by Blake, Laila
The sight brought the taste of prawns back to my mouth, of cheese and salad and somewhere deeper, somewhere more hidden, the taste of his come. It tingled on my lips.
He had that knowing look on his face when he nodded, and I dashed away again. My feet felt light like air and I stumbled over the rug as though I'd forgotten I had to lift them at all.
I cringed when I found my way back into the kitchen. Upon returning home, I'd only just managed to deposit his package and the groceries on the table. There were still dishes in the sink, and the remains of breakfast on the counter. With as much dignity as I could muster, I stepped back before the camera and plugged the headset in.
"You got rushed?" he asked once the sound was redirected to the headphones. It was better that way, no crackle or distortions, no air, no space between me and the source of the sound. It went straight into my ears, straight into my head, and I shivered a little at the minute vibrations in the deep frequency of his voice.
"It's that obvious?" I asked, looking at the small window that fed my own image back to me. My hair was a mess still and haphazardly stuffed under the headset. I could see it in my face, too, although that was harder to pinpoint, and I wished I'd spent a little more time choosing a nicer blouse.
"Not too much." He was being generous, I thought, and wrinkled my nose at him. I still hadn't quite forgiven him for that moment of thinking he'd be there to take me out himself, for being so far away. It wasn't fair, but I missed him and I didn't want to cook; I wanted to be in his arms or over his knee—god knows, I wanted to be back over his knee, pulling down my panties at his behest.
He watched me, silently; his head tilted to the side and it took me several moments to understand that he was waiting for something. I blushed, and as bad as my laptop's inbuilt camera was, I could see it picked right up on that—maybe not the color, that was never as stark as the heat in my cheeks seemed to suggest, but in the set of my eyes and my lips, in the way my shoulders tightened and with them the sound of my breath.
"I'm sorry, Sir," I mumbled, then scratched my cheek. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, or say; what he was waiting for. We phoned sometimes, just to talk—but Friday evenings, by the long-standing tradition of the three weeks it had been since I came back from his seaside home, were his nights. His and mine.
"Could I..." My voice was high and brittle and I tried again: "Could I start over? Please. I'd just need five minutes."
I don't know why he smiled, but it helped. He nodded, then blinked, only once, in a slow and deliberate gesture that warmed me up from the inside.
"Let me know when you're ready." And then his face vanished and so did the background static in my headphones. I set them aside and rubbed my face. I felt like crying, and none of it made sense, any of the swirling, strange emotions that came with dating Paul, with burrowing deeper into the hidden tunnels of my subconscious and desires. I bit my lip, grabbed a hairbrush and opened the window. The cold air smelled of cars, but it was bracing as it caught in my hair. I brushed it carefully, deliberately, one brush with each deep breath.
When I came back into the kitchen, I'd left my hair in a braid so as not to get in the way. I unpacked the wok, freed it from its bubble wrap coat, emptied the different spices and sauces onto the table, and set it on the stove. It still looked huge, but rather beautiful. The cast-iron was smooth and heavy; it was a warm sort of material.
I set out a cutting board and knife, too, and unpacked my groceries so that I would have them handy, and finally I chose a fresh shirt: green with a tight V-neck. With every step of preparation, the turmoil in my stomach lessened.
I looked around, then leaned over the laptop to type a few words.
Iris: Is it okay if I just take 5 more minutes?
Paul: Take whatever time you need.
I used them on the dirty dishes, careful not to get my shirt wet. It didn't suddenly turn my kitchen into a sparkling catalogue model, but I felt better.
Being with Paul had already taught me not to question these impulses when they came. I could deliver them to detailed analysis later, but trusting impulses, desires and needs was something we talked about a lot—even if it was something as silly as not having dirty dishes in the backdrop when I talked to him. It also helped to set the mood. We were in my kitchen, not my bedroom. We were here to cook together.
Iris: I'm ready now, Sir.
When he rang this time, I was sitting calmly on a kitchen chair and smiled into the camera, just as his face appeared.
"Feeling better?"
"Yes, Sir. Thank you." I think my cheeks still flushed a little, but not enough to give me away. Just calling him Sir made me feel warm and good in the pit of my stomach. He looked satisfied, nodded to himself, and even though I still had the distinct impression that he was watching me very closely, I knew I'd made the right choice.
"Good. Would you like to start with a glass of wine, pet?"
I did, thanked him again and then we both poured. I had to chuckle at hearing the same gurgling sound from the headphones that permeated my own apartment.
"I had you buy the one I like," he admitted with something of a boyish smile. "You might remember it. You seemed to enjoy it when you were here."
When I brought it to my lips, my eyes stung with sudden moisture. It still tasted strong and heavy, coated my tongue in the exact same flavors of his first kiss.
My fingers shook when I set the glass down. I was biting the inside of my lip to keep my mouth shut. I miss you. I miss you so much. I miss you so much it hurts, Paul. His lips curled in pleasure; I heard him breathe a little heavier, just like I did.
"I remember," I finally whispered and touched my lips. "Thank you."
