Toji's Ford pulled into the driveway, gravel crunching beneath the tyres as he killed the engine. He sat there for a moment, hands still on the wheel, letting the tension in his shoulders unknot. It had been a long day at the docks. His muscles ached, his shirt clung to his back with sweat.

He reached for the door handle, about to step out, when something caught his eye.

Across the street. The two-storey house with the white picket fence and the rose bushes his wife had commented on last week. The second floor window. The light was on, warm and amber.

A figure moved inside.

Toji stilled.

It was a woman. She was walking past the window, barefoot, wearing nothing but a slip. White. Thin. It caught the light in a way that made his throat go dry.

She stopped at a dressing table—a vanity, the kind with a mirror and little glass bottles—and picked up the telephone. She held it to her ear with one hand while the other drifted absently across the surface, fingers trailing over the clutter.

The slip rode up as she leaned forward, just barely, revealing the curve of her thigh.

She laughed at something. He couldn't hear it, not through the glass, but he could see it in the way her shoulders shook, in the way she tilted her head back.

Her hair fell loose, brushing her bare shoulders.

She turned, pacing, and then stopped. Faced the window. Faced him.

She was beautiful. And she was looking right at him.