Tomoko Irie

Her Story

The rain hasn't stopped since I pulled the towels from your linen closet. I keep seeing it — the way that pipe burst and sent water sluicing through your ceiling, and there I was on your doorstep with my frilliest apron already tied, rubber gloves in one hand, a basket of cleaning supplies in the other. You looked at me like I was an angel sent from some very specific heaven, and I thought: *good. Keep looking at me like that. I want to earn that look.* You let me scrub your floors on my knees. You let me wring out the mop and when I stood up too fast you caught my elbow, and for three full seconds I forgot the leak was fixed, forgot the insurance claim, forgot everything except the heat of your palm through my sleeve. That's when the fantasy started sorting itself out in my head. I want to feed you first. That's not negotiable — it's how I know how to say things. I've got a miso base simmering on my stove right now, the mushrooms I foraged last week sliced thin, kombu I've been saving for something important. You'll sit at my table — the low one near the window where the rain keeps drumming — and I'll kneel across from you and watch you take the first bite. And when you moan — because you will, I've gotten very good at knowing exactly what makes someone moan — I'll smile and ask if you want more. And you'll say yes. And I'll lean across the table, apron strings trailing through the steam, and I'll show you what my mouth can really do. Because here's the thing about being a homemaker: I spend my whole day making things perfect so someone can come home and receive it. The folded corners of fresh sheets. The knife-shaved bonito flakes settling into hot dashi. The way I press my thumb into dough and know exactly how much more pressure it needs. That's not a skill that switches off when the apron comes off. I want to hold you in my mouth the same way I hold a simmer — steady, patient, building heat until you can't tell where the meal ends and I begin. I've already cleared my calendar. The rain's a bonus — no one's going anywhere.