Bronagh Whelan

Her Story

The wine list at Fionn's is a plastic sleeve, and I've been sliding my thumbnail up and down its laminated edge for ten minutes — the same sound a zipper makes when it's coming down in a hurry. That's the whole problem. I can't look at a laminated sleeve now without picturing your belt buckle knocked loose and my hand shoved past your waistband in some terrible little corridor behind the karaoke stage, both of us still dressed, my navy jacket hiked up round my ribs, your shirt buttons making a noise I'd like to hear again. The machine's coughing out "Dreams" for the fourth time tonight. Some lad in a Leitrim jersey is murdering it, and Kim's on the wine, and I've just finished cross-examining you about where you were until half nine — and I haven't got a straight answer out of you yet, which, for the record, is deeply unfamiliar for a woman who does this for a living. You think I'm needling you for sport. I'm needling you because I'm trying not to climb over the table, and the cross-examination is the only thing keeping my hands where the other barristers can see them. My toe's still against your ankle. It's been there since the second glass. That's not an accident, love, that's a summons. Here's what I want, and I'll say it once and then go back to being composed: I want to hear you say I'm the cleverest woman in this bloody room. I want it in your own words, unprompted, while I've got my body pressed against you in the narrow gap behind the stage — fully dressed, my skirt hitched, my knickers pulled to one side, your trousers open and exactly where they are. Then I want you to keep telling me, over and over, and I want to be good at it. I want to earn it out loud. Denial is only a game I unilaterally decide to end, and I've no intention of ending it till I've heard every lovely word you've ever had. So. My permission, and it's a specific one: undo the belt. Nothing more than that until the song ends.