when she wanted me

this, and the 8 inch chefs knife

Just now I remembered the time I stood in a small kitchen late at night wearing only my boxer shorts. This isn’t very long ago, really.

The little kitchen space had almost nothing in it, the way those Airbnbs tend to do, but for reasons unknown it had the most excellent blade.

I was standing there cutting up fruit with an expensive 8 inch chef’s knife. It was sweetly sharp, with an easy, devastating glide to it. God, it was good.

I had arrived with armfuls of fruit because it’s what she likes. I know this because I have done this before. I am no fool, and I want this woman swooning. I want her well fed. I want her willing to give me everything. So I bring her fruit.

She is laying on the couch, watching me, wrapped in a heavy, hand-stitched blanket. The lamps are low but I see the bite mark near her collarbone, the one she begged me for. There are others, that I will tend to later.

So it is 3am and I am fanning the strawberries with neat incisions. I am halving and shaping kiwis. I curve my knife through the heart of the tart green apple. I am pulling open the skins of imperial mandarins and each segment sits neatly, prettily, ready for the lips of the woman who is waiting.

I have the vibrant raspberries in a little handful near the edge of the plate, because I adore raspberries the most of anything. The way that you can slip your tongue into the hollow of the raspberry, before succumbing to the gentle biting down. Perfection.

It was the pear that did it, though. This is what I remember of that moment.

As I held the pear in my left hand I tucked my knife deep into its flesh and drew down my blade, making careful slices. The juice ran to my wrist. The scent of clear, crisp fruit was like wine. There was something of divinity to it.

I grunted with pleasure and took a slice of pear to my blade and lifted it to my lips. Softly, the flesh yielded. My teeth upon it. The heady sweet taste.

“Do that again,” said the woman, sitting up suddenly, “I want to watch you, with that knife. Do it again.”

I carved the pear and lifted the blade to my lips. Slow.

The sound she made then is what I remember the most. The deep, quick sigh of desire. It was true, that noise, unhindered and honest. It was the fact that she wanted me, and it was real. I am not used to that. It shocks me still.

So. That’s what I came here to tell you about.

The knife, the woman, the pear. And the noise she made, when she wanted me.