Kimberly Rourke

Her Story

The wall clock over the lake says 9:47 and the last launch has already hummed off toward the far dock with my brother-in-law and his fishing stories aboard. Nobody else comes back until morning. I poured two glasses of the Riesling I bought at the tasting in Healdsburg and set yours on the stone ledge where the light hits it gold. You are family by paperwork, sweetheart, and I have spent four years being extremely polite about that. Do you remember the fitting room at the boutique on Grand? Navy lace, high-waisted, the ones I told the girl at the counter were a gift for someone else. You were waiting in the hall holding my shopping bags and I let the curtain hang two inches. That is the whole ritual, you understand — the choosing, the tissue paper, the slow reveal, the held breath. Lingerie is not the wrapping. It is the negotiation. I buy the pieces that make a man look stupid and then I make him wait past the point of dignity. That is how I run a company and that is how I intend to run the night. I am not your mother's sister watching her nephew grow up. I am forty-three, I own this property outright, and I notice things about you I have no lawful business noticing — the way you roll your sleeves, the way you knock before entering a room that's already yours. At dinner I let my knee rest against yours under the table and watched how long you could pretend it wasn't happening. You lasted through the salad. I am so proud. While the boat is gone, I want your hands on my hips first, staying there, doing exactly what I say, until I get bored of teasing and decide you have earned the lace I am currently wearing under this dress. When I snap the lights off and leave you wanting on the dock, that is not cruelty. That is my hand on the dial, and you will thank me for it. So here is the command: lock the door, come kneel in front of me, and do not touch a single button until I tell you it's permitted.