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“When you look at me, what do you see?”
“What?”
Harper glances up from the coke she’s cutting into four thick lines, frowning. She’s always frowning these days, Yasmin notes, rather dully, almost hazily. Or maybe she’s just always frowning at Yasmin. Sometimes she finds it hard to tell if Harper’s disdain is for the world or just for her. Harper used to smile at her. They would sit in the living room of her apartment—her father’s apartment, the basement of her father’s home, keys sitting useless at the bottom of her purse, worthless for anything besides scooping blow out of a bag—and drink wine out of hundred-dollar glasses and Harper would smile at her and mean it. She would make a joke, about Robert, about Rishi, about fucking Kenny, and Harper would laugh and grin and Yasmin would feel warm all the way to her toes. It’s easy to be caught up in Harper. She’s new and she’s different and she’s exciting and she makes Yasmin both the happiest she’s ever been and more miserable than she thought she could ever be.
“When you look at me, Harper,” Yasmin insists, maybe more belligerent than she means to be, trying not to lick her teeth. The bitter taste of tannin is stuck to her gums and she wants to suck it off, swallow it down, wash it away. “What do you see?”
“That’s a stupid question,” Harper says, and the thickest of the white lines vanishes up her nostril. It’s the one with the ring in it. Yasmin always wonders if there’s a residue on the ring, afterwards. Sometimes she thinks about getting one herself, just to see, but she thinks her mother would tear it right out. She doesn’t think her father would care. When she was sixteen she got her navel pierced on a whim and all her father did when he saw it was flick the dangly little charm with forefinger and thumb and huff a breath through his nose. (She took it out after that. Let the holes scab over. Sometimes she sees the tiny pink scars in the mirror and feels the same bright, hot surge of nausea she did when the needle first slid through her flesh).
“You’re not answering it.” She takes Harper’s straw. She’s been left the thinnest two lines, which doesn’t surprise her. She’s not paying. She can’t pay for anything anymore. On Monday she’ll have to speak to someone in the payroll department and sort out getting her cheques routed to her own account. On Monday she’ll have to talk to their estate agent and find an apartment she can afford on her own salary. On Monday she’ll have to decide if it wouldn’t just be easier to apologize to her father and try to forget. It’s Saturday, though, and they’re at Rishi’s wedding, and Harper has been in an uncharacteristically good mood, and so all she can do right now is bend her head over the glass coffee table and rearrange her hair so it isn’t in her face.
“Well, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Just tell me what you see. Right now, when you look at me, what do you see?”
“Right now?” Harper tilts her head, running her littlest finger over her gums. Her eyes are black in this light, so round and dark Yasmin can see her own reflection in them. She wants to turn away. She doesn’t want to look at herself right now. It’s not like her. She’s vain. She always has been. Being vain gets you places being self-conscious never can. Harper isn’t vain, Yasmin knows, not in the same way. She doesn’t behave as if she’s aware of herself like that. Her brain is worth far more to her than the shape of her bottom lip or the sharp line of her brow that never quite sits still. “Right now you look like you could use a nap.”
“Harper,” Yasmin scoots closer. She finds it terribly undignified. Hananis don’t scoot. Hananis don’t do a lot of things. Maybe she ought to drop the name. Yasmin Kara doesn’t quite have the same ring, but she doesn’t know if she wants her mother’s name, either. Maybe she should just be Yasmin. Maybe she should get married and get rid of her parents all together, wash them out like she’s rinsing grit out of a wound that stubbornly refuses to heal. Harper’s stubborn like that. Like a fucking mule. Yasmin wishes she could be that stubborn. She’s malleable. Clay, putty in hand, dough on a butcher’s block. When she was little she used to imagine herself as a block of marble, being slowly and steadily molded into shape. She used to imagine that one day there would be nothing left for them to chip away and they’d look at each other, accusatory, well-used chisels in hand. How could you have done this to her? Now she doubts either of them would notice if she crumbled into dust.
She’s gotten too close to Harper. Her own reflection is warped in Harper’s eyes, face gone to nothing but oblong shapes and olive skin, and Harper is still looking at her, though now Yasmin is starting to wish she wouldn’t. Is starting to wish she’d never asked in the first place.
“Forget it,” She says, sniffing, wiping her nose, turning away, but Harper touches her wrist. It’s too gentle. She doesn’t want Harper to touch her gently. She doesn’t want anyone to touch her gently. When Maxim had climbed on top of her she’d had half a mind to just let him. She’s her father’s thing, still, in Maxim’s eyes. His creature. His creation. He’d never be able to see her as anything else, even if they got married, had kids, died side by side. She doesn’t think she wants him to see her as anything else, because then he’d see her as she is, as herself, and she’s not even sure who that would be.
Harper doesn’t say anything, so Yasmin doesn’t either. Harper’s always been a fucking master at that. The pregnant pause. She always makes Yasmin want to fill in the blanks, spit useless, empty words just so they aren’t sitting in silence. It would be easy for Yasmin to do that now. Just say something about how she had a bad day, how she’s sick, how she’s tried to cut her father’s poison out at the root but she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to get rid of him, how she’s got no house and no things and no money, how she’s stupid for ever having loved him, how she’s stupid because she does love him, despite it all, how she just wants to feel like her life is her own and how terrified she is of having a life of her own. She wants to punch herself in the face and she wants to put two hundred quid of blow up her nose and she wants to cry at her father’s feet.
