No Strings Attached

Samantha Archer

The wine glass was sweating in Samantha Archer’s hand.

She stood at her kitchen counter, the granite cool, the same granite she and Adam had picked out eleven years ago during a renovation that felt like a second honeymoon. They’d laughed then. Touched. Kissed in the middle of the showroom like teenagers.

That was a different life.

Tonight, the kitchen was spotless. Dishes done. Counters wiped. A single stack of Alex’s school papers waited by the fruit bowl — a permission slip for a trip, 82% on a history test. The refrigerator hummed. The clock above the stove read 10:47.

The rest of the house was quiet.

Not a peaceful quiet, it was an empty quiet.

From the living room, she could hear the muffled sounds of a crime drama: gunshots, tyres screeching, and a woman screaming. Adam’s show. The same one he watched every Thursday. He was in his usual spot, the left side of the couch, feet up on the ottoman, a half-empty beer on the coaster she’d bought him for Father’s Day three years ago.

He hadn’t said a word to her in two hours.

Correction, she thought, taking a sip of wine. He said, “How was your day?” at 6:15. I said, “Fine.” He said, “Good.”

That was it.

That was their marriage, now like a series of it’s fine, yeah, all good, okay, and whatever-you-want-for-dinner is fine.

The wine was dry, a red one she’d picked up on a whim, because wine was not her go-to drink. But she’d drunk half the bottle herself this week, while the other half was still in the fridge, waiting like her.

Samantha set the glass down and walked to the window above the sink. The yard was dark, the only light was the neighbour’s security light, which flickered. Joburg sprawled beyond the walls, a city of millions, all of them living lives she couldn’t see. But somewhere out there, some women were being touched and kissed by someone. A woman who felt wanted.

She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the cool glass.

She could feel that loneliness; it was not like sadness because sadness was sharp. This was slow and heavy. Like water seeping through cracks in a dam that had been seeping for years.

When Alex was born, Adam had pulled back. Always saying. Careful, you’re still healing, and she understood. But then Alex was two, then five, then ten. And Adam’s hands stayed where they were, on the remote, on his phone, on his damn beer glass, anything but her.

She’d tried. God, she’d tried. It started with sensual candles, sexy lingerie she bought for their fifteenth anniversary, but all he did was smile, and a fucking kiss to her forehead, as he said, “You look nice,” and turned off the light. She lay awake that night staring at the ceiling, wondering if something was wrong with her. Silent tears ran down her face as she stared into nothing.

The date nights she planned. Babysitter booked, restaurant reserved, dress that made her feel beautiful. He spent the whole time talking about work and chatting with the waitress. When she reached across the table for his hand, he gave her a confused look, as she’d asked for something strange.

When they got home, the conversation she’d finally started six months ago. Came up again. She needed to know cause fuck this was not healthy for her and definitely not healthy for their marriage. So after Alex fell asleep, she came to the room and found Adam already in bed. “Adam”. She said as she stood at the bottom of their bed, her arms wrapped around her waist, holding on as she spoke words she had said many times before. “Why don’t you want to touch me? Don’t you feel attracted to me anymore?”

He’d looked at her with his unreadable eyes as he answered, “I’m tired, Sam. Work is busy. Let’s talk about it this weekend.”

But the weekend came, and no one spoke; all he did was fix the leaky faucet and mowed the lawn, then he helped Alex with homework.

He didn’t talk about it, and neither did she, because that was easier and somewhere along the way, easier had become her whole life.

Samantha pushed off from the window and walked through the house. Her feet were bare on the tiles. She passed the living room, and Adam was exactly where she’d left him, except now he was scrolling through his phone during the commercials. When he didn’t look up, she kept on walking.

Upstairs, she paused outside Alex’s room, where the door was a crack open. Her daughter was sixteen, brilliant, all wild curls and sharp opinions. She was asleep with her laptop still open on her chest with a half-finished essay glowing on the screen. Something about climate change. Alex was going to save the world someday. That was the one thing Samantha knew for sure.

