10 #2
But the smartass isn’t satisfied, and my composure flies out the window: her fingers derail a little, she cruises my thigh with patience, brushes skin, presses a bit, and she’s already exploring private property at the exact point where I both want and don’t want her to touch me.
My stomach folds. My fork slips. I lie to myself with a sip of wine.
It goes down wrong. I cough. My eyes water.
I bend over my plate and fan myself with the napkin. My face is on fire.
"Everything okay?" she asks, all innocent, as if she hadn’t just given me a gynecological exam with the pad of her finger.
I nod and clear my throat. My mouth is dry and the back of my neck is hot. The waiter looks at me with pity. I smile out of politeness and shove the laugh back down. Nat’s got a little grin and her hand goes right back to the exact spot that gets me going. I don’t move it. I don’t want to.
I think about getting up and pretending I’m going for napkins—escape plan. I think about putting my hand on her too and taking the whole table down.
"Does it bother you?" she breathes in my ear, conspiratorial, that finger on a fixed itinerary and zero shame, and I freeze between her hand and the chair, half a neuron minding my manners and the other one feral.
I want to tell her the only thing bothering me is my clothes. What actually comes out is a thread.
"It’s just that... uh... this in public isn’t exactly common," I confess with a proper-lady pose, while my head begs for more and my mouth hits panic mode.
She lets a finger slip and I swear to RuPaul I need to book an appointment to have my self-control recalibrated; I try to keep it decorous and decorum is a no-show.
My knees lock, my neck leans in without permission, I breathe high and give myself away, and of course she notices.
"I love how expressive you are," she says, smug as hell.
I wipe a treacherous tear from the corner of my eye and smile with zero credibility, and Nat goes back to my ear, smiles against my skin, and my whole body loosens a millimeter.
"If we were alone, I’d have you tied to this chair already."
Gulp. A nervous laugh bubbles up and I bite my lip to keep from making a scene.
"You okay?" I hear myself, my voice strangled between shock and thrill, two tabs open in my head—behave and be terrible—and I click both.
"Much better now that I can picture everything I’d do to you without these fifty sets of eyes on us," she answers calmly, thumb on my thigh, small, efficient circles, and I stop obeying myself.
Dilemma in stereo: duck under the table, or drop the shame, stop looking around, and let this woman make me forget even my phone passcode? Life hands me dilemmas I am not ready for.
I lean toward her mouth and then pull back out of pure spite. I want to see the want crack across her face. It cracks. Good.
"Your ravioli’s getting cold," she says, serious, aiming for a scold, all authority and wickedness, trying to pose as the boss, and I can see the laugh under it.
"Your hand is where it shouldn’t be," I whisper, with zero conviction.
"Then move it," she fires back without blinking.
Around us people break bread, sop up sauce, take selfies, talk diets and dogs that eat the remote.
My table is another planet. I’m not chewing anymore; I’m surviving.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and decide to do something that even surprises me.
I catch her wrist, gentle. I don’t move it.
I just slow it, for a second. I hold her gaze.
She gets it. Her mouth curves up a hair. My laugh trembles.
"Plan?" she asks, soft, voice like an elegant blaze.
"Eat, pay, and lose our minds," I tell her with a calm I don’t even believe.
Lose our minds, I said. North, south, and my sense of time. I’m canceling everything but her bed. I don’t say it out loud. By some miracle.
I signal the waiter for another drink. The poor guy comes sprinting.
"Everything okay?"
"Perfect," I answer in my good-girl voice.
He winks. Maybe it’s a tic. Or maybe he’s clocked what’s up. God, I hope not. Nat grazes the wrist that’s holding the glass and kisses my knuckle. I melt without warning, with zero defense. I don’t say it out loud; a silent oh god rises to my tongue and leaves it limp.
"You’re going to have a terribly good time," she murmurs, with that kind of certainty that confiscates your Responsible Adult card and puts you on the track.
I sling her my crooked smile, the one I’ve had my whole life, the one I use when my stomach trembles and I don’t want it to show.
"You think you’re so smart."
"I think I do the homework. You’re the smart one," she fires, and I almost cram bread into her mouth to see what else fits in there, for science.
Between courses she tosses me bad jokes and questions that scratch.
I tightrope-walk: half-truths, dumb jokes, an ambush confession or two, and we keep going with dinner—or the shadow of dinner—because nothing gets past my throat without my brain veering to ropes, chairs, butt plugs shaped like mythological creatures, and this ridiculous urge to play the boss when my knees are actually shaking. I get the nervous giggles.
