u/Velvet_Room_6579

She'd only gone in because it was new. 
Nuala had a weakness for new places in the first weeks before they found their rhythm — before familiarity set in on both sides. She liked that window. The anonymity of it. It wouldn't last.
He was the one who took her order the first time. Funny, easy with it, the kind of person who made everyone feel like the most recent arrival at a party they were already enjoying. Honey-coloured hair, blue eyes. A genuine smile. She noticed the way you notice a fine face. Thought, briefly, that he was a ride. That was all.
She went back.
She liked him. It used to be so easy — the flirting, the back and forth. She knew how that worked. Enjoyed a game. Up to a point, of course.
She saw herself in other women now. In those women. The ones in films, in cafés, across rooms. The slightly too-careful laugh. The trying. Over tipping for a cup of coffee. She had no intention of being that woman.
The second time he wasn't her waiter. She noticed. The third time he was, and somewhere between ordering and leaving the thought came again — briefly, without landing anywhere. Still a ride. She smiled at him.
She left it there.
Except.
Except she was fifty-three now, and for the better part of two years the same inventory had been running on a loop she couldn't switch off — and couldn't quite face head-on either, so it ran in the background instead, surfacing at odd moments. On the Tube. In the middle of conversations. At three in the morning.
The job paid the bills. She’d stopped striving for something else long ago. The pattern of taking what came and making the best of it, which she'd always called pragmatism and was only now considering might have been fear with better PR. She wasintelligent, learnt to read the room and people — and people had always opened up to her easily, which she preferred anyway.She was pretty enough that doors used to open before she'd knocked, which had made it easy, for a long time, not to knock very hard. She should’ve used her looks more.
The other part was harder. She'd liked sex — genuinely, not as performance, not always. She knew her body, knew what got her off. She knew how to get others off. She did not know what she was capable of, what were her limits and what would bring her true pleasure. Said yes sometimes because it was easier than the conversation that would follow a no, but not always that either. Said yes sometimes to reckless, casual sex, because it just might happen that the other person would stop her and tell her she’s better than that. She'd have called herself adventurous, if asked. Open. And yet. There was always a point, some invisible line she'd never been able to locate in advance, where something in her seized and she'd find herself on the other side of it — composed, unreachable, the moment gone. The men who'd noticed had mostly said nothing. The ones who had said something hadn't lasted long.
What did she want? She wasn’t sure exactly, but longing, the fire she could feel inside her must’ve meant something. But she was fifty-three, and the world was quieter around her. And underneath that — quieter still — she would sometimes build worlds inside herself, ones full of right moments, right looks and taken opportunities.

 
She liked Celeste, former model, wife and mother of one. Easy to talk to, not prying too much into Nuala’s motives or reactions. Bar after the theatre was a given, and in all honesty, that was sometimes the best part of the evening.
They walked in together. The room responded to Céleste theusual way when a pretty thing is on display. For Nuala, it meant she had enough time to do the usual inventory: head high, back straight, careful walk, don’t look around, relax the face. Nobody would have known her toes were curled tight inside her heels.
She noticed him before she'd taken the first sip. He was a few stools down, part of the group clearly celebrating something. She noticed him the way she'd noticed him in the café: a fine face, the kind of easy warmth that worked on everyone. She looked and then stopped looking. Filed it.
The evening moved the way evenings do — in rounds, in small migrations, in the gradual thinning of noise into something more manageable. Nuala had a second drink, then a third, spaced enough that she felt only the soft edges of them. She and Céleste talked the way they always talked — easily, without effort, the conversation finding its own level. Nuala was careful in her glances, measuring the length of each with precision accumulated over the years.
His group had been four. Then three. Now two, the other one a woman who kept checking her phone with the distracted air of someone about to leave.
Once he laughed at something and she heard it without meaning to, and thought: yes, that's the laugh. The same one she'd noticed in the café, a half-beat behind everyone else's, like he'd actually considered whether it was funny first.
He glanced over. She didn't look away in time.
He didn't make anything of it. Just held it for a second, easy, and then went back to his conversation.
The woman with the phone left.
He was alone.

