Chapter 10: Mirror

On Thursday night I stayed at his place again, which was becoming a habit I did not mention to my own toothbrush.

The bed in the loft stood in the far corner under the brick wall.

With a long standing mirror leaning beside it in a walnut frame.

He told me it was left by the last tenant.

He told me he'd been meaning to move it for four years.

"It's been in your way for four years," I said.

"It hasn't been in my way for the last twelve hours."

It was his day.

He sat on the edge of the bed with his shirt open and said, "Take everything off. Then come here."

I took everything off, except my glasses.

I walked across the floorboards to him, naked, with the lamp on, and I felt.

For the first time since the archive, a small flicker of shyness.

He saw it.

"Hey," he said, quietly.

"I'm fine."

"I want to show you something."

"Drake, I've been bare on a conference table."

"That's not what I mean."

He drew me in front of him, turned me toward the mirror, and sat me down between his thighs with my back against his chest.

My own body looked back at me.

I've never loved it.

It's soft and big and has stretch marks on the hips.

And I'm used to seeing it under a good light with a good cardigan on.

Now it was a plain fact, flushed, with my hair half undone and my glasses catching the lamp.

And his arms wrapped around me from behind.

"I don't like this," I said.

"Tell me what you see."

"A tired woman in a mirror."

"I'll tell you what I see," he said, against my hair.

He put his hands on my breasts, big warm hands, and I watched them go.

"I see a woman who is the most beautiful thing in this room by a very long way."

"Drake."

"I see skin like cream in a cup. I see the way your breath catches when I do this."

He rolled my nipples between his fingers, and I watched my own mouth fall open.

"I see you, Roz," he said. "I'm not going to stop looking."

One of his hands slid down my stomach.

I watched it go.

I watched his dark fingers part me, and slip into the wet, and begin to move in a slow, slick circle.

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