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I fold back the covers as gently as I can and sit on the edge of the bed. First, I need to use the bathroom. 

I ignore the slippers at my feet- after all, fucking the husband is one thing, but I could never wear another woman’s shoes- and creep barefoot on to the landing. 

I am aware of my nakedness, fearful of choosing the wrong door, of stumbling on a lodger, a teenage son. 

Relieved, I see the bathroom door is ajar and go in, locking it behind me. 

I sit, use the toilet, then flush it and turn to wash my hands. I reach for the soap, but something is wrong. 

At first I can’t work out what it is, but then I see it. The hand gripping the soap does not look like mine. 

The skin is wrinkled, the nails are unpolished and bitten to the quick and, like the man in the bed I have just left, the third finger wears a plain, gold wedding ring.

I stare for a moment, then wiggle my fingers. The fingers of the hand holding the soap move also. 

I gasp, and the soap thuds into the sink. I look up at the mirror. The face I see looking back at me is not my own. 

The hair has no volume and is cut much shorter than I wear it, the skin on the cheeks and under the chin sags, the lips are thin, the mouth turned down. 

I cry out, a wordless gasp that would turn into a shriek of shock were I to let it, and then notice the eyes. 

The skin around them is lined, yes, but despite everything else I can see that they are mine. 

The person in the mirror is me, but I am twenty years too old. Twenty-five. More.