Trading Tides (2 page)

I liked the way he wrote my name. The dashes at the top and bottom of the capital I were long and curved and the s at the end swirled back to underline the rest. Iris. My hand stilled and I closed my eyes, overwhelmed with the memory of his face when he said it, whispered it, groaned it into my ear.

I looked around. Still, nobody paid me any attention. I felt like I needed a glass of water. Or a shower. Fast.

The rough cardboard cut into my hand as I pried it open. It was hard to tell what I was looking at: something large and round and covered in bubble wrap. I made sure one more time that nobody was watching and then slid the box cutter along the large opening on the front, pulled the cardboard wings apart and, carefully, plucked out the envelope on top. Before even I could get a good look, I snapped the box shut again, just in case.

My dear pet,

Don't worry, today I am not telling you to strip off your underwear at work or to make yourself come in the ladies'. For tonight, I have something different in mind.

Tonight, I request the pleasure of your company for dinner, my sweet.

I stopped reading; my heart rattled in my chest. Was he here, just waiting for me to get off work? I couldn't help it, I looked around again—but no Paul melted out of the grey wallpaper or appeared from behind a potted plant.

On the back of this letter, you will find a list of ingredients to buy on your way home. I took the liberty of filling your present with a few specialty items you might have trouble finding in a hurry.

I will call you at 6 p.m.
 

Paul.

P.S.: I am sure, by now, this does not need saying, but you are not to touch yourself today until I tell you otherwise.

I stopped holding my breath, then I put the box on the floor and dropped onto my chair. I was feeling a little faint, clutching the paper and hating him for a few minutes. It was exactly that last command that made me want to, no, need to disappear into the bathroom. I wouldn't even have to come, that wasn't important—I’d just press my palm against my clit to stop it tingling, to stop it feeling like a single huge needy nerve ending.

It was still a whole hour until five. My body was aching for him, worse with each day. And the smug asshole was planning to spend our special Friday night phonecall giving me cooking instructions.

Even just in my head, I had to take that back. He wasn't an asshole—smug he was, but an asshole, no. He was sweet, really, and an evil tease. This time, I opened the box with less fear. It held a large, cast-iron wok, filled with Asian spices and sauces. My stomach grumbled unhelpfully.

I wasn't a great cook, and Paul knew it. I'd mentioned take-away a few too many times. He, of course, was incredible, and apparently, had more to teach me than just the bliss of submitting to him. I wanted to slap him or roll my eyes at him, but mostly I wanted him with me.
 

I hated being where he was not.
 

It wasn't so hard most days, to banish him into a corner of my mind—always there, but calm and patient the way he was in real life, too. But it just took a letter, or the prospect of spending the evening with his voice in my headphones to make the rest of my life feel a bit like Plato's cave—dim shadows on the wall, until Paul came to save me.

II

I wasn't ready when my laptop started to ring. I'd come home less than half an hour before; the lines in the supermarket had stretched almost through the entire building and I'd left there exhausted, sweaty and frazzled. I don't like crowds, or supermarket music. I'd had a shower, blow dried my hair and was just trying to put a few dabs of make-up on the dark spots under my eyes, when he rang. It was six o'clock on the dot.
 

Dashing back into the kitchen, I hit the button and his face appeared on the screen. There was something about the light at his place that always sent a shiver of familiarity down my spine. It was fading already, but the bright, greenish tint grew only stronger during the early evening. It was a salty kind of light, a light that smacked of unbridled winds, the way it reflected off the stark planes of his face.

"Good evening, beautiful," he said and it hardly mattered that the tinny speakers distorted his voice, made it metallic and robbed it of its timbre. I still felt its power traveling through my system.

"Hi," that's all I could say, hardly more than a vocalized breath. "Sorry, I... I have to plug the headset in."

He was wearing his, all ready and looking good in a white shirt, leaning against what seemed to be his stove, his arms crossed casually in front of his chest. Where, normally, I could see his office or—sometimes—the bedroom in the backdrop, today's video feed brought me back into his kitchen. I could see the fridge, a corner of the little window, the fresh herbs he kept on the sill.
 

