Joe Silver
Belle’s grey scarf sits neatly atop her folded clothes on a leather chair in the corner of the room. She had known him for a fortnight, give or take. She knew his coffee order but not much else.
She lies on the bed, naked, as Joe walks around the room, his eyes glued to her. He’s topless, grey suit pants still belted around his waist, his arms crossed as he inspects her. Her nipples are hard but not from arousal. She’s freezing but holds back the shiver.
She said yes to this earlier. Was turned on by the idea. Liked the thought of being submissive, being controlled. But as she watches him now, circling, the wetness between her legs has dried up.
She looks at him, hates the way his eyes crawl over her skin.
How they settle between her legs. She wants to cross her thighs, but she physically can’t.
She wants to sit up or crawl into a ball, but he won’t like that either.
He’d told her. He wants her wide and spread.
Wants her to feel small and wants her begging. And she’d said yes.
Belle looks to the ceiling and her eyes catch on a squashed moth next to the lampshade. She wonders how long it’s been there, why he hasn’t wiped it away already.
Finally, he walks over to the chair. He picks up her scarf and sifts it through his fingers, back and forth, before bringing it close to his nose. She watches his hands work the fabric – the scarf she wears in winter, which keeps out the wind – and it looks almost alien in his grip.
He takes his time. Like he has all the time in the world. Like he knows she will wait.
She feels something in her settle, feels her legs open a little. Then comes the crushing recognition: she’s finding comfort in the way his eyes are devouring her, the way he’s in charge, not her.
Before she can sit with that, he leans over her, ties the scarf around her wrists and secures it to the headboard. She smells the perfume that she’d applied that morning, floral and sweet. A happy fragrance. She closes her eyes and breathes it in.
The jangling of his belt forces her eyes back open.
It drops to the floor, still held within the belt loops of his trousers.
He climbs onto the end of the bed, his skin meeting hers from her toes upward.
He lowers his head to her inner thigh and hovers.
She expects a lick, a warmth, a comforting feeling, but gets only his breath.
Then he inhales. Slow, contained, deep. It happens again and again.
She realises he is sniffing her. Working his way up, using his nose to sniff her out.
Why did she say yes, again? Did she really want this? Or did she just feel so numb that she wanted to try something new? She had wanted to feel something. Or is it deeper? Because this is her new normal, what her intimacy has recalibrated to? She doesn’t want it, but she recognises it.
And so as he enters her, her body softens, relaxes. She can’t feel her fingers – they’re tingly from being raised above her – but her eyes still work. They find the moth.
A dark smudge on the white ceiling.