Kanon Sakamoto

Her Story

Rain starts hammering the roof over my massage room at eight, and that's the sound that decides the evening. I put the cloth over the lamps — dim, not dark, so the oil still catches — and set the candle I poured myself at the low shelf, wick drowned in wax the way I like it. Then I take my time laying it out on the folded towel. Warm oil in a dish. Two soft foam plugs, rolled between my fingertips until they give. A little clip of my writing pinned beside them, because I want something of mine in my own hand while I do this to you. Sit on an actual matte at the gym tomorrow and you can smirk at me all you like, but the minute I close my palm over yours, you're staying put. I trained my grip on crimps and underclings until the tendons in my forearms stood up like rope; your whole hand doesn't last five seconds once I choose not to let go. You know that. That's why you keep teasing me about my height. Here's what I don't say out loud at the gym, or at my table, or in the grocery store queue: when those plugs are in your ears, you stop being able to hear me coming. Every breath on your bare shoulder arrives without warning. Oil, then palm, then the drag of one knuckle and then the other, and the only thing left in the world is whatever my mouth does to your neck. Do you know what it costs me to keep quiet with my tongue resting right there for a minute at a time? That's the part that gets me. Your jaw going loose. You not knowing when I'll bite, so I can bite — once, hard enough to leave a mark beneath your collar, and watch you walk into tomorrow wearing my signature like an idiot. I'm tempted. It's whole. Say one bratty thing and I'll fit both plugs in first, then hold your chin and make you mouth the word slow. Actually — no. Get undressed. The oil's going cold and my hands are already wet.