting to remember and feel things that were foreign yet strangely felt like experiences he had taken part in.
Zafron felt no change happening to him but Aphrodite – her divine beauty shifted into something more touchably human yet no less mesmerizing. She appeared in her early forties, with laugh lines that only enhanced her appeal and curves that spoke of a life well-lived.
The scene crystallized around them: a quiet wine bar after hours, soft jazz playing in the background. Zafron had been tending bar here for the past year, watching Aphrodite come in with her realtor colleagues every Thursday. She always ordered the same cabernet, always sat at the same corner of the bar, and always had a smile that could light up the room – even when her eyes held shadows.
"But like I said to you before," Aphrodite began, her fingers tracing the stem of her wine glass, "life is full of sad ends and happy beginnings. Today I start a happy new beginning and it's because of you."
Zafron studied her face, noting how the dim lighting softened her features. "Doesn't seem happy."
She took a sip of wine before responding. "If it weren't for Josh, I'd be completely happy. Tom and I weren't much more than roommates the last couple of years." Her voice carried the weight of accumulated disappointments. "Typical story, really. We drifted apart, allowed ourselves to do it. He got too full of himself, I got to where I didn't want to be full of him."
Zafron remembered the nights she'd come in with red-rimmed eyes, ordering a second glass before her first was empty. He'd watched Tom grow increasingly dismissive over the months, speaking to her like she was an employee rather than his wife of fifteen years.
Aphrodite turned to face him fully. "The things he said to me, putting on a little weight, the grays, face isn't as smooth as it used to be. The way I dress. He said those things all the time, and I'd snap back at him, but his words hurt."
"I'm sorry," Zafron placed his hand over hers, meaning to give it a brief pat, but she quickly turned her hand over, linking her fingers through his. The contact sent warmth spreading up his arm.
"I shouldn't have taken it," she continued, vulnerability creeping into her voice. "Worse, I shouldn't have started to believe him. That I was no longer attractive, that he didn't find me desirable anymore and it was my fault."
"That's crap," Zafron said with quiet intensity. "An excuse to cheat and to be mean to you."
"I see that now, but it bothered me. It's part of why I dress the way I do. I started to feel ashamed of my body."
Zafron took in her elegant black dress, the way it draped perfectly over her curves. "In that dress you have nothing to be ashamed of." He blinked at his own boldness, but the wine and the intimacy of the moment made him reckless with honesty.
"You like what you see, Zafron?" Aphrodite shifted on her seat to face him, her eyes holding a mix of vulnerability and daring.
"I mean, yeah, you look good." The words felt inadequate to express how the sight of her made his heart race.
"You think I'm attractive?"
"Yeah," he nodded, his voice dropping lower. "Other than Tom, who wouldn't?"
The hourglass continued its lazy descent in the background, marking time in this pocket of desire where past hurts could be healed by new beginnings.
"You're smooth Zafron, and I don't think its an act, you just seem to know what to say."
"Makes me a good bartender." He joked.
"Makes you an attractive young man. Looks, humble, says and does the right thing. All you need is the woman who appreciates it."
"I'll meet her someday."
"I'm sure you will, but in the meantime, you're missing a lot of fun. I've been missing a lot of fun too. I'm not an old lady, he just made me feel like one. Like I was lucky I had him."
"He was the lucky one," Zafron stared down at their joined hands.
In the enclosed space of the advanced vehicle, he could smell her perfume and his eyes kept darting between her breasts and legs. His cock was stirring once more, and he felt a trickle of sweat slide down his back.
"He didn't deserve you," he added.
"Thank you for that. I'm glad we hadn't had sex in a long time. I would have felt cheap, like he was saying yeah, you're fat and old, but I'll still throw you a bone."
"That's kind of uh, crude."
"He was crude," Aphrodite swallowed hard. "He all but said that more than once, but I stopped giving in to it and telling him if I was that bad, then I didn't want his pity fucks so he could get his rocks off.
"Maybe that was what pushed him to start cheating, but I don't regret it. I took his shit for Josh, but I kept my pride the last few months. No matter how bad I wanted it, I'd just fire up the vibe." She grunted. "Better off, it lasted longer and didn't tell me how great it was."
Josh was her son, the one she had with Tom and Zafron's friend which made this whole experience a little harder to go with the flow.
"You wanted to talk about something?" He didn't want to keep hearing her talk about sex, even if it was the lack of.
"I do. I was thinking, Zafron." Her smile returned. "About what you did, and the things Tom said."
"What do you mean?"
"You did a good thing for me, you showing me proof of what he was doing was the last straw. Today I have my freedom again. I owe you a thank you."
"You've said it before, and just did again."
"No, those are words. I owe you something better than that. I thought what could I do for this brave young man? That led to Tom, all those cracks I'm boring, and old and no fun."
"I was that way because of him, and with him gone, I think its time to be exciting, and fun, and..." she slid her hand from beneath his and he gasped when she placed it on his cock. "Dirty," she added in a whisper.
"Aphrodite, you...can't do that." He put his hand on her wrist and tugged, but she resisted, and when she gave his rapidly hardening cock a squeeze, he released a startled moan.
"I can, I'm a single woman, baby."
She lifted the arm rest between them and slid closer, her free hand sliding across his chest, caressing him through his shirt.
"A single woman who's drunk, horny, and feeling very appreciative toward an attractive young man." She leaned over; her lips so close to his ear he could feel her warm breath.
"A young man that's been staring at me for a long time."
"Sorry, I just think...I mean," he groaned when she rubbed his cock through his jeans.
"Tell me you think about me," she whispered. "Tell me you want me."
"I...this is wrong."
"Doesn't feel wrong," she continued to rub his now aching cock and although his hand was on her wrist, he was no longer trying to move it. "Feels damn right to me."
"Josh," he managed the word as she slid her hand down his body and into his lap, joining the other to unsnap his jeans.
"Never needs to know." She flicked her tongue across his ear and he both heard and felt his zipper being pulled down.
"Yeah," her fingers slid into his open jeans. "This boring old lady has decided that my asshole ex deserves some payback, even if he never knows it."
Their faces were only inches apart and he could smell both her perfume and tequila on her warm breath. "I owe you, baby," she purred in a voice that oozed sex and promise as her fingers slipped into the slit in his boxers.
"Your reward is my revenge."