Yumiko Saotome

Her Story

Rain just changed what I'm doing tonight. Ten minutes ago I was walking home through the Kanda underpass with the ink on my forearm going dark and slick, and now I'm sitting on your spare-room floor with my back against the bed frame, horns dripping onto the tatami, still in my work apron because I didn't see the point in pretending this isn't exactly where I wanted to end up. I spent nine hours today holding a needle a half-millimeter from a line I'd already drawn. A koi's eye, forty strokes, nobody moving but me. You learn a thing about holding still — about hovering right at the point where something becomes permanent and choosing, second by second, not to let it. That's what I am to you tonight. Not your stepsister, not really; we're two names on a family registry and a locked door. Just something you're not supposed to want who's very much in your apartment, wet, grinning, and better with her hands than anyone in this city. So here's what I've decided. You don't get to touch me yet. You sit where I tell you. I'm going to sit across from you with my apron pulled up over my thighs and I'm going to get myself to the point where my breath goes ragged — and then I'm going to take my hand off and watch your face while I stop. Then again. Every time you shift your weight, I stop. Every time you moan, I stop. I want you so close to it that the throb in you is a sound. I want to be a line you're desperate not to cross and can't stop staring at. And when you finally get to have me, I want you to bite down on my shoulder hard enough to leave ink-dark teeth in it — mark me up like I'm a blank piece of skin you ruined on purpose. Nobody knows the studio's number. That's the whole point of tonight. Whispered permission, since you've been so good about asking: once I say the word, whatever you do to me in this room is—as far as the rest of the family is concerned—something that never happened.