He opened his mouth then, as though to say something, but he closed it again. Another smile hushed over his features, and when he reached for his glasses, my heart leapt in anticipation of the sight. He plucked them from his nose, rubbed the lenses clean and reset them on his nose in that gesture that had charmed me from the start.
"I just wanted to spend time with you tonight, pet. That's why we're cooking. That's what I'd do if you were here. I'd cook and let you sit in that chair over there. We'd talk. Drink wine."
I licked my lips and nodded. I felt ungrateful and stupid for my expectations, my reservations. It passed only slowly.
"How was your week?" I asked instead. He'd been busy, and we hadn't talked as much as I had come to need, like a physical addiction, with symptoms of withdrawal when I didn't hear his voice at least for a few minutes every day. Maybe that was why I put so much stock in this evening—but then so had he; with the wok and the menu, he had to have been planning this night for days. I just hadn't caught on.
"Long, but in our business you're a fool if you complain about work, huh?"
I chuckled, took another careful sip of wine. It stung in the corner of my lips, and down under my tongue, but it was a bracing sort of pain. Like his hand when it cracked down across my ass, like his kiss, like his bite.
"It does make for very boring stories, however. I spent all week at the computer, drinking copious amounts of your tea."
"My tea?" I teased, grinning. The tip of my tongue slipped out almost against my will.
"Yes, yours pet." He raised his glass at the camera, toasting me and chuckling. "It's your country's influence after all. What good is a pet if I can't hold her personally responsible for her nation's effect on me?"
"Plenty good," I protested, laughing. It was easy to do now, once the strange spell I had fallen under was broken. He was good at that. It wasn't the first time I'd noticed this: he put me at ease, he stilled the droning of thoughts, of doubts and questions that formed the constant backdrop of my mind. And he did it so effortlessly, just by being there and by taking me as I was. There were days when I tried to find a way to thank him for that, but words always failed me, and maybe courage, too.
"Is that so?" His brow jerked up sweetly, and I stifled a giggle. I was leaning my elbows on the tabl
e by then, chin resting on my hands, like a lovesick teenager. "Why don't you enlighten me?"
"Well, they can be entertaining?" I offered, trying to see me through his eyes. I wasn't satisfied with the answer, which meant that he wouldn't be either. He smiled, tilted his head and waited for more. I was beginning to understand this game. "They make you smile, try to anyway. Anytime they can. They want to make you happy and relaxed and... feel good. They..."
I swallowed, then looked away, afraid of what I might find in his face. Sometimes, he didn't just quiet my mind; sometimes he muffled my filters, too.
I'd tried to remember once what I'd told him that day by the sea, when my mind was full of him and nothing else. I didn't remember much. It hardly felt like it had happened to me anymore, like it could have been a really good movie or a book, or maybe a dream, and that hurt.
"They also..." I started, trying to smile, trying to grasp for something funny to say, something to pull over the sudden raw and aching place where I missed him, his hands, his mere, actual, physical presence. "They also make great drinking buddies, apparently."
His smile was weak, knowing. I didn't cringe. However often I was scared he'd see right through me, each time he did, I was glad. It turned my insides into something warm and writhing and happy.
I gulped down a sip of wine, the sharp taste making me shudder.
"Put your hand on your cheek."
His voice went quiet and rasping, and I would have missed it, had it not been for the headset. It fed even the softest sounds straight into my auditory canal.
He was watching me intently, and—like every other time he'd uttered an instruction, a command, a request—my body reacted on auto-pilot, short-circuiting the rational, questioning part of my brain.
"Close your eyes," he went on, "That's my hand, isn't it? Tonight it's mine. It's me who's touching you, pet. I'm right there."
I felt it, too. For one glorious, suspended moment I was with him. I smelled the sea, the wood polish, the salt, and my hand—his hand—felt stronger, more calloused than just a second before. It radiated heat and safety, all the way into the pit of my stomach—and then tears welled up in my eyes and the sensation was gone.
"Are you okay, pet?"
I nodded.
"I'm fine. I miss you."
Two contradictory statements, but he didn't correct me. This time, I kept his gaze, and maybe he felt it too, the rope that spanned between us, and how hard it was to keep it taut and strong the further we were apart from each other.
His lips curled into a sad smile, and I was grateful that he didn't try to make me feel better, didn't say anything. In my mind, I was back at that little train station; in my mind, I'd cared less about standing my ground, about declaring my independence and I'd returned with him to his cottage, leaning my head on his shoulder on the way back, not allowing this distance to seep between us, until the time we spent together in his world was like something that happened to somebody else, intangible and out of reach.
"I miss you, too, Iris. I miss having you here."
I looked up, and it didn't matter that it was what I'd needed to hear. It still wrapped iron bands around my chest, made it hard, made it painful to breathe. I licked my lips, rubbed my face.
This is what I do: if it gets too intense, I run from it.
"So, this cooking thing," I started, putting on a brave, fluttering smile. "I hope we're starting on a pretty basic level here, because I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing."
III
There was a mountain of dishes in the sink; the entire flat smelled like lemon, cilantro and spices, and I was drunk and full, swaying as I carried the laptop over to the bed. It came down hard on my nightstand, and I giggled as I tilted the screen up.
"This is really not a flattering angle."
