The plane touches down at Manchester and I watch the grey sky press against the window, the clouds low and heavy like a ceiling closing in. Beside me, Sam is already reaching for his phone, scrolling through the messages that piled up while we were airborne. The Canary Islands feel like a dream already — the heat, the salt, the way my skin turned brown under a sun that feels impossible now. I caught him looking at me on the beach more than once, a kind of quiet appreciation in his eyes, and I let myself enjoy it. I let myself be his wife for two weeks. It was easier than I expected, slipping back into the part. The dinners, the walks along the promenade, the way he held my hand without thinking. But underneath it all, underneath every smile and every kiss goodnight, there was another current running. A phone in my bag. A name I kept checking.

"Good trip, really," he says as we shuffle through baggage claim. "We should do it again. Maybe next year, try a different island."

I nod. "Yeah. Maybe."

He doesn't hear the hollow in my voice. He never does.

We take a taxi home from the airport. The house greets us with its familiar smells — the lavender diffuser I bought from a market stall months ago, the faint must of carpets that need replacing, the coffee grounds Sam forgot to empty before we left. It's the same smell it's always been. But it feels different now. Foreign. Like I've come back to a stage set that's been waiting for an actor who forgot her lines.

Sam carries the bags upstairs. I stand in the hallway, phone in my hand, the weight of two weeks of sun and sand and pretending pressing into my shoulders. I type before I can think: I'm back. I need to see you.

Send it before I can stop myself.

The phone stays dark. I stare at it, counting heartbeats. Sam's footsteps cross the bedroom above me. The clock on the landing ticks. Then the screen lights up.

His name there, just his name — B N, buried under work contacts, saved with no contact photo, no emoji, nothing Emma or Sam might recognise if they saw it over my shoulder. It works. It also feels like another lie I've learned to carry without flinching.

I open the message.

I need to see you too. But we need to be careful. Let me think about how.

No plan. No date. Just the echo of what I already feel. It should sting. Instead it settles in my chest like a promise, like oxygen. He hasn't said no. He hasn't closed the door. I lean against the wall and let myself breathe.

I type: Okay. Whenever you're ready.

Send. I drop the phone into my bag and pick up my suitcase.

Upstairs, Sam has already unpacked his own bag and is standing in front of the wardrobe in his boxers, sorting his dirty clothes into the laundry basket. He looks up when I walk in and smiles — a tired, easy smile that I know as well as my own reflection.

"Feels good to be home, doesn't it?" He says it like a statement, not a question.

"Yeah," I say. "Good to sleep in our own bed."

It's not a lie. But it's not the whole truth either, and the gap between the two feels like a room I'm standing in alone.

I unzip my suitcase on the floor and start pulling out clothes — sundresses that smell of sun cream and salt, the bikini I wore almost every day, the one Bradley said made him want to bite my hip through the screen. I hold it for a second too long before dropping it into the laundry basket. The tan lines on my body are already starting to fade. Another week and they'll be gone completely, and the only proof I was ever there will be the photos on my phone and the memory of his voice on the calls I made from the balcony while Sam slept.

The house settles around us. The clock on the landing ticks. A car passes on the road outside. Somewhere downstairs the fridge hums. It's the same soundtrack it's always been, but I hear it differently now — like I'm listening from underwater, from somewhere else entirely.

That evening we eat dinner together — pasta, the same thing he always makes. He talks about the holiday, about the hikes we did, the restaurant with the good paella. I nod in the right places and laugh when he expects me to. The performance is seamless. I've been doing it for months now. The muscle memory is stronger than the guilt.

That night, I lie awake next to him. His breathing evens out into the slow rhythm of sleep within minutes. He's always been like that — the ability to just switch off, to let the day fall away. I envy it. My mind is a revolving door of thoughts I can't stop: Bradley's message, the shape of his face on my phone screen, the way his voice goes low when he tells me what he wants me to do. I reach for my phone on the nightstand and check it under the duvet, the blue light casting shadows across my face.

Nothing new. Just the silence of a conversation waiting to resume.

The next morning, I'm back at school. The kids are loud, the staff room is full of the same complaints about marking and behaviour policies, and the hours stretch out in a way that makes me feel like the holiday never happened. I text Bradley during my free period, hiding my phone behind a stack of exercise books.