 
Céleste went to the bathroom and he came over. Not immediately — and then he was just there, a stool between them.
It was late enough that neither of them had anything left — no energy, no will, no interest in making anyone comfortable.
*You were in Brennan's*, he said. *A couple of weeks ago. Tuesday morning, I think*.
She had been. She said so.
*I wasn't sure, he said. You look different tonight.*
She waited.
*Not different. More—* He stopped. Smiled at himself. *Sorry. That came out wrong.*
*It didn't*, she said. And meant it.
*Are you good friends with them?* she asked. *The people you were with.*
He considered it a moment longer than she expected.
*Not really,* he said. *We work together.*
She nodded. Said nothing. Let him hear what she'd actually asked.
*That obvious?* he said.
*No,* she said. Which was almost true.
Céleste came back from the bathroom and stopped just behind her shoulder. Nuala felt her there before she saw her — the particular stillness of someone who has walked into something and is deciding how to handle it.
She turned. Céleste's expression was neutral in the way that meant the opposite.
Nuala looked at him from the corner of her eye, holding the glass in her hand. He didn't shift. Didn't recalibrate. She set the glass down.
*Oh,* Celeste said, looking past Nuala toward the far end of the bar. I*s that Sorcha? God, I haven't seen her in — I'm just going to say hello*. A hand on Nuala's arm, brief, warm. The look that went with it said something else entirely.
She was gone before Nuala could respond.

 
She bought herself another drink. He stayed.
She leaned in to be heard over the noise.
*Do you always watch people*, she asked, *or is that just tonight?*
He looked at her for a moment. Really looked.
*Both,* he said. *You?*
*Always,* she said. The half-smile already there, one eyebrow slightly raised.
He smiled — not the easy professional one she'd catalogued before. Something quieter.
She didn't let herself think. Or tried not to — the what-ifs arriving anyway, uninvited: what if he didn't like her what if someone found out what if she was being taken advantage of he was so much younger what if what if.
Don't show it. Stay focused. But keep thinking, never stop thinking.
She reached for her glass.
He was still there, leaning on the bar with both arms, looking at his drink. He turned his head toward her — just slightly — and said something about the air being stifling. She murmured something back. Could have been yes, could have been no, could have been whatever he wanted to make of it.
But she followed him as he moved toward the door.

 
The alley ran along the side of the building, a loose respite from the wind that started picking up. They stood in it. Their breath showed slightly in the cold. She was aware of the distance between them in the way you become aware of something only when it starts to change.
She didn't know how it happened exactly. A step. A pause that went a beat too long. The cold, maybe, pulling them closer by degrees until close became something else.
He kissed her, or she kissed him — the sequence blurred almost immediately, which felt right. His mouth was warm and unhurried. A good kisser, she thought. And the kiss got better. He placed both hands around her face, deepening it.
And her thoughts surfaced. Like a scale — the deeper the kiss, the closer fear came to the surface. The better it is, the better he is, the more dangerous this thing is.
The emergency shutdown started: her lips slightly less open, her tongue less present, her body pressed against his a fraction less. Outside: still. Inside: everything at once, too loud to name.
He felt it. She knew he felt it because he didn't push. Just stayed, close, his forehead almost against hers. She was glad he felt it. His thumb moved from her nose, under her eye, along the edge of her face. Like he was wiping away a tear. Her alarm got louder.
*You okay?* he said.
*Yes,* she said.
They stood there a moment longer.
She was still quiet, thinking: I'll say yes if he tries again. He smiled — the quiet one, not the easy one — and said nothing.

She'd only gone in because it was new. 
Nuala had a weakness for new places in the first weeks before they found their rhythm — before familiarity set in on both sides. She liked that window. The anonymity of it. It wouldn't last.
He was the one who took her order the first time. Funny, easy with it, the kind of person who made everyone feel like the most recent arrival at a party they were already enjoying. Honey-coloured hair, blue eyes. A genuine smile. She noticed the way you notice a fine face. Thought, briefly, that he was a ride. That was all.
She went back.
She liked him. It used to be so easy — the flirting, the back and forth. She knew how that worked. Enjoyed a game. Up to a point, of course.
She saw herself in other women now. In those women. The ones in films, in cafés, across rooms. The slightly too-careful laugh. The trying. Over tipping for a cup of coffee. She had no intention of being that woman.
The second time he wasn't her waiter. She noticed. The third time he was, and somewhere between ordering and leaving the thought came again — briefly, without landing anywhere. Still a ride. She smiled at him.
She left it there.
Except.
Except she was fifty-three now, and for the better part of two years the same inventory had been running on a loop she couldn't switch off — and couldn't quite face head-on either, so it ran in the background instead, surfacing at odd moments. On the Tube. In the middle of conversations. At three in the morning.
The job paid the bills. She’d stopped striving for something else long ago. The pattern of taking what came and making the best of it, which she'd always called pragmatism and was only now considering might have been fear with better PR. She wasintelligent, learnt to read the room and people — and people had always opened up to her easily, which she preferred anyway.She was pretty enough that doors used to open before she'd knocked, which had made it easy, for a long time, not to knock very hard. She should’ve used her looks more.
The other part was harder. She'd liked sex — genuinely, not as performance, not always. She knew her body, knew what got her off. She knew how to get others off. She did not know what she was capable of, what were her limits and what would bring her true pleasure. Said yes sometimes because it was easier than the conversation that would follow a no, but not always that either. Said yes sometimes to reckless, casual sex, because it just might happen that the other person would stop her and tell her she’s better than that. She'd have called herself adventurous, if asked. Open. And yet. There was always a point, some invisible line she'd never been able to locate in advance, where something in her seized and she'd find herself on the other side of it — composed, unreachable, the moment gone. The men who'd noticed had mostly said nothing. The ones who had said something hadn't lasted long.
What did she want? She wasn’t sure exactly, but longing, the fire she could feel inside her must’ve meant something. But she was fifty-three, and the world was quieter around her. And underneath that — quieter still — she would sometimes build worlds inside herself, ones full of right moments, right looks and taken opportunities.

