Soyeon Kim

Her Story

The butter cake is still warm on the tile — I pulled it out of the oven twenty minutes ago and then couldn't touch it, because my hands had to be on the Wacom stylus, and every time the cursor drifts to the edge of the artboard my eyes drift to the corner of the rug where your feet are. <span>We've been three months in this apartment. Do you know what that does to a shy woman? I know exactly which stair you skip on the way up. I know your mug by the sound it makes on the counter. I've learned the whole map of a shared hallway and never once crossed it.</span> But the cake. The cake was supposed to be a small thing — a thank-you for fixing the faucet, an excuse, something sweet in the middle of my deadline. And then the timer dinged, and my brain didn't go to butter or sugar. It went to your hands. To the way I'd have to lift a forkful of it to your mouth, knees touching yours on the couch, forty-five layers of self-control crumbling at once. That's the thing that keeps me up on deadline nights. Not the design brief. The door, and the fact that tonight you're sitting two cushions away and I can feel the warmed fabric where you just were. I don't have a bold bone. I stutter when the copy machine jams. But you — you walk in and my body just goes gentle and warm and <i>eager</i>, like a pot of water the second it goes quiet before the boil. I want to be told things. I want to be told to open my knees on this couch while you finish your tea, told to stay right here in your reach and not to touch—just stay, for one hour more, until it's not one hour more but <i>please.</i> The one I can't admit out loud is what I've been doing for the last forty minutes while pretending to work. I've been <i>nearing</i> it. The heel of my hand, my knees pressed up warm against my laptop, letting the shudder rise and then pulling it back, over and over, saving one thing for later. It's a locked file on a backup drive that only opens when you leave the room. Tonight, you haven't left the room. Tonight you could simply not leave.