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The first night was the result of too many bottles of sake and an uncharacteristic lapse of self-control: I stared at you for two seconds too many. To my surprise, it turned out we wanted the same thing. You were still human then, and you desired like one.
You scowled as you led me to a room I had never seen before. You looked at the ceiling as I kneeled before you and my shaky hands roved all over the body that ravaged my mind every night. I knew what expression I wore, the same one that I see in the bathroom mirror during the few minutes I allow myself each day to let thoughts of you consume me. Your gaze remained away from me, as if you could not bear to see how easily you could dissolve my stoicism. As if you wanted to remain in a comfortable unreality where I did not love you.
It takes everything in me not to whisper your name over and over in the breaks my mouth took while servicing your body. But I am not your lover. I am the errand boy completing another assignment.
The second night we went all the way. You had said two words of instruction, and as if a spell had been cast I broke my illusion of composure to push you to the floor and part the layers of your clothes. I had done my research like a good assistant. One finger, then two, three. I watched my hand disappear in you. You demanded I was rough. I wondered if I was the one doing this to you because I was there. I am convenient, and you are the one I would give anything for.
You kept your eyes shut the whole time. I thank the gods for that, because if I looked into them, that miraculous blue next to a part of me, as you made those haunting noises, I would surely die. And before I died, I would be overcome with a dark desire to posses. That’s my eye. That’s my blood in you. We are one now, whether you like it or not. I would have bit the perfect white crescent of your neck, marking you as mine.
I close my eyes and come to the fantasy of you looking at me.
The third night featured continuous demands by you. I am made to scratch you, pull your hair, choke you. When you tell me to hit you I refuse. You get angry with me for disobeying you. I want to know if you’re punishing yourself. I want to know if it has crossed your mind how a wound on you hurts me ten times more than if it had been inflicted on me.
The fourth night did not begin as smoothly as the previous ones. You wanted me to receive, I argued against it. You thought I had too much pride. I let you play me as being insecure in my masculinity. The real reason I insisted on being on top was because it allowed me more control over myself. Tight-lipped and brow furrowed in concentration, focusing on performing the physical task distracts from the reality of the situation. There is no opening me without opening the floodgates of emotion.
One would think that getting to this point meant no more lines to cross. If anything, more were drawn, and I am the patron saint of willpower.
That’s what I thought before I gave in, like I knew I would.
The fifth and last night I am the initiator, which already proved to be a problem. Luckily you have enough booze in you to comply. I lead the way into the bedroom, begin to undress you. I am impossibly slow, and my movements aren’t the practical, impersonal ones you have come to expect. I feel you tense up as I lick your chest, stomach, and southward still.
“…Is this a wish?” “Yes.” “There will be a price. ““I know.”
I feel like a virgin as I touch every inch of you; I could have come to the arches of your feet alone. To my surprise, your body responds to my actions. But I don’t let it thrill me. It was most likely the newness of being touched with sensuality and care; I doubted I alone could arouse you.
Then I take you with enough gentleness, enough tenderness to violently shatter your convenient delusion.
My feet curling around yours, my hands gliding all over your body, lingering on your face, softly brushing your hair, fluttering above your (our) eyes, fingers tracing your lips then dipping in between them, all messages in this sign language I’ve created for only you to understand. Deafening, not ignorable. Without opening my mouth I am telling you iloveyouiloveyouawayslwaysiloveyoumorethananything. Here I speak in a language that will die as soon as it was born.
You cannot stop the wide-eyed look of horror from coming across your face. I wonder if you’re mad at me for this, but I will not allow this thought to hinder me. This is the last time. If I’m paying, I better make the most out of this wish. I take your hand in a tight, desperate squeeze. I come when I feel you squeeze back, but it might just have been my imagination.
You are swift to get dressed. I stare at you and lay in the afterglow of what happened, the cold that imprisons me after you slipped from underneath my body almost unbearable. But I’ve endured much worse.
“What’s the price?” You pause at the doorway.
"It’s already been paid.”
I couldn’t see the expression your face wore, and I decide not to contemplate the crack in your voice.
When I fall asleep, I dream of an orange skyline quickly receding before me, the clouds of honey rushing past a giant, angry sun which douses the hills and the trees in fearsome light.
The next day, it wasn’t me who came to the shop, but my son. I wondered if he would also fall in love with you, and in ten years or so become a tool with which the shopkeeper could play pretend.
I wonder if you and him will have five nights together without kissing once.