 
She liked Celeste, former model, wife and mother of one. Easy to talk to, not prying too much into Nuala’s motives or reactions. Bar after the theatre was a given, and in all honesty, that was sometimes the best part of the evening.
They walked in together. The room responded to Céleste theusual way when a pretty thing is on display. For Nuala, it meant she had enough time to do the usual inventory: head high, back straight, careful walk, don’t look around, relax the face. Nobody would have known her toes were curled tight inside her heels.
She noticed him before she'd taken the first sip. He was a few stools down, part of the group clearly celebrating something. She noticed him the way she'd noticed him in the café: a fine face, the kind of easy warmth that worked on everyone. She looked and then stopped looking. Filed it.
The evening moved the way evenings do — in rounds, in small migrations, in the gradual thinning of noise into something more manageable. Nuala had a second drink, then a third, spaced enough that she felt only the soft edges of them. She and Céleste talked the way they always talked — easily, without effort, the conversation finding its own level. Nuala was careful in her glances, measuring the length of each with precision accumulated over the years.
His group had been four. Then three. Now two, the other one a woman who kept checking her phone with the distracted air of someone about to leave.
Once he laughed at something and she heard it without meaning to, and thought: yes, that's the laugh. The same one she'd noticed in the café, a half-beat behind everyone else's, like he'd actually considered whether it was funny first.
He glanced over. She didn't look away in time.
He didn't make anything of it. Just held it for a second, easy, and then went back to his conversation.
The woman with the phone left.
He was alone.

 
Céleste went to the bathroom and he came over. Not immediately — and then he was just there, a stool between them.
It was late enough that neither of them had anything left — no energy, no will, no interest in making anyone comfortable.
*You were in Brennan's*, he said. *A couple of weeks ago. Tuesday morning, I think*.
She had been. She said so.
*I wasn't sure, he said. You look different tonight.*
She waited.
*Not different. More—* He stopped. Smiled at himself. *Sorry. That came out wrong.*
*It didn't*, she said. And meant it.
*Are you good friends with them?* she asked. *The people you were with.*
He considered it a moment longer than she expected.
*Not really,* he said. *We work together.*
She nodded. Said nothing. Let him hear what she'd actually asked.
*That obvious?* he said.
*No,* she said. Which was almost true.
Céleste came back from the bathroom and stopped just behind her shoulder. Nuala felt her there before she saw her — the particular stillness of someone who has walked into something and is deciding how to handle it.
She turned. Céleste's expression was neutral in the way that meant the opposite.
Nuala looked at him from the corner of her eye, holding the glass in her hand. He didn't shift. Didn't recalibrate. She set the glass down.
*Oh,* Celeste said, looking past Nuala toward the far end of the bar. I*s that Sorcha? God, I haven't seen her in — I'm just going to say hello*. A hand on Nuala's arm, brief, warm. The look that went with it said something else entirely.
She was gone before Nuala could respond.

 
She bought herself another drink. He stayed.
She leaned in to be heard over the noise.
*Do you always watch people*, she asked, *or is that just tonight?*
He looked at her for a moment. Really looked.
*Both,* he said. *You?*
*Always,* she said. The half-smile already there, one eyebrow slightly raised.
He smiled — not the easy professional one she'd catalogued before. Something quieter.
She didn't let herself think. Or tried not to — the what-ifs arriving anyway, uninvited: what if he didn't like her what if someone found out what if she was being taken advantage of he was so much younger what if what if.
Don't show it. Stay focused. But keep thinking, never stop thinking.
She reached for her glass.
He was still there, leaning on the bar with both arms, looking at his drink. He turned his head toward her — just slightly — and said something about the air being stifling. She murmured something back. Could have been yes, could have been no, could have been whatever he wanted to make of it.
But she followed him as he moved toward the door.

