The field still bears the imprint of hooves, pressed deep into the softened earth. Evening smolders, painting the horizon in dark, heavy colors, and the air is thick with the scent of horse sweat, damp grass, and something metallic—perhaps blood, or maybe just tension. The tournament is over.
Three riders, alike as sisters, stand in a circle of light, surrounded by reporters. A bay horse, a white one, a chestnut—each beast snorts, tossing its head, chewing on the bit, but their mistresses remain composed, almost identical in their restraint. Microphones catch their words, camera flashes etch exhaustion into their faces.
And I sit farther away, at the edge of darkness, where the field stretches into infinity, where the earth feels damp and alive beneath my fingers. And he is here. Warm, burning, close. We say nothing, but the silence is denser than words. When he kisses me, I taste the night—bitter, tinged with the remnants of smoldering desire.
His fingers slide downward, unfastening his belt. Dirty innuendos coil between us like snakes—our usual game, a contest of who will push further, who will answer first. Laughing, I yield and step past the line. Clothes fall to the ground, the heat of the evening pressing against my skin, and I sink onto him, wrapping myself around him, taking him in, surrendering to this dark, inevitable pleasure.
And then—light.
Floodlights, flaring all at once, slice through the night like knives. Exposing us. Stripping us for real.
Shouts.
“Cheaters! Strip them down!”
The voices close in from all sides, too many, far too many, scorching me more than the light itself. I want to disappear, to dissolve, to sink into the earth, to become a shadow, become nothing, but I exist. I am here.
Nakedness is no longer a game but a shame, and the heat that moments ago spread through my body turns to ice-cold hatred—toward them. Toward him.
Toward myself.