First day back. Already counting the hours until I can talk to you properly.

Three dots appear almost immediately. The sight of them makes my chest tighten.

Miss you. Send me something later. Something only for me.

I bite my lip. The heat rises to my cheeks. I type: What kind of something?

Surprise me. You know what I like.

I don't respond. I don't need to. The rest of the day passes in a blur of lessons and photocopying and snatched glances at my phone, and by the time I get home I have a plan. I take a photo in the bedroom with the curtains half-drawn — just my stomach, the small star tattoo on my hip, the waistband of my underwear pulled low. The tan line is still there, a faint ghost of the bikini I wore on the beach. I send it without a caption.

His response comes seconds later: Fuck, Laura.

I feel a pulse of satisfaction, of power, of something that feels dangerously close to happiness. It fades as quickly as it comes, replaced by the familiar ache of wanting more.

The weeks settle into a pattern. Work, home, texts, calls. The Tuesday nights when Sam goes to the pub with his colleagues become sacred — the one window of time when I can have Bradley to myself without the constant fear of being caught. I shower before the calls, change into something he likes, arrange the lighting just so. The ritual feels both thrilling and pathetic. A married woman preparing for a date with a man who lives four hours away, who she can only touch through glass.

But the calls themselves are electric. He talks to me in that low, steady voice, telling me exactly what he'd do if he were here. I close my eyes and let the words wash over me, let them build a world where the distance doesn't exist. He asks me to touch myself, and I do, my hand moving under his direction while he watches through the camera, his own breathing growing ragged on the other end. The orgasms are sharp and quick and leave me hollow afterwards, lying alone in the dark with the phone pressed to my chest.

It's not enough. It's never enough. But it's what we have, and I take it greedily.

Three weeks after I get back, Emma posts in the family group chat. The notification pings while I'm sitting on the sofa, Sam beside me scrolling through his phone.

Girls! I've been thinking. Centre Parcs in October? The kids would love it. We could book a big lodge for everyone — Mum and Dad, Amy and Max, you and Sam. A proper family thing. What do you think?

I read the message twice. My stomach does something complicated. Centre Parcs. A week in a lodge with the whole family — Emma and Bradley and the kids, Amy and Max, Mum and Dad. The thought of being in the same building as Bradley, of waking up in the same lodge, of having to pretend in front of everyone while he sleeps in the bedroom down the hall — it's both a threat and a promise.

Amy responds first: Oh my god yes. Max would love it. When in October?

Emma: Half term. The 19th to the 26th. I've already checked availability. There's a massive lodge that sleeps ten, it's perfect.

I type slowly: Sounds good. Let me check with Sam.

Emma: You better be there. It won't be the same without you.

I put the phone down and turn to Sam. He's still scrolling, oblivious. "Emma wants to do Centre Parcs in October. The whole family."

He looks up. "Centre Parcs? Like, the holiday village with the dome?"

"That's the one." I keep my voice light. "A lodge for everyone. Mum and Dad, Amy and Max, Emma and Bradley and the kids. Us."

He considers it. "Could be good. Bit crowded, but the kids would enjoy it." He shrugs. "I'm in if you are."

Relief floods through me, quickly followed by guilt. I should be relieved because it means a family holiday, time with my sisters, memories for Mum while she's still well enough to make them. Instead I'm relieved because it means I'll be near Bradley. Because for six days, he'll be in the same postcode, the same lodge, the same air.

"I'll tell Emma we're in," I say, picking up my phone.

Sam goes back to his scrolling. He doesn't see the tremor in my hand. He doesn't hear the way my breathing has changed. He doesn't know that the holiday he just agreed to is the same holiday I've been secretly dreaming about for weeks.

I message Bradley privately: Centre Parcs. October. Emma's booking it. We'll be in the same lodge.

His response comes a few minutes later: I know. She told me. This is either going to be the best week of my life or a complete disaster.

Maybe both.

Probably both. But I don't care. I just need to be near you.

