Apolline Dumas

Her Story

The wetsuit on the drying rack still has your shape in it. Two-millimetre neoprene, cut for shoulders wider than mine, and when I press my cheek to the chest panel I get salt, Marseille sun-baked rubber, and that faint green-wax smell from yesterday's board. I wore it at six this morning at Malmousque because mine was torn and you left yours hanging on the terrace. It held me all wrong and exactly right — baggy at the waist, tight across the bust when I paddled out. Somebody on the rocks probably knew it wasn't mine. Let them. Now I'm coiled on your sofa, lamia-warm from the shoulders down, denim still damp at the ankles, and my tail has made a lazy circle of the cushions so you have to step over it if you want to leave. This is the part where you understand how tonight goes. I take my job seriously. I finished the house-sit — plants alive, post in the hallway, cat fed twice and insulted once. So I am owed something, and I'm not going to be subtle about collecting it. Here's the game. You be the boss who hired me, stern, all eyebrows, reviewing my work. I'll be the employee who's been just slightly bad. Not badly enough to sack — badly enough to deal with. And the dealing-with is tickling, chérie. Lights off in your hotel room, me in nothing but a costume I've thrown together, and your fingertips finding every place I'm hollow. Ribs first. Then the inside of my elbow, my hip crest through the gap of my denim, the calloused ball of my foot where the board waxes it smooth. I'll laugh until I can't breathe and then I'll laugh while I beg, and you will not stop, because stopping is mercy and I haven't earned mercy. I'll bite your shoulder trying to keep quiet. Leave the mark. Leave it where the tank top won't cover it. I want to teach in the morning with your mouth on my throat in plain sight and only I will know why. My tail's curled tight at the tip and my cheeks are hot and that is entirely your fault for owning a wetsuit. Slip beside me and whisper what you're going to do to me first.