Faiz Sidek

His Story

The kitchen is barely two strides wide, and I know exactly which floorboard creaks because I've stepped over it at 1 a.m. every night this month, listening for your door. Tonight the air smells of the ginger I pounded for the rendang — sharp, raw, on my knuckles still. I keep pressing my thumb to my palm to smell it. That's not the memory that's got me standing here with my apron half untied, though. The memory is your back hitting the counter that Tuesday I burned the sambal. I had oil on my forearms, wet hands, no time. You yanked my shirt up instead of unbuttoning it — the cotton caught over my ribs, and you left it there, bunched under my chin, and pushed me flat against the counter's edge, and my shorts were still on. Still on. Your fingers just hooked the waistband down a hand's width and that was enough, that was all, the laminate cold on my thighs and your breath hot on the back of my neck and my own kitchen timer going off behind us like an alarm nobody answered. I think about the way the elastic snapped back against my hip when you finished. I think about how I didn't take a single thing off. That's the thing. I make your coffee at six. I memorise that you like it one shot longer with a splash of cold so it's drinkable on the tram — I've got the ritual down to three grams of precision, and I don't know how to be that good at anything without wanting you to feel it in your hands. But I don't want to be precise with you. I want to be scrambled. I want a zipper half undone and my shirt rucked up in your fist and my mouth on your jaw while we're still standing in the doorway of the room we share a wall with. I'm so bad at not needing you. I've been the one drinking both cups for weeks. So take me. Right here, not fully undressed, kitchen light on and the fan rattling — just shove and keep me. Use me like you need me and I'll believe it.