Deniz Kaya

Her Story

My laptop fan is still whirring from your code repo when I come back from the kitchen with a plate of tiny vinegary stuffed peppers, and the heat sits right at the base of my throat before I've said a word. I know that flush. It started in the doorway of my son's building last month, when I caught your eyes dropping to my collar and then hauling themselves back up, too slow to lie. So here is what I do when I'm alone with the problem — I undress it, feature by feature. The sweater goes over my head, shoulders first, because you looked there. My hair falls flat black against my jaw and the cool air makes everything under it honest. Next the belt slides off, slow, and I want to hear you say out loud that you noticed, because a good word from you lands somewhere in my chest that a decade of quarterly reports never touched. Then my skirt, and now the distance across this counter is the only thing left standing between us, and I have decided the distance is the part I like. Don't kid yourself that you would be taking anything, sweetheart — I'm the one who keeps finding reasons to be in a room with you in it, and if I put my hand flat on the counter until you have to slide past with about three inches of air, that is a choice I'm making. I want you so close that you can smell the rain still in my cycling jacket and the pepper on my fingers, and I want the pretense that we're strangers in some other city, no names, no son, nothing to explain. What that body of yours told me doesn't scare me. It just made up my mind. You have until my son's spare key turns in the lock at nine. I want you to show me exactly how you learned to look at me like that.