I read that line three times. I screenshot it. I save it in a hidden folder on my phone, next to the photos he doesn't know I keep. The evidence of a crime I'm committing willingly, deliberately, with every part of me that still remembers what it feels like to be wanted.

The weeks crawl towards October. The Tuesday-night calls continue, charged with a new urgency now that the trip is real. We talk about it constantly — the logistics, the risks, the moments we might steal. A walk in the woods. A late night in the kitchen after everyone else has gone to bed. A glance across the dinner table that no one else will understand.

"You'll have to be careful," he says one night, his face lit by the glow of his phone screen. "Emma notices everything. She always has."

"I know." I'm lying in bed, the duvet pulled up to my chin, the phone propped against my pillow. "I've been careful this long. I can manage another week."

"Can you?" His voice is soft, almost tender. "Being that close to me and not being able to touch me?"

The question lands in my chest like a stone. "I don't know," I admit. "But I'd rather be close and not touch than stay this far away forever."

He's quiet for a moment. Then: "Me too."

It's the closest we've come to admitting what this really is. Not just sex. Not just a game. Something that has grown roots I can't dig out without leaving a hole.

The Tuesday before the trip, Sam has a work event. He tells me at breakfast, apologetic, promising to make it up to me. I wave him off with a smile, already calculating the hours I'll have to myself. By eight o'clock, the house is empty and I'm setting up my phone on the nightstand, adjusting the angle so Bradley can see all of me.

He calls at eight fifteen. His face appears on the screen, tired but smiling, and something in me unravels just looking at him.

"Hey," he says. "You look beautiful."

"I'm in my pyjamas."

"I don't care. You're beautiful."

I feel the heat rise to my cheeks. Even after all these months, he still makes me feel like a teenager. Like the first time a boy told me I was pretty and I didn't know what to do with the feeling.

"I've been thinking," he says, his voice shifting into something lower, more deliberate. "About that thing you bought. The one I asked you to get."

My breath catches. The butt plug. Sitting in my bedside drawer, still in its box, waiting. I've taken it out a few times, held it, considered it, but I've never had the courage to use it. Not without him telling me to.

"I know you have it," he continues. "I think it's time you started using it. Properly."

I swallow. "Now?"

"Now." His voice is gentle but firm. "I want to watch you. I want to see you take it."

I don't argue. I don't want to. I get up and fetch the box from the drawer, my hands trembling slightly as I pull it out. The plug is silicone, black, medium-sized — not too intimidating, but real enough to make my pulse quicken. I hold it up to the camera.

"Good," he says. "Now get comfortable. Lie on your side. I want to see everything."

I do as he says, arranging myself on the bed with my back to the camera, my legs bent slightly. The lube is cold against my fingers. I spread it over the plug, over myself, my hand moving slowly, deliberately, aware of his eyes on me through the screen.

"Take your time," he says. "Breathe. Relax into it."

I press the tip against myself and push. The resistance is immediate, a tightness that makes me gasp. I stop, breathe, try again. Slowly, inch by inch, the plug slides in. The sensation is strange — full, invasive, not quite painful but close. I feel myself stretching around it, accommodating it, and then suddenly it's in, settled, and I'm lying there with my body full of him even though he's four hours away.

"Good girl," he breathes. "That's it. How does it feel?"

"Full," I whisper. "Strange. Good."

"I want you to touch yourself. While it's in. I want to watch you come with it inside you."

My hand moves without hesitation. The pressure of the plug against my walls, combined with my fingers working my clit, builds quickly into something overwhelming. I'm not going to last. I don't want to. I let the pleasure take me, let it pull me under, and I come with his voice in my ear, telling me how perfect I am, how good I am for him.

Afterwards, I lie there panting, the plug still inside me, the phone screen showing his face, his expression soft and satisfied and hungry all at once.

"I wish I was there," he says quietly. "I wish I could hold you."

"Soon," I say. "Six days."

"Six days." He smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I don't know if I can wait that long."

"You'll have to." I smile back, my body still trembling from the aftershocks. "We both will."

The call ends. I lie in the dark with the plug still inside me, feeling the weight of it, the reminder of him. I don't take it out for another hour. I fall asleep with it still there, dreaming of a lodge in the woods and a door that opens in the night.