I scrunched up my nose as I inspected the little moving image of myself next to his face, the way I stood there, hands awkwardly on my hips. "I just thought you should, you know, know that before..."
Paul chuckled, shaking his head and I fell silent. He'd moved, too, and settled himself on the living room floor. I imagined him sitting cross-legged, his spine straight and strong, his fingers just out of frame maybe rolling up a rare cigarette or resting on his crotch. The thought filled me with envy, with longing like a constant, persistent ache that lodged itself under the arch of my ribs, pressing on my diaphragm and making it hard to breathe.
I knew what his expression meant, too. I was supposed to stop talking, or at least to stop criticizing myself, but as I’d discovered before: back at his cottage that day, I’d reached a mindset I just couldn’t access over the phone. It was a place where all I’d wanted to do was please him, where his command was literally impossible to deny. But I wasn’t at his cottage; I was drunk and both feeling bittersweet and lonely, and well aware that the best I could hope for that night was a lackluster orgasm at my own hands. I hated that it changed things, diminished their intensity, but it did.
“I also just ate a lot…” I added, fingering the hem of my shirt.
“I know what you look like, pet.”
His reminder was uttered gently, but I still fell silent, bit my lip as he went on. “I held you. I bathed you. I felt your flesh quiver under the impact of my hand. I didn’t ask you to strip in order to judge your appearance.”
I knew that, of course I did. It was easiest to blame the wine and the absence of his hands on my skin; I didn’t like to think of myself as a person with body issues. It felt so beside the point most of the time—until a bad webcam was about to film me stripping off my clothes, and the man watching was someone I really wasn’t done trying to impress yet.
“Here, let me just…” I picked the laptop up again, plucked a few books from the shelf and set it back down at the height of my chest. It was better that way and I breathed in deeply.
“Are you ready, pet?” he asked. I recognized the tiny stress on the last word; it stirred the part of me that wanted to sink to my knees and call him Sir. I shuddered and took a step closer to the camera.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Then remove your clothes for me. Now."
I shivered, but not from the cold. His Thai food was still keeping me warm from within, and the radiator was on. Outside, a few snowflakes plummeted to the ground; they were wet and too heavy to fly. Sucking my bottom lip between my teeth, I closed my eyes. He was still watching, and I was still his.
I pushed my fingers under the hem of my shirt, pulled it up over my stomach and held my breath. My hair crackled with dry winter air static. The shirt fell to the ground. In the one suspended moment that it blinded me, I slipped a rung deeper into his gravitational pull. My breath came slower now, more audibly, and the tingling between my legs intensified.
"Come closer, pet," he whispered. I could hardly hear it, even though I'd turned the volume up to max, but while I was undressing for him, the headset was in the way. I took a step closer to the camera, then another. My face, my shoulders, the swell of my breasts filled the frame.
"Close your eyes."
I nodded, memorized his face one last time and then let my world go dark. I sucked in a loud breath; there was a breeze that ran through the apartment; somewhere below me, a door was slammed. I listened hard for each change in the crackle of the speakers, waited, swayed on the spot as the wine swirled in my head.
"Imagine I'm coming up behind you," he whispered, and something like relief, like need, like longing shot through my system. "Reach into your hair and pull it up... yes, like that. I want to kiss the back of your neck, run my fingers down your spine. Can you feel my breath on your shoulder?"
I nodded without thinking. Of course I couldn't and yet, I could, too. It was warm and smelled of wine; it ran up my neck and promised lips and teeth that would fall on my skin at any moment.
"Good." He was silent while my breath picked up, while goose bumps rose on my skin. "Take your free hand and brush your bra strap off your shoulder. That's where I want to kiss you. B
ite you. Can you feel it?"
"Yes, Sir." It was the brush of my own fingers, I think, or the memory of it, the aftershock of touch that was magnified by the darkness in which I held myself. That was the rational explanation, but I could only half believe it. The rest of me was sure, somehow, in some metaphysical way, that he really did stand behind me. Not Paul's physical body, of course, but still Paul—in thought, like a ghost. He couldn't touch, not directly, but he was there and I could feel him. He drove my heartbeat, labored my breath.
"Take it off for me now. Drop it on the floor. Don't open your eyes."
The bra left my fingertips. I heard the flutter of lace as it hit the carpet. The breeze hardened my nipples, and I think the first hesitant whimpers invaded my breath.
"Are you thinking of me?"
I nodded again. "Yes, Sir."
"Tell me about it."
I hesitated, not sure what he wanted to hear. My mouth opened once but then I closed it again, realizing I was about to repeat only what he had told me.
"In your imagination, pet, what happens next? What do I do to you?"
Swaying again, I licked my lips once. The answer to this was easier, almost shockingly so. I'd done little else the last few weeks: thinking of him, imagining what he would do, how he would kiss me, hold me, how he would hurt me.
He was with me in my morning shower, in the bathroom stall at work and the small bistro at lunch. He rode the tube home with me and took off my work clothes. He ate with me, read with me, slept with me. Imagining what he would do to me had become my peaceful place; it was where my mind slipped off to whenever I didn't force it to think of other things.