“Yes, well,” I said, edging toward the door. “I should probably get going.”
“We are moving mountains with the work we’re doing. Mark my words, it will be in the history books,” he said.
“You’ve done well,” I said, my voice taking on the soothing intonation it sometimes shifted into when the feathers of a male ego were being ruffled in my vicinity. “Really good work.”
“You think so?”
He looked at me with a kind of gratitude then, and for the first time, I felt like maybe I, too, had something to give this man, that our relationship wasn’t totally one sided. He wanted, no, needed, my comfort in that moment, and surely, I could provide it.
“Of course,” I continued softly. “If anyone ever saw you as less than, that’s on them, not you.”
“Thank you,” he said, and looked at me in a way that made me feel suddenly self-conscious.
“Of course.”
He cleared his throat and turned away slightly. I wondered if he’d felt embarrassed about showing vulnerability in front of me and whether I should have been more delicate in reassuring him. Men often want to be comforted without feeling as if they’re being comforted. He opened his mouth as if to say something and then shook his head.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Tell me if it’s not my place. But I don’t think I can let you leave without telling you at least once that I think you are gorgeous. Just beautiful. Is it okay to say that?”
I flushed. “No, it’s fine. Thank you.”
“You never know, in these times, what is okay to say.”
“It’s fine,” I said again.
He came toward me and reached for my face. Like a frightened bird, I flinched, and then immediately laughed in mockery of my own reaction.
“Sorry,” I said, and he looked amused.
He reached again, this time toward my side, and moved the tips of his fingers down the length of my arm. I felt a tingle pass through me and didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even meet his gaze. Then he placed his palm behind my neck and turned my face toward his. He looked so soft. Soft in a way I had never seen him look before. George and Eric and David, even they, I was sure, had not seen this side of him. Nor Shiba. No. Only I had access to this side. I looked into his eyes, trying to decipher what was being asked of me. Before I could come to a conclusion, he brought his face toward mine and kissed me on the side of my neck. A long, extended kiss. He caressed my back, my shoulders, my breasts, all the while kissing my neck. Then he kissed me on the lips, his hands on my butt and then between my legs. I let out a whisper of a moan. Then, softly, he put his right hand on the top of my head and gently pushed downward.
That gesture. The hand on the head, the suggestion of a push. I’d felt it before. More times than I’d like to admit. How many times, over the generations, would you say that soft spot on the top of the scalp has been suggested downward by an insistent hand? I think probably so many that our collective scalp has an indent there. So many times that now, when the hand nudges, the body bends, almost instinctively, to satisfy the urgent need. Maybe because we think that with that little steer, we’re being given directions that lead, ultimately, to the heart. Or maybe it’s because we know that behind that subtle palm lies an iron fist.
Except now, we know better. The women who encountered the pushy hand before have told us about it; they’ve gathered their testimonies, these women, and shown us red flag after red flag. Our sisters have spoken, past their shame and sorrow, past their rage and fear, so that we may recognize things like a subtle push, a stray set of words, for what they are. So that we may make out the gleam of the headlights while the train is still far away enough for us to jump off the tracks. And so, I did. I jumped. I resisted his push with a counter push, so that on the surface it appeared no pressure had been exerted at all.
And then I said, “Listen, I should go. Shiba will be back any minute.”
“Oh. That’s fine. I didn’t do anything wrong, I hope?”
“No. Of course not. But I should go.”
Or …
What if I didn’t do that? What if, instead, I felt the push and thought, Nah, those aren’t the bright lights of an oncoming train. They’re simply the reflection of my own glow. And in that moment, all the times I’d been burned in the past, all the advice that my sisters had walked through fire to transmit, all the raised eyebrows of concern I myself had issued to girlfriends, all of it evaporated. And I responded to the push by looking up at his face, and he gave me a look that said “please” in such a way that I felt a rush at having power over this man who had seemed all-powerful. Suddenly, it felt like he was at my mercy, and I wanted nothing more than to respond to his “please” with an “of course,” so I knelt. I unzipped his trousers and guided his dick into my mouth, and he moaned, and I kept going. And then I felt another push. At the back of the head this time. An instruction to go deeper. And again, I complied. And after a while I darted my eyes around and saw that we were on a very expensive-looking Persian rug, and I didn’t want to make a mess, so when the time came, I swallowed, and when he saw me swallow, he moaned again with what seemed like total admiration. And there I was, holding his spent penis, basking in his momentary gratitude. And then he lifted me up and kissed me on the lips and … that was it.
Moments later, a kind of embarrassment crept into the room. He started clearing his throat, and he walked toward his desk and rustled some papers around.
“Yes. Would you … have you had anything to eat, dear? You both should eat before you go out.”
He sounded apologetic, which made me, in turn, ashamed. I suddenly didn’t know what to do with my arms. They felt long and gangly lying by my sides. I picked up my empty glass for no reason. A vague urge to destroy myself passed through me. But I swallowed that down too.
And that’s when I said, “Listen, I should go. Shiba will be back any minute.”
“Oh. That’s fine. I didn’t do anything wrong, I hope?”
“No. Of course not. But I should go.”
One of those two scenarios unfolded. Let’s just say the former, that I didn’t stupidly bend to his wishes. The second would be, after all, too degrading. Either way, he kissed me on the cheek to say goodbye, and that kiss felt like a kind of contract between us.
“You won’t tell Shiba?” his kiss asked.
“It never happened,” my cheek answered back.
As I was leaving, I turned to look at him. He had his back to the door and was facing the photograph of his father once more. He raised his glass to it.
“Innovate,” he said softly before taking a sip.
In a daze, I went upstairs to Shiba’s room to wait for her. My head felt foggy, and my thoughts jumbled, so I lay on her bed to rest for a moment. My body was like lead. I felt it grow heavier and heavier until it was as if it sank through the bed itself and into the ground. Then, having fallen beneath the surface, I was swimming in the depths. An enormous octopus approached me. It unfurled a sharp shard of steel from its tentacle into the palm of my hand and waited, as if offering that same tentacle for me to cut off. I hesitated, looking up to see how far beneath the surface I had sunk, and heard a voice. It was Shiba. Her voice guided me back to the surface.