Harper speaks first. It surprises Yasmin. “What do you want me to say, Yas?”
That you love me. That I make you sick.
“Nothing,” Yasmin says, shaking her head, still too close. She can taste Harper’s breath. She’s sure Harper can taste hers. She remembers kissing Harper, over a year ago, remembers the smooth skin of Harper’s cheek against her fingers, remembers wondering if Harper would ever speak to her again. She remembers how hard she’d fucked herself after they’d gone to bed, four fingers, panting face-down into her pillow as she imagined the face Harper might make when she came, thumb working too quickly over her clit as she pretended it was Harper’s angry little fingers within her. She didn’t think about Rob at all. Not even once.
She’s not sure who moves first. She doesn’t think it matters. Later, when she replays this in her mind, she’ll think it’s Harper who closes the gap first, that it’s Harper who cups the back of her neck and slides her fingers into the thick, dark fall of Yasmin’s hair and kisses her. The next time she imagines it, she’ll think it’s her who fell, forward, strings cut, and caught the sneer on Harper’s mouth with the sneer painting her own. Right now it doesn’t matter, really doesn’t matter, because Harper is gripping the collar of her dirty, sweat-stained blouse (disgusting, she imagines Harper hissing in her ear, you fucking stink) and there’s a tongue between her teeth and they’re sliding backwards onto the carpet between coffee table and couch, a gap so narrow there’s only room for them both if they’re on top of each other and so they are and they stay there and Yasmin thinks nothing in her entire life has ever made sense but this.
When Harper’s hand slithers into her shirt, Yasmin flinches. She doesn’t think Harper notices. She doesn’t think Harper cares. What Harper seems to care about is pinching her nipple between thumb and forefinger, tugging so roughly that it sends a jolt of pleasure zig-zagging down her spine, blunt-edged nails digging into her skin as Harper pulls and twists and keeps kissing her, greedy, as if she’s trying to eat her alive. And isn’t that what she always wanted? She’s always been a snake. Unhinged jaw and poison-tipped fangs. She could swallow Yasmin whole.
After a moment, Harper pulls away from her mouth. Yasmin finds herself rather disappointed by this, even though Harper is still straddling her, still playing with her nipple, clearly has no intention of stopping. She grabs Yasmin’s jaw with her free hand and stares down at her with those black, black eyes, voids in the dark, shadowed by the way the lamp casts orange light across the floor, and rests her thumb on Yasmin’s bottom lip; pulls it down to expose her gums, gums that still taste of bitter wine and bitter blow, private-school pink.
“Open your mouth,” Harper tells her, orders her, really, and Yasmin does. She’d slap anyone else for ordering her around. Has, in fact. She opens her mouth and Harper grins meanly, sharp little teeth flashing in the light, then spits on her tongue. “Swallow.”
As if Yasmin was going to do anything else. She does, tasting it, feeling it burn like whiskey all the way down, and Harper leans down to kiss the bob of her throat as if she might also get a taste. Those sharp little teeth scrape the pulse in her neck, mouthing hot and wet at her throat, nose against her skin. She’s probably trying to leave a hickey. Like they’re fucking teenagers, necking at a school disco, flush and giddy with the vodka someone snuck past the teachers in a water bottle. She remembers sneaking out with a boy her friend thought was fit at one of those discos, three years above, remembers giving him what she now knows to be a painfully dry handjob and wiping her hand off on his pants when he finished on her fingers. She wonders if Harper ever went to a school dance. She doesn’t think she did. She can’t imagine Harper young. The only Harper she thinks might have ever existed is the one unbuckling her belt and twisting her wrist to get a hand into her panties.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Yas,” Harper exhales sharply, cupping Yasmin in her palm. Yasmin gets the sense she ought to be embarrassed, that maybe she shouldn’t be this wet, but she’s been this wet since Harper grabbed her arm as they watched Rishi get married. She can’t help it. “You want me this bad?”
“Shut up,” Yasmin says automatically, instinctively, meaning it not at all, and grabs the back of Harper’s neck to pull her back into another kiss. Harper, thankfully, acquiesces, tongue curling into Yasmin’s mouth as she rolls her thumb over the hot swell of Yasmin’s clit and earns a horribly responsive jerk of Yasmin’s hips. She’s still wearing all her rings and Yasmin can feel them against her pussy, warm metal, the edge of at least three sharp enough to slice her up inside. Not that she cares. She’d let Harper fuck her with pointy nails and jagged rings and rough callouses as long as she can look her in the eyes while she does it. Harper’s never even met her father. Hopefully she never will. Hopefully she’ll never look at Yasmin and see what everyone else does. She doesn’t think she’d be able to stand Harper seeing her the same way everyone else sees her. She thinks it might kill her.
