Run To You by Charlotte Stein Page B

touch.
    And I so desperately want to test that theory. I’m gagging to test that theory. Go on, go on, I think at him, just a little more. Just pinch it a little harder; just lick like that for me, again. Give me everything you’ve got, go on.
    But instead he waits. He waits for the perfect moment, when I’m writhing and reckless and ready for so much more. Then he leans down as though he’s going to kiss me, and whispers in my ear:
    ‘Now tell me what you want to happen next.’
    ‘That isn’t fair.’
    ‘Of course it’s fair. If you want something, you have to ask.’ He walks around me again, only this time it’s more like pacing. It’s more like prowling. ‘I did say that you couldn’t expect me to do all the work. You have to offer me something at least, and really I’m requiring so little. Am I not?’
    The answer is yes, obviously. Yes, you’re requiring so little. Words are barely anything when you really boil them down, and I know I could compress them even further. I could mash ‘fuck’ together with ‘me’
and he’d understand.
    He would.
    So why am I floundering? It’s simple, really.
    ‘All right,’ I say. ‘I’d like to touch you.’
    There, I think. There.
    And just as I do he strikes me down.
    ‘Liar,’ he says, like a fist rapping against glass.
    A little harder and it will break.
    A little gentler and everything will stay the same.
    ‘That’s not a lie.’
    ‘Of course it is. You don’t want to touch me. You want me to carry on touching you. You want me to peel off your blouse and your bra and get right underneath. And when I’m finished there, you want me to start on other items of clothing.’
    He gestures to my skirt, though perhaps gesture is the wrong word. It’s much more like a caress, from the curve of my hip over and down my thigh to my knee. And I suppose it would be, if his hand wasn’t around two feet away from any of my actual body parts. It just dances through the air over certain places, and I shudder as though he really touched me.
    I’m fighting a losing battle.
    ‘You’re wrong. I hate being naked.’
    ‘You hate being naked because you think you’re unappealing. But secretly you long to be confident … to have a man’s eyes following your every move as you strip out of your clothes, so sure and certain that he wants you. That he craves you. Isn’t that so?’
    ‘No.’
    This time he stops in front of me, and tick-tocks his finger back and forth.
    ‘That’s another lie, Alissa.’
    ‘How can you always tell?’
    ‘I make my living from being able to tell.’
    ‘Really? True or false, then: I threw my childhood pet in a lake.’
    ‘Are you challenging me?’ he asks, laughter in his words. ‘Very well: true.’
    ‘You honestly believe I’d do something like that?’
    ‘Whether I believe or not, it’s obvious you aren’t lying.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because you wanted to trick me, so told me the most ridiculous thing you could think of in the hopes I’d get it wrong.’ He sits back down in his seat by the table, while I make every effort to close my gaping mouth. ‘Correct?’
    He’s so correct it hurts. My pride is still reeling from the blow.
    ‘Correct.’
    ‘I don’t know why you did it, however. Are you going to enlighten me now?’
    ‘You really want to know?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘I killed it by accident. It was just a mouse and I was mostly afraid of it and it jumped out of my hands when I tried to hold it too tight.’ He was right about the ridiculous part. This story is so absurd I’m blushing over it, and not just because of the content. There’s also the fact that he’s making me tell it to someone like him. What does he know about petty concerns like this? I wish I wasn’t telling him about petty concerns like this. ‘And then I was scared my parents would find out, so I got rid of the evidence.’
    ‘That’s a sad little tale.’
    ‘It’s a stupid, meaningless little tale.’
    ‘Yes, I’m sure it’s