 
The alley ran along the side of the building, a loose respite from the wind that started picking up. They stood in it. Their breath showed slightly in the cold. She was aware of the distance between them in the way you become aware of something only when it starts to change.
She didn't know how it happened exactly. A step. A pause that went a beat too long. The cold, maybe, pulling them closer by degrees until close became something else.
He kissed her, or she kissed him — the sequence blurred almost immediately, which felt right. His mouth was warm and unhurried. A good kisser, she thought. And the kiss got better. He placed both hands around her face, deepening it.
And her thoughts surfaced. Like a scale — the deeper the kiss, the closer fear came to the surface. The better it is, the better he is, the more dangerous this thing is.
The emergency shutdown started: her lips slightly less open, her tongue less present, her body pressed against his a fraction less. Outside: still. Inside: everything at once, too loud to name.
He felt it. She knew he felt it because he didn't push. Just stayed, close, his forehead almost against hers. She was glad he felt it. His thumb moved from her nose, under her eye, along the edge of her face. Like he was wiping away a tear. Her alarm got louder.
*You okay?* he said.
*Yes,* she said.
They stood there a moment longer.
She was still quiet, thinking: I'll say yes if he tries again. He smiled — the quiet one, not the easy one — and said nothing.

How difficult for you is to write a POV for a character not based on your personal experience?
What do you base your writing on in that case?

Nothing can beat the feeling of publishing for the first time.
The story [Freeze] might not get the most likes or shares, but for me it is the whole world

She'd only gone in because it was new. 
Nuala had a weakness for new places in the first weeks before they found their rhythm — before familiarity set in on both sides. She liked that window. The anonymity of it. It wouldn't last.
He was the one who took her order the first time. Funny, easy with it, the kind of person who made everyone feel like the most recent arrival at a party they were already enjoying. Honey-coloured hair, blue eyes. A genuine smile. She noticed the way you notice a fine face. Thought, briefly, that he was a ride. That was all.
She went back.
She liked him. It used to be so easy — the flirting, the back and forth. She knew how that worked. Enjoyed a game. Up to a point, of course.
She saw herself in other women now. In those women. The ones in films, in cafés, across rooms. The slightly too-careful laugh. The trying. Over tipping for a cup of coffee. She had no intention of being that woman.
The second time he wasn't her waiter. She noticed. The third time he was, and somewhere between ordering and leaving the thought came again — briefly, without landing anywhere. Still a ride. She smiled at him.
She left it there.
Except.
Except she was fifty-three now, and for the better part of two years the same inventory had been running on a loop she couldn't switch off — and couldn't quite face head-on either, so it ran in the background instead, surfacing at odd moments. On the Tube. In the middle of conversations. At three in the morning.
The job paid the bills. She’d stopped striving for something else long ago. The pattern of taking what came and making the best of it, which she'd always called pragmatism and was only now considering might have been fear with better PR. She wasintelligent, learnt to read the room and people — and people had always opened up to her easily, which she preferred anyway.She was pretty enough that doors used to open before she'd knocked, which had made it easy, for a long time, not to knock very hard. She should’ve used her looks more.
The other part was harder. She'd liked sex — genuinely, not as performance, not always. She knew her body, knew what got her off. She knew how to get others off. She did not know what she was capable of, what were her limits and what would bring her true pleasure. Said yes sometimes because it was easier than the conversation that would follow a no, but not always that either. Said yes sometimes to reckless, casual sex, because it just might happen that the other person would stop her and tell her she’s better than that. She'd have called herself adventurous, if asked. Open. And yet. There was always a point, some invisible line she'd never been able to locate in advance, where something in her seized and she'd find herself on the other side of it — composed, unreachable, the moment gone. The men who'd noticed had mostly said nothing. The ones who had said something hadn't lasted long.
What did she want? She wasn’t sure exactly, but longing, the fire she could feel inside her must’ve meant something. But she was fifty-three, and the world was quieter around her. And underneath that — quieter still — she would sometimes build worlds inside herself, ones full of right moments, right looks and taken opportunities.