The sight brought the taste of prawns back to my mouth, of cheese and salad and somewhere deeper, somewhere more hidden, the taste of his come. It tingled on my lips.

He had that knowing look on his face when he nodded, and I dashed away again. My feet felt light like air and I stumbled over the rug as though I'd forgotten I had to lift them at all.

I cringed when I found my way back into the kitchen. Upon returning home, I'd only just managed to deposit his package and the groceries on the table. There were still dishes in the sink, and the remains of breakfast on the counter. With as much dignity as I could muster, I stepped back before the camera and plugged the headset in.

"You got rushed?" he asked once the sound was redirected to the headphones. It was better that way, no crackle or distortions, no air, no space between me and the source of the sound. It went straight into my ears, straight into my head, and I shivered a little at the minute vibrations in the deep frequency of his voice.

"It's that obvious?" I asked, looking at the small window that fed my own image back to me. My hair was a mess still and haphazardly stuffed under the headset. I could see it in my face, too, although that was harder to pinpoint, and I wished I'd spent a little more time choosing a nicer blouse.

"Not too much." He was being generous, I thought, and wrinkled my nose at him. I still hadn't quite forgiven him for that moment of thinking he'd be there to take me out himself, for being so far away. It wasn't fair, but I missed him and I didn't want to cook; I wanted to be in his arms or over his knee—god knows, I wanted to be back over his knee, pulling down my panties at his behest.

He watched me, silently; his head tilted to the side and it took me several moments to understand that he was waiting for something. I blushed, and as bad as my laptop's inbuilt camera was, I could see it picked right up on that—maybe not the color, that was never as stark as the heat in my cheeks seemed to suggest, but in the set of my eyes and my lips, in the way my shoulders tightened and with them the sound of my breath.

"I'm sorry, Sir," I mumbled, then scratched my cheek. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, or say; what he was waiting for. We phoned sometimes, just to talk—but Friday evenings, by the long-standing tradition of the three weeks it had been since I came back from his seaside home, were his nights. His and mine.

"Could I..." My voice was high and brittle and I tried again: "Could I start over? Please. I'd just need five minutes."

I don't know why he smiled, but it helped. He nodded, then blinked, only once, in a slow and deliberate gesture that warmed me up from the inside.

"Let me know when you're ready." And then his face vanished and so did the background static in my headphones. I set them aside and rubbed my face. I felt like crying, and none of it made sense, any of the swirling, strange emotions that came with dating Paul, with burrowing deeper into the hidden tunnels of my subconscious and desires. I bit my lip, grabbed a hairbrush and opened the window. The cold air smelled of cars, but it was bracing as it caught in my hair. I brushed it carefully, deliberately, one brush with each deep breath.

When I came back into the kitchen, I'd left my hair in a braid so as not to get in the way. I unpacked the wok, freed it from its bubble wrap coat, emptied the different spices and sauces onto the table, and set it on the stove. It still looked huge, but rather beautiful. The cast-iron was smooth and heavy; it was a warm sort of material.

I set out a cutting board and knife, too, and unpacked my groceries so that I would have them handy, and finally I chose a fresh shirt: green with a tight V-neck. With every step of preparation, the turmoil in my stomach lessened.

I looked around, then leaned over the laptop to type a few words.

Iris:
Is it okay if I just take 5 more minutes?
 

Paul:
Take whatever time you need.

I used them on the dirty dishes, careful not to get my shirt wet. It didn't suddenly turn my kitchen into a sparkling catalogue model, but I felt better.
 

Being with Paul had already taught me not to question these impulses when they came. I could deliver them to detailed analysis later, but trusting impulses, desires and needs was something we talked about a lot—even if it was something as silly as not having dirty dishes in the backdrop when I talked to him. It also helped to set the mood. We were in my kitchen, not my bedroom. We were here to cook together.

Iris:
I'm ready now, Sir.

When he rang this time, I was sitting calmly on a kitchen chair and smiled into the camera, just as his face appeared.

"Feeling better?"