When two of Harper’s fingers do, finally, sink into her, Yasmin makes a miserable gasping noise into Harper’s mouth and digs her nails into the back of her neck. Harper’s nose is resting against hers, so close their lashes are practically tangling with every blink, so close Yasmin can see the near-invisible ring of her pupils against the black of her eyes, the weight of her body honestly a fucking relief where it’s pressed to her own. Harper’s fingers hook into her and stay there, feeling around, working all the way to the knuckle before she experiments with a few ungenerous thrusts only limited by the waistband of the panties Yasmin is still wearing.
“Do another,” Yasmin breathes before Harper can get into a rhythm. Maybe it’s greedy. She doesn’t really care. Harper has never known her as anything else. Harper huffs something that could be a laugh against her lips and the next time her fingers slip into Yasmin, slippery-wet, bones shifting against each other, carving out space, she’s added a third. The heel of her hand is bumping up against Yasmin’s clit and she’s started to move with her fingers, their hips knocking together in a way that is distinctly ungainly and distinctly fucking hot.
Harper’s nipples are hard. Yasmin doesn’t pinch hers the same way, doesn’t tug on them or pull at them, doesn’t yank them ‘til they’re sore, just cups the small, hot weight of Harper’s breast in her hand and squeezes lightly, fingers digging into her skin. If this bothers Harper, if this excites Harper, she doesn’t let on either way, just keeps fucking into Yasmin and curling her fingers and grinding the meat of her palm against her clit as if she’s trying to make it hurt. Yasmin doesn’t care. The metal of Harper’s rings is scratching at her, too, probably leaving little red marks all over the waxed-smooth skin of her pussy, but she doesn’t care about that either. Her heart is pounding too fast and there’s blood rushing in her ears and she’s keenly, distinctly aware of the fact that she’s rather drunk and it was rather good coke and she doesn’t have anywhere to fucking live once this weekend is over and she can’t exactly impede on Robert and Gus and she has to go to the fucking bank which is preposterous because she works at a fucking bank and Harper’s fingers feel as if they belong inside her, she can feel the scrape of her nails against her insides and her pussy is dripping down Harper’s wrist, she can feel that too, sticky-sweet, and Harper is breathing into her open mouth and spitting into her open mouth and she’s gulping it down like she can’t fucking get enough.
She can’t. She runs her tongue along Harper’s teeth, feeling every angry little point, every ridge and bump, like she can lick up every drop of her spit and swallow it and have a part of Harper inside her, even if it’s not for long. She’ll be Harper’s creature, then. Her creation. Her belly feels hot at the very idea. Harper says something Yasmin can’t hear, won’t hear, and Yasmin moans in response, loud and long and really quite vile, like she’s in the sort of porno Seb used to watch beside her in bed without fucking her. It makes Harper’s face twist up in what can only be disgust and that alone makes Yasmin press her forehead against Harper’s and buck her hips up against Harper’s hand and come.
Too quickly, maybe, but she’s never been the sort of woman who struggles to come. She comes quickly and forcefully and often and she likes to come and she likes to come around Harper’s fingers, clenching and grasping, dripping down her wrist. She pants into Harper’s mouth, still gripping her breast as if she’s trying to tear it off her body, like she’s trying to keep it as a fucking souvenir, all her skin way too hot. Harper just looks at her, fingers half-buried in her pussy, nipple so hard against her palm it could probably cut glass, and smiles. Cruel. All teeth.
“Fuck,” Yasmin says when she can breathe again, though it’s still laboured, though she can still feel Harper’s rings against her pussy and Harper’s sharp nails scratching at her sensitive insides even though Harper’s pulled her fingers out and wiped them on the rug (which, gross). She sits up instead of saying anything in answer, peels her body off Yasmin’s and gets to her feet, and Yasmin pushes herself onto her elbows to look at her.
“You know what I see when I look at you, Yas?” Harper scoops her phone off the side table and skims her palm over the side of her trouser leg. Her shirt is rumpled, collar askew, but otherwise she looks as untouchable as ever, a five-foot conqueror. A destroyer of worlds. She’s left Yasmin on the carpet with her blouse unbuttoned and her belt undone and an ache in her pussy and her fingers are still shiny-wet in the light, a wet stain on the cuff of her shirt as if she’s dipped it in water washing her hands. What does she see? Yasmin doesn’t want to know anymore. She’s changed her mind. She wants to go back to living in blissful ignorance. She wants her father’s credit cards and her father’s name and the security her father offers her and she’ll deal with the rest. She wants a bank account she doesn’t have to worry about and a bed with fluffy pillows. She wants Harper so badly she can feel it like a hole in her heart.
“Tell me,” says Yasmin, even though she shouldn’t, and Harper laughs. At her naked desperation, maybe. At the smell of her pussy still smeared on her fingers. At the mess of her hair when she sits up straight.
“I don’t have to tell you.” Harper shrugs one shoulder. “You wouldn’t have asked me if you didn’t already know.”
You make me sick. I love you and you make me sick.
“Anyway,” she continues, as if she hasn’t struck that fatal fucking blow. “I meant it earlier. Get some sleep, Yas. You look like shit.”
When she goes, finally, soundlessly, she shuts the door behind her.