She pays without asking. Card, beep, minimal smile.
She leaves a tip that’s borderline obscene.
The waiter wishes us a good night and I flip into busybody mode: purse, pull up my tights, gum for basic hygiene, and I stand up, because I know myself and I’ll come apart if I look at her two seconds more.
Nat catches me at the waist—not hard, not soft, exact. She breathes into my ear:
"Don’t freak out later."
"I’m freaking out now," I shoot back, laughing with very little dignity—sorry, zero dignity; that word gives me hives.
Outside, she slips my coat on me with a finesse that makes me laugh and blush at the same time.
I’m playing restrained diva, chin up, steady stride, a string of confidence that would fool anyone on Instagram.
Inside, I’m soaked. If I press my thigh, I drip—end of memo.
She’s clocked it; her eyes say so without giving anything away, and I melt even more.
We get into her big-ass car. Seat belt, doors sealed, long silence.
No mush, no speech. The radio slides on a low, chill track that seeps in at the nape of my neck and my brain takes off without permission: matinee sci-fi, cold lights, my seat turns into a cockpit, and she becomes an android with clinical eyes and precise hands.
She talks to me in a robot voice with crisp vowels: Earthling, your file indicates extreme moisture and a tendency toward intermittent obedience.
And me, in my parallel world, I clap in slow-mo, give thanks, and take a number. Out loud, I say nothing.
"Want me to take you home?" she asks softly.
I nod. What are my options? Jump out in a vacant lot and wait for a guy in a van to invite me to the local bingo hall? I do not have the bandwidth for that story. I nod, all neck and lashes, while inside I’m screaming: take me home, undo my bun with your teeth, erase my last name and my phone PIN.
The drive feels endless and also like nothing. Stoplights, streetlights, her hand on the stick shift, my throat bone-dry. I try to speak; only air comes out.
"Is this… a plan, or are we winging it?"
"It’s what I want," she says, half-smiling. "And what you want."
"I want everything," slips out. "Except sleep."
"Sleep’s not on the menu," she finishes, not gifting me a single extra syllable.
She parks in front of my building, kills the engine, and—no kiss, no hug, not even a token touch.
"Shower. Get comfortable. If you feel like it later, text me. Just one emoji."
"Which one?" I ask on autopilot, instead of jumping her and calling her every name for sending me to shower, like I’d just run the New Year’s Eve 10K through Vallecas.
But I bite my tongue: Alaska, focus—this is a show, full-on dominatrix performance with an MBA from Wharton and an ISO certification, and here you are getting offended.
"Whatever comes from inside. Nothing bland. Make it clear."
And she’s gone. Not even a goodbye. I’m left standing on the sidewalk, legs wobbly, brain rebooting, prepping a call to the panic hotline.
I pull out my phone, scroll through emojis, and choke on the catalog.
Eggplant—way too on the nose. Little devil—so 2017.
Droplets—rat me out. Sparks—too Fourth of July.
Rope—doesn’t exist. Hook—makes me look predatory.
Pizza—pegs me. I think about the peach and start laughing.
I sit on the stoop for a second, breathe funny, and wonder if this time they commit me or give me a podcast.
I ride up in the elevator, catch myself in the mirror: decent hair, eyes gone. I step into the apartment, kick off my sneakers, lights low, towel ready. Shower, hot water, grocery-store strawberry body wash. Robe.
I sit on the bed with my phone in my shaking fingers.
I open WhatsApp. Nat’s chat, empty, clean, waiting for my crime.
I think about typing a word, but she asked for an emoji.
Just one. I open the grid again. A laugh trembles out of me.
I remember my lit teacher saying emojis are for illiterate people, I think of Kris Jenner and her golden child, I think of counting to ten.
I count to three and skip the rest. I pick the padlock.
I don’t know if it’s literal, I don’t know if it’s cheesy, but it nails my pulse.
Send. I turn off the phone for two seconds, regret it, turn it back on, drama mode, and wait, praying it buzzes.
I get hungry, snag two olives, check my nails, and lie down without lying down, pose like a nervous statue.
If this goes well, tomorrow I’ll Venmo Saint Anthony and Our Lady of W i? Fi.
If it goes badly, I’m signing up for a ceramics workshop and quitting sex till next year’s Coachella.