 
She liked Celeste, former model, wife and mother of one. Easy to talk to, not prying too much into Nuala’s motives or reactions. Bar after the theatre was a given, and in all honesty, that was sometimes the best part of the evening.
They walked in together. The room responded to Céleste theusual way when a pretty thing is on display. For Nuala, it meant she had enough time to do the usual inventory: head high, back straight, careful walk, don’t look around, relax the face. Nobody would have known her toes were curled tight inside her heels.
She noticed him before she'd taken the first sip. He was a few stools down, part of the group clearly celebrating something. She noticed him the way she'd noticed him in the café: a fine face, the kind of easy warmth that worked on everyone. She looked and then stopped looking. Filed it.
The evening moved the way evenings do — in rounds, in small migrations, in the gradual thinning of noise into something more manageable. Nuala had a second drink, then a third, spaced enough that she felt only the soft edges of them. She and Céleste talked the way they always talked — easily, without effort, the conversation finding its own level. Nuala was careful in her glances, measuring the length of each with precision accumulated over the years.
His group had been four. Then three. Now two, the other one a woman who kept checking her phone with the distracted air of someone about to leave.
Once he laughed at something and she heard it without meaning to, and thought: yes, that's the laugh. The same one she'd noticed in the café, a half-beat behind everyone else's, like he'd actually considered whether it was funny first.
He glanced over. She didn't look away in time.
He didn't make anything of it. Just held it for a second, easy, and then went back to his conversation.
The woman with the phone left.
He was alone.

 
Céleste went to the bathroom and he came over. Not immediately — and then he was just there, a stool between them.
It was late enough that neither of them had anything left — no energy, no will, no interest in making anyone comfortable.
You were in Brennan's, he said. A couple of weeks ago. Tuesday morning, I think.
She had been. She said so.
I wasn't sure, he said. You look different tonight.
She waited.
Not different. More— He stopped. Smiled at himself. Sorry. That came out wrong.
It didn't, she said. And meant it.
Are you good friends with them? she asked. The people you were with.
He considered it a moment longer than she expected.
Not really, he said. We work together.
She nodded. Said nothing. Let him hear what she'd actually asked.
That obvious? he said.
No, she said. Which was almost true.
Céleste came back from the bathroom and stopped just behind her shoulder. Nuala felt her there before she saw her — the particular stillness of someone who has walked into something and is deciding how to handle it.
She turned. Céleste's expression was neutral in the way that meant the opposite.
Nuala looked at him from the corner of her eye, holding the glass in her hand. He didn't shift. Didn't recalibrate. She set the glass down.
Oh, Celeste said, looking past Nuala toward the far end of the bar. Is that Sorcha? God, I haven't seen her in — I'm just going to say hello. A hand on Nuala's arm, brief, warm. The look that went with it said something else entirely.
She was gone before Nuala could respond.

 
She bought herself another drink. He stayed.
She leaned in to be heard over the noise.
Do you always watch people, she asked, or is that just tonight?
He looked at her for a moment. Really looked.
Both, he said. You?
Always, she said. The half-smile already there, one eyebrow slightly raised.
He smiled — not the easy professional one she'd catalogued before. Something quieter.
She didn't let herself think. Or tried not to — the what-ifs arriving anyway, uninvited: what if he didn't like her what if someone found out what if she was being taken advantage of he was so much younger what if what if.
Don't show it. Stay focused. But keep thinking, never stop thinking.
She reached for her glass.
He was still there, leaning on the bar with both arms, looking at his drink. He turned his head toward her — just slightly — and said something about the air being stifling. She murmured something back. Could have been yes, could have been no, could have been whatever he wanted to make of it.
But she followed him as he moved toward the door.

 
The alley ran along the side of the building, a loose respite from the wind that started picking up. They stood in it. Their breath showed slightly in the cold. She was aware of the distance between them in the way you become aware of something only when it starts to change.
She didn't know how it happened exactly. A step. A pause that went a beat too long. The cold, maybe, pulling them closer by degrees until close became something else.
He kissed her, or she kissed him — the sequence blurred almost immediately, which felt right. His mouth was warm and unhurried. A good kisser, she thought. And the kiss got better. He placed both hands around her face, deepening it.
And her thoughts surfaced. Like a scale — the deeper the kiss, the closer fear came to the surface. The better it is, the better he is, the more dangerous this thing is.
The emergency shutdown started: her lips slightly less open, her tongue less present, her body pressed against his a fraction less. Outside: still. Inside: everything at once, too loud to name.
He felt it. She knew he felt it because he didn't push. Just stayed, close, his forehead almost against hers. She was glad he felt it. His thumb moved from her nose, under her eye, along the edge of her face. Like he was wiping away a tear. Her alarm got louder.
You okay? he said.
Yes, she said.
They stood there a moment longer.
She was still quiet, thinking: I'll say yes if he tries again. He smiled — the quiet one, not the easy one — and said nothing.