She gently pulled the laptop away, set it on the desk, and pulled the blanket up to her daughter’s chin.

“Love you, Mom,” Alex mumbled without waking.

“Love you more, baby,” Samantha whispered.

She stood there a moment longer, watching her child sleep. This was why she stayed. This was why she kept the ship steady. Alex deserved a home with two parents who didn’t scream or fall apart.

But what about her?

What did she deserve?

The question followed her to her home office at the end of the hall. The smallest bedroom that was hers now. She’d claimed it three years ago when Adam started snoring loud enough to rattle the windows. “Better for both of us,” she’d said. He’d agreed. Of course, he’d agreed.

The office was her sanctuary. Bookshelves lined one wall, her collection of romance novels, dog-eared and loved. Her desk faced the window, looking out at the neighbour’s roof and the faint glow of the city beyond. A small succulent sat beside her lamp. A framed photo of her and Alex at the beach last December.

And her laptop, always her laptop.

Samantha sat down, opened the lid, and stared at the document she’d left open this morning.

Chapter Twelve.

Her latest story. A short, steamy romance about a woman named Elena who walked into a hotel bar and met a stranger named Damien. He’d looked at her like she was the only woman in the room. Touched her like he’d been waiting his whole life to find her.

Samantha had written their first kiss in one breathless hour, her fingers flying across the keyboard, her own heart pounding.

Because she’d imagined it was her.

Not Elena. Her.

Somewhere dark. Somewhere secret. A man who didn’t know her as Alex’s mom or Adam’s wife or Samantha-the-proofreader-who-always-catches-the-typos. A man who just saw her.

She scrolled to the end of the chapter.

Elena let him push her against the wall. His mouth found her neck. And for the first time in years, she felt alive.

Samantha closed the laptop.

The screen went dark. Her reflection stared back at her, a woman in her early forties, still pretty, still soft in the right places, with eyes that used to sparkle. She touched her own face in the dark glass.

When did I stop sparkling?

Her phone buzzed; it was a text from Chloe: “Wine tomorrow? You’ve been quiet. Too quiet. Don’t make me show up at your house.”

Chloe. Of course. Chloe always knew.

Megan had texted earlier, too: “Thinking of you. Let me know if you need to talk.”

Her best friends, they were like sisters. The two women who’d seen her through everything with Adam’s emotional distance, her mother’s death, the year Alex was sick with pneumonia, and Samantha thought she’d lose her mind. They worked together, laughed together, and cried together. Fifteen years of knowing each other’s secrets.

Well. Almost all of them.

Neither of them knew what she’d been writing. Neither of them knew about the fantasies living in her head. The ones that had stopped being fiction months ago.

Samantha set her phone down and walked to the bathroom.

She brushed her teeth slowly, watching herself in the mirror. The faint lines around her eyes. The way her hair fell past her shoulders. The body that no one touched. She was still a woman. Still warm. Still here.

But for how long?

When she finally climbed into bed, Adam was already asleep. His back was to her. His breathing was steady. The space between them on the mattress could have fit another person.

She lay on her side, staring at the curve of his shoulder.

I’m right here, she thought. I’m still right here.

He didn’t move. Didn’t turn. Didn’t reach for her in the dark.

Samantha closed her eyes.

And for the thousandth night in a row, she fell asleep alone.

But this time, thoughts of a stranger entered her head as she fell asleep, his blacked-out face only enlightened the dream. His hands, the way he touched her, the kiss that took her breath away, all there in the darkness of her dreams.

The small café with the name Morningside Brew sandblasted on the front window was their place, hers, Chloe’s, and Megan’s. It was tucked between a dry cleaner and a boutique that sold overpriced candles; it had mismatched chairs, coffee that was too strong, and a back corner table where no one could hear them.

Samantha arrived first and ordered a flat white and sat down, twisting a paper napkin between her fingers as she looked around. The café hummed around her with the hiss of the espresso machine, the clatter of cups, and two students arguing quietly about an assignment. There was a woman at the next table who laughed at something on her phone, and a man in a suit who was checking his watch, impatient written all over his face.

