This short story is included in the collection “In Sunlight or in Shadow – Stories inspired by Edward Hopper’s paintings”, edited by Lawrence Block. This specific short story is based on the painting “Eleven A.M.” (1926), a woman sitting in front of a window, naked yet wearing shoes, or nude as Joyce Carol Oates would write. The woman is waiting for her lover who is late. The voice in her head is telling her to brutally end this relationship, the voice in his head is identical. Dark, uncomfortable story where it feels more like this woman is sitting in a shop window or looking out through the bars of a prison.
“At eleven A.M. she will see him at the door to the bedroom, as he pockets his key. Staring at her so intently she feels the power of being, if only for these fleeting moments, female.
That look of desire in the man’s face. The clutch of the mouth like a pikes mouth.
The look of possession – Mine.”