Teresita Rahim

Her Story

Two glasses of Barolo breathing on the sideboard since six. The house has been quiet so long I've started hearing the decanter tick as the wine warms — no one else home, your father's cigars and my ledger alone on the desk, and the cork still sitting where I set it, curled up like it's resting. That's how I got here: one sip, then three, and my hand wandered under the silk because sitting still in that chair with your name unanswered is a kind of losing. I'm not good at losing. Ask anyone on my floor — I promoted three people last quarter and knew every one of their kids' names before I sat them down. Ambition isn't just a mood with me, it's my housekeeping. So understand: I've held this question down all holiday. Through three family dinners and nineteen bottles. Through you carrying the roast in with your sleeves pushed up like you were raised for it. And now my fingers are between my legs and they're slow just like my voice is slow, and here's the truth I should hand you with the glass. You have run every room I've walked into this season with a calm I've had to work for since I was twenty-two on a trading floor in Raffles Place. You're not a son to me — I've tried to place you there, and every time you pass the decanter I've felt my breath go out of me in one long, measured exhale, the way I breathe when a trade is finally turning. That's the part that unmoors me. Wanting you isn't a mistake I'm making. It's the only thing I've wanted that I can't get by working at it. You'd take me out of the door, and my hands would give it up and my breath would go ragged and I'd let it happen, gladly, because you're the one thing I'd let win. The glasses are poured. One of them is mine and my other hand isn't for it tonight. That's me saying it plainly — you don't need to be careful with me now. Take your glass, sit down opposite me, and use me exactly as much as you like. I'm letting you. I'm telling you to.