‘A normal day in the life of Sam’. She laughed as those words that had snuck into her head.

She felt like a ghost watching as the world continued around her.

Chloe arrived next, all energy and noise. She was tall, bold, with braids that swung when she walked and a laugh that turned heads. She worked in marketing at the publishing house, loud, brilliant, the kind of woman who said exactly what everyone else was thinking.

“Okay,” Chloe said, dropping into the chair across from Samantha. “You look like you haven’t slept. Talk.”

Samantha opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Chloe’s eyes softened. “Sam.”

Before she could answer, Megan appeared. Smaller than Chloe, softer, with kind eyes and a way of listening that made you feel like the only person in the world. Megan was an editorial assistant, organised, warm, the glue that held their little trio together.

She took one look at Samantha and slid into the chair beside her without a word. Just put her hand on Samantha’s arm.

That was the thing about true friends. They didn’t always need you to speak.

But today, Samantha needed to.

“I’m not okay,” she said finally.

The words hung in the air between them.

Chloe set down her coffee. Megan’s hand tightened on her arm.

“I haven’t been okay for a long time,” Samantha continued. Her voice was quiet, but steady. “Adam and I… we’re not a marriage anymore. We’re roommates who share a child. There’s no touch. No passion. No wanting.”

She looked down at the napkin she’d shredded into tiny pieces.

“I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything. Lingerie, he didn’t notice. Dates he cancelled. Conversations he nodded through and then forgot. I told him six months ago that I needed more. He said we’d talk about it, but we never do.”

Chloe’s jaw was tight. She’d suspected. They both had. But hearing it out loud was different.

Megan’s eyes were wet, her emotions already flowing from her wide eyes. “Oh, Sam.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Samantha said quickly. “I’m not breaking up my family. Alex needs a stable home, and Adam isn’t a bad man; he’s a good father and a good provider. He just… he doesn’t see me anymore. Not the way I need to be seen.”

She finally looked up at both of them.

“But I can’t keep living like this. Lonely in my own house. In my own bed. Writing about women who go after what they want while I just… sit here. Waiting. Hoping. Fading."

Chloe leaned forward. “What are you saying?”

Samantha took a breath. Her heart was pounding so loud she was sure they could hear it.

“I’ve decided to find it somewhere else.”

The silence fell hard around them, the words hanging in the silence.

The café kept moving around them, other people’s lives, outside noise, the ordinary chaos of a Joburg morning. But at their table, time stopped.

Megan’s hand slid off her arm. “Sam… that’s…”

“Dangerous,” Chloe finished. “Risky. Complicated.”

Samantha nodded. “I know.”

“Are you sure?” Megan whispered.

Samantha looked at her. at the friend who had held her hand through her mother’s funeral. Who had brought soup when Alex was sick, the one who had never once judged her for anything.

“I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” Samantha said. “I’m not looking for love. I’m not looking to replace Adam. I just want to feel like a woman again. Even if it’s just for one night. Even if it has to be a secret.”

Chloe stared at her for a long moment. Then a slow smile spread across her face, the same smile she got when she was about to do something she shouldn’t.

"Samantha Archer,” she said, shaking her head. “The good girl. The proofreader. The mom who bakes cupcakes for the school bake sale and never misses a PTA meeting.”

Samantha met her eyes. “Not anymore.”

“No,” Chloe said quietly. “Not anymore.”

Megan was still quiet. Still processing. But then she reached for Samantha’s hand and squeezed it.

“Then we will help you,” Megan said softly. “Whatever you need. We’re here.”

Chloe raised her coffee cup.

“To Sam,” she said. “Finally going after what she wants.”

Samantha picked up her flat white. Her hands were shaking.

But her heart?

Her heart was beating.

“For the first time in years,” Samantha said, clinking her cup against Chloe’s, “I’m not going to be careful.”

She took a sip.

And somewhere deep inside her, in the place she’d locked away for two decades, something began to wake up.