The Real Estate Agent

The listing photos lied.

Every house she'd shown me was somehow smaller, darker, more depressing in person than the wide-angle shots suggested. Two months of weekends wasted, and I was no closer to finding a home.

"One more," said Dolores Whitfield, my real estate agent. "I saved the best for last."

She'd been saying that for eight weeks.

But I followed her car to a cul-de-sac in the suburbs, and when I saw the house—a mid-century modern with clean lines and giant windows—I finally believed her.

"This is it," I said before we even went inside.

"Let's make sure." She unlocked the door. "Never fall in love before you've seen the bones."

Dolores Whitfield was sixty-one years old.

Divorced twice. Three kids, all grown. Top agent in her office for fifteen consecutive years. She dressed in power suits that strained across her substantial frame—easily two-fifty, with hips that required her to walk through doorways at an angle and breasts that arrived in rooms several seconds before the rest of her.

She was also the most competent person I'd ever met.

"Foundation's solid," she said, tapping walls. "Roof was replaced in 2019. HVAC is older but functional." She moved through the house like she owned it, pointing out details I would have missed. "Good bones. Some cosmetic updates needed."

"I love it."

"You loved the last three too. Before we found the mold, the structural damage, and the buried oil tank."

"This one feels different."

"They all feel different, Mr. Hayes. That's why you have me." She checked her watch. "I'll give you twenty minutes. Look at everything. Open every closet, every cabinet. If you still love it after that, we'll talk."

I still loved it after that.

We sat in Dolores's car, engine running for heat, and discussed strategy. She was all business—comps, pricing, negotiation tactics. I should have been paying attention.

Instead, I was watching her.

She was beautiful in an unexpected way. Not magazine beautiful—her face was lined, her makeup practical rather than artful, her style aggressively professional. But there was something about her confidence. Her competence. The way she filled her seat without apology, never shrinking, never accommodating.

"—so we start at 425 and see if they bite. Mr. Hayes? Are you listening?"

"Sorry. Yes. 425."

She studied me. "Something on your mind?"

You, I didn't say. I've been watching you for two months and I can't stop thinking about you and I'm pretty sure that makes me insane.

"Just excited about the house."

"Mm-hmm." She didn't believe me. "Well. Let me make some calls. I'll be in touch."

She was in touch.

The owners accepted our offer. The inspection came back clean. The mortgage was approved. Everything fell into place with suspicious ease.

"You're a miracle worker," I told her at the closing.

"I'm good at my job." She handed me a pen. "Sign here. And here. And here."

I signed. The house was mine.

"Congratulations, Mr. Hayes." She shook my hand—firm grip, warm palm. "You're a homeowner."

"Thanks to you."

"Thanks to your excellent credit and willingness to listen." She gathered her papers. "It's been a pleasure. If you ever need to sell, or know anyone in the market—"

"Have dinner with me."

The words came out before I could stop them. She froze, papers in hand.

"Excuse me?"

"Dinner. Tonight. To celebrate." My heart was pounding. "There's a good Italian place near my new neighborhood."

"Mr. Hayes—"

"Tyler. Please. We've spent sixteen weekends together. You've seen my bank statements and my credit score. You probably know more about me than my therapist."

"That's my job—"

"I'm not asking your job. I'm asking you." I held her gaze. "One dinner. If it's awful, we never speak of it again."

She looked at me for a long moment. I couldn't read her expression.

"Seven o'clock," she said finally. "Don't be late."

I wasn't late.

Dolores was already there when I arrived—out of her power suit for once, wearing a dress that actually showed her body instead of disguising it. She was still enormous, still commanding, but softer somehow. More real.

"You look different," I said, sitting down.

"So do you. No desperate house-hunter energy."

"The desperation has shifted focus."

She laughed—surprised, genuine. "Smooth. Do you practice these lines?"

"I practice everything. I'm an accountant." I ordered wine, something expensive. "Tell me about you. The real you. Not the agent version."

"There is no version. I'm the same person all the time."

"Impossible. Everyone has a private self."

She considered this. "Fine. The private Dolores is tired. Tired of showing houses to couples who can't agree on anything. Tired of commissions that don't match the work. Tired of—" She stopped.

"Of what?"

"Of being alone." She said it quietly. "My kids are grown. My husbands are history. I go home to an empty condo every night and eat dinner in front of the news."

"Sounds familiar."

"You're thirty-one. You have time."

"I've had the same routine for eight years." I reached across the table, touched her hand. "Loneliness isn't age-restricted."

She looked at my hand on hers. Didn't pull away.

