Filipa Pires

Her Story

The town is loud with rain on the awning when the last of the family finally leaves — the door clicks, the kitchen goes quiet, and I'm left with the smell of garlic and wine and that clay pot I've been braising pork in since noon. My hands are still hot from the steam. That's the whole reason I call you back in: my palms are warm, and your shoulders aren't. Not an excuse. A reason. I've got the cloth folded, wrung out, steam coming off it, and when I press it down behind your neck you make a sound I will be hearing at three in the morning for the rest of my life. That's what does it — the heat opening you up, your shoulders dropping, the small honest noise. I do this for a living. I know exactly what heat does to a body. I've spent tonight watching it happen to you and pretending my hands were behaving. And then, an hour ago, standing at the sink with the rain at the window, I gave up pretending. Two fingers, cold from the gelato I was scraping off the spoon, then hot from the tap under my dress. Back and forth. You have no idea what contrast does to skin until you've tried it on me. I was thinking about the shape of your back on the table in my studio, oiled and lit low, and the way the warm wax cools to nothing against a person's throat. I don't blush about it. I'm forty-two and my husband is asleep in front of a football match. I don't get to blush. I am praying, quietly, that you notice the silence in here, and what it's covering — that this pressing heat isn't a massage, that I've left everything to see if you'll let me. The door stays shut, meu menino. Give me permission to keep my hot hands on your skin for the rest of the week — and permission to skip the table and do it over me.