The beep of the automatic door being unlocked resonated across the dark room as two pairs of shoes made their way inside. Lights were , revealing a fully furnished minimalistic apartment with accents of gold. A pair of black dress shoes and gold stilettos were placed side by side as their owners entered the apartment.

Judging from their attire, the couple seemed to have gone home from a black tie event. The man, wearing a crisp black three-piece suit, loosened his tie as he practically threw himself into the couch with a satisfied grunt. The woman, having exchanged her pretty but impractical heels for a pair of room slippers, made her way into their shared bedroom.

“Man, I’m beat,” he complained to no one in particular as he browsed on his phone while laying down.

After several moments of enjoying the comfortable black leather couch and fluffy gold-embroidered throw pillows, the woman called out to him from their shared bedroom. “Babe! Can you come here for a sec?” She shouted. The man groaned and involuntarily stood up and walked into their bedroom. He had to sleep there tonight anyway, he thought, as his feet dragged themselves into what he thought was the most exhausting 50 metres of his life.

“What is it?” He asked, peeking into the slightly-ajar door before coming in. The woman was sitting on the plush chair of her vanity table, fingers skillfully taking her diamond earrings and necklace off as her wedding band glinted brilliantly under the lamplight.

“There’s my lovely wife,” the man cooed as he leaned against the doorframe, eyeing his wife lovingly. Her face was free of makeup and she had let her hair down into a wave of dark coils. His eyes trailed to her back; she was wearing a backless black dress, with delicate golden chains decorating the open space in a zigzag pattern. Suddenly, his fatigue and lethargy were lifted off his body; he felt as fresh as though someone were to pour a bucket of ice over him.

“Like what you’re seeing?” She teased, looking at him from the vanity mirror. “Can you my dress, please?”

He complied without a word by walking towards her. He proceeded to bend down, slowly ping the zip located at the end of the backless part of the dress. He let his knuckles graze against her lightly, and she straightened at the sudden skin contact.

“You seem a little tense,” he chuckled, feeling a little sense of triumph for retaliating against her earlier teasing.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” she laughed dryly, although he noticed the tips of her ears were starting to turn reddish. “We should really stop attending those company galas.”

“Well, you couldn’t be absent at your own company’s events, Madame CEO,” her husband replied as he stood up and sat down on top of their king-sized bed.

“Hmph,” she harrumphed as she stood up as well. Just when the husband thought she would shrug the dress off right away and be ready to enjoy the view, the wife walked towards their en-suite bathroom and closed the door.

“Oh, come on!” He groaned playfully, which got an echo of laughter as a reply. While his wife was gone, he decided that he’d shower after her and changed his well-fitted suit for a black and gold Versace robe. Meanwhile, he dimmed the lights of their bedroom, letting the moon and stars shine through their open windows for illumination.

***

Fifteen minutes later, several clouds of steam exited with the woman opening the bathroom door wide, bringing out an extra whiff of roses to his nose. He, who had been lounging around the bed to wait for his turn to take a bath, took the sudden smell of his wife’s toiletries surrounding the room as an indication to get up and head to the bathroom. Instead, he paused and stared.

Her hair was clipped messily in a bun, with several stray strands wet from the shower. She was wearing an identical Versace robe as his, only shorter, which revealed smooth, milky skin. Her face was a bit red from the warm water, and her lips a little plumped from the harmless sting of spearmint toothpaste. Her bare feet walked on the marble floor towards him, who was now sitting at the m