"Why me?" she asked. "You could have anyone. Young, pretty, normal-sized—"

"I don't want normal-sized. I don't want pretty." I squeezed her hand. "I want someone who makes me feel like I'm not alone. Someone who sees through my bullshit. Someone who's spent sixteen weekends making sure I don't buy a house with a buried oil tank."

"That's my job—"

"The job ended at closing. You're not my agent anymore." I met her eyes. "You're just a woman I can't stop thinking about."

We didn't make it through dinner.

We barely made it through appetizers before the conversation shifted, before the touches became longer, before she said "My condo is ten minutes away" with a voice that trembled.

"Let's go."

Her condo was modern, sparse, impersonal in the way of people who live alone and work too much. She barely had time to lock the door before I was kissing her.

"Wait—" she gasped. "I need to—you should know—"

"Know what?"

"I haven't—" She was blushing, this sixty-one-year-old woman who negotiated million-dollar deals without flinching. "It's been a long time. Years. I don't—"

"We'll go slow." I kissed her forehead, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. "We have all night."

"You're serious about this."

"Completely."

"Even though I'm—" She gestured at herself. At the body she'd spent a lifetime hiding in professional armor.

"Because you're this." I reached for her zipper. "Let me show you."

I undressed her like unwrapping a gift.

The dress fell away. Beneath it, she was soft everywhere—breasts heavy in a practical bra, belly curving over sensible underwear, thighs thick and pale. She was shaking.

"Look at me," I said.

She looked.

"You're beautiful."

"You don't have to—"

"I'm not saying it because I have to. I'm saying it because it's true." I unhooked her bra. Her breasts spilled free, magnificent. "Every inch of you."

I kissed my way down her body. Spent long minutes on her breasts—they were sensitive, she gasped when I sucked her nipples—then continued lower. Her belly, soft and warm. Her hips, wide as horizons. Her thighs, parting for me, revealing her.

"Tyler—"

"Let me."

I buried my face between her legs.

She came three times before I entered her.

By then she was boneless, trembling, making sounds I suspected she'd never made in her life. I covered her body with mine—she was bigger than me, soft where I was hard, surrounding me completely.

"Please," she whispered. "I need—"

"I know."

I pushed inside.

She was tight—tighter than I expected—and hot, and she moaned when I filled her. Her arms wrapped around me, pulled me close, and I started to move.

"Oh—oh—"

"Feel good?"

"Yes—god—don't stop—"

I didn't stop.

I made love to her like she was the house I'd been searching for. Slowly at first, exploring every room. Then harder, faster, claiming each space as mine. She met me stroke for stroke, her body rippling beneath me, her voice rising.

"I'm going to—Tyler—I'm—"

"Come. Let me feel you."

She came with a scream she buried in my shoulder. I followed, spilling into her, and we collapsed together in her impersonal condo that suddenly felt like home.

"Well," she said finally. "That was unprofessional."

I laughed—couldn't help it. "Technically you're not my agent anymore."

"Technically I shouldn't have slept with a client at all."

"Former client." I pulled her closer. "And it was my idea."

"It was a terrible idea."

"Probably. Do you regret it?"

She was quiet for a moment. Then her hand found mine, squeezed.

"No. Not even a little."

We fell into each other.

It wasn't conventional—a thirty-one-year-old accountant and a sixty-one-year-old real estate agent. People talked. Her colleagues raised eyebrows. My friends thought I was going through some kind of crisis.

I didn't care.

She showed me her world—open houses and closing dinners and the strange community of people who buy and sell shelter. I showed her mine—spreadsheets and tax law and the quiet satisfaction of balanced books.

"You're weird," she told me one night, curled in my bed in my new house.

"So are you."

"I'm sixty-one years old. I weigh more than you do."

"And I've never been happier." I kissed her shoulder. "Move in with me."

"What?"

"The house has three bedrooms. I'm not using them." I propped myself up. "Move in. Sell your condo. Build something with me."

"That's insane."

"I'm an accountant. Nothing I do is insane. It's all carefully calculated." I took her hand. "I've done the math, Dolores. The numbers make sense."

She laughed—surprised, wet with tears.

"The numbers make sense," she repeated.

"They always do. Eventually."

She kissed me, soft and deep.

"Fine," she said. "But I'm listing the condo myself. I want that commission."

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

She sold her condo in three days.

Moved in that weekend.

And in a mid-century modern in the suburbs, two lonely people discovered that the best house is never the one you buy—it's the one you build, together, from whatever materials you have.

Sold.

To the highest bidder.

For life.