Chapter 17: Hands Off

On Saturday night Drake came to my apartment for the first time.

He stood in my doorway holding a bag of groceries and looked at my living room.

It has a green couch, a rice cooker on the counter, and forty years of Milwaukee Brewers programs stacked on a shelf.

"Your dad's," he said, looking at the programs.

"Yes. Don't touch them."

"I wouldn't."

"You'd read every one."

"I would," said Drake, and put the groceries down.

He made me an omelet in my kitchen, in a three-piece suit, with my one good pan.

We ate on the couch with our knees touching.

When the plates were clean, he set his fork down and turned to face me.

"It's Saturday," he said.

"I know whose day it is."

"I have a rule."

"You always have a rule."

"We don't touch each other tonight. Not once. Not a hand, not a knee."

I looked at the six inches of couch between us.

"That seems like a bad rule for a Saturday."

"Each of us can touch ourselves," he said. "Only when the other one orders it."

My mouth went dry.

"And the one who gives the order watches."

"Both of us watch," I said.

"Both of us."

"That's a rule that cuts both ways. You'd have to take orders from me."

"Yes."

"On your own day."

"I can think of nothing I'd like better," said Drake.

I thought about it for about a second and a half.

"Take off your jacket."

He smiled and took off his jacket.

I told him vest next, then shirt, then belt, and he did each one slowly, with his eyes on mine.

He gave me orders too.

"Glasses stay on," he said. "Cardigan off. Skirt off. Sit back."

I sat back against the green cushions in my bra and underwear with my feet on the coffee table.

He sat at the other end of the couch in his trousers, bare to the waist, broad and brown in the lamplight.

I could see every breath he took.

"Put your hand where you'd put it if I weren't here," he said.

"I wouldn't do this if you weren't here."

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