"Yes, Sir. Thank you." I think my cheeks still flushed a little, but not enough to give me away. Just calling him Sir made me feel warm and good in the pit of my stomach. He looked satisfied, nodded to himself, and even though I still had the distinct impression that he was watching me very closely, I knew I'd made the right choice.

"Good. Would you like to start with a glass of wine, pet?"

I did, thanked him again and then we both poured. I had to chuckle at hearing the same gurgling sound from the headphones that permeated my own apartment.

"I had you buy the one I like," he admitted with something of a boyish smile. "You might remember it. You seemed to enjoy it when you were here."

When I brought it to my lips, my eyes stung with sudden moisture. It still tasted strong and heavy, coated my tongue in the exact same flavors of his first kiss.

My fingers shook when I set the glass down. I was biting the inside of my lip to keep my mouth shut.
I miss you. I miss you so much. I miss you so much it hurts, Paul.
His lips curled in pleasure; I heard him breathe a little heavier, just like I did.

"I remember," I finally whispered and touched my lips. "Thank you."

He opened his mouth then, as though to say something, but he closed it again. Another smile hushed over his features, and when he reached for his glasses, my heart leapt in anticipation of the sight. He plucked them from his nose, rubbed the lenses clean and reset them on his nose in that gesture that had charmed me from the start.

"I just wanted to spend time with you tonight, pet. That's why we're cooking. That's what I'd do if you were here. I'd cook and let you sit in that chair over there. We'd talk. Drink wine."

I licked my lips and nodded. I felt ungrateful and stupid for my expectations, my reservations. It passed only slowly.
 

"How was your week?" I asked instead. He'd been busy, and we hadn't talked as much as I had come to need, like a physical addiction, with symptoms of withdrawal when I didn't hear his voice at least for a few minutes every day. Maybe that was why I put so much stock in this evening—but then so had he; with the wok and the menu, he had to have been planning this night for days. I just hadn't caught on.

"Long, but in our business you're a fool if you complain about work, huh?"
 

I chuckled, took another careful sip of wine. It stung in the corner of my lips, and down under my tongue, but it was a bracing sort of pain. Like his hand when it cracked down across my ass, like his kiss, like his bite.

"It does make for very boring stories, however. I spent all week at the computer, drinking copious amounts of your tea."

"
My
tea?" I teased, grinning. The tip of my tongue slipped out almost against my will.

"Yes, yours pet." He raised his glass at the camera, toasting me and chuckling. "It's your country's influence after all. What good is a pet if I can't hold her personally responsible for her nation's effect on me?"

"Plenty good," I protested, laughing. It was easy to do now, once the strange spell I had fallen under was broken. He was good at that. It wasn't the first time I'd noticed this: he put me at ease, he stilled the droning of thoughts, of doubts and questions that formed the constant backdrop of my mind. And he did it so effortlessly, just by being there and by taking me as I was. There were days when I tried to find a way to thank him for that, but words always failed me, and maybe courage, too.

"Is that so?" His brow jerked up sweetly, and I stifled a giggle. I was leaning my elbows on the table by then, chin resting on my hands, like a lovesick teenager. "Why don't you enlighten me?"

"Well, they can be entertaining?" I offered, trying to see me through his eyes. I wasn't satisfied with the answer, which meant that he wouldn't be either. He smiled, tilted his head and waited for more. I was beginning to understand this game. "They make you smile, try to anyway. Anytime they can. They want to make you happy and relaxed and... feel good. They..."

I swallowed, then looked away, afraid of what I might find in his face. Sometimes, he didn't just quiet my mind; sometimes he muffled my filters, too.

I'd tried to remember once what I'd told him that day by the sea, when my mind was full of him and nothing else. I didn't remember much. It hardly felt like it had happened to me anymore, like it could have been a really good movie or a book, or maybe a dream, and that hurt.

"They also..." I started, trying to smile, trying to grasp for something funny to say, something to pull over the sudden raw and aching place where I missed him, his hands, his mere, actual, physical presence. "They also make great drinking buddies, apparently."