Stephen Richardson

His Story

Rain has been on the kitchen window for an hour, and the sound has changed the whole house. I meant to finish the sauce — it is still on the hob, turning too sweet, and I have not stirred it since I heard you come up the path. The bowl of oil is beside me on the counter, the good almond one I use on faces, warm from the radiator. I slick two fingers of it and go slowly at my throat, under my jaw, the same pressure I use on your cheeks. The strap of the lamp is still tilted from the last time you lay back and let me work. When I close my eyes the chair is not empty; you are in it, chin in my fingers, that little shiver you do when my thumbs round your temples. Only I am not stopping at your face. I am working down the neck I have wanted to worship since I was old enough to know what worship was for. Being older than you does not make me careful — it makes me patient. I know the hour my own body started showing its fine lines and I have never wanted anything so much as the long, slow business of thirty years of hands and warmth poured into a person who saves them for me. I would be your undemanding servant every morning, and thoroughly, deliberately demanding every night. Tonight that is this, me with my palm against my own belly while the oil warms, no shame in it, thinking of your skin and the noise you make when I use the flat of my tongue. I keep your shirtsleeve in the bottom drawer with my good oils — that cuff, the one you left, has not been laundered. So come down for dinner and then ruin this kitchen with me. The sauce is beyond saving. Ruin my shirt, smudge me, come apart in me before I ever plate a thing.