He hands me cans and I read through the preparation instructions, starting a small pile, then taking over. The weird assortment contains packets that clearly need a lot more involvement than we can give them.
It makes me think of the road signs while we were driving. He’d asked me to read them aloud. Something about not having his glasses but the catch in his voice suggests a different struggle. Kids rarely make it through to my year in high school without learning difficulties or literacy problems being picked up and addressed, but a few occasions are enough for me to know the signs.
If I’m right, it’s tragic to imagine how much of the world is locked away from him, propped on the other side of a comprehension barrier that most people forget is there.
“Here,” I say, handing over a foil packet that could just as easily be a ready-meal as dried food. “Do you like these?”
He stares at the picture and immediately hands it back. “I’m not even sure what it’s meant to be.”
As though the words Bacon Carbonara in large letters at the top of the packet don’t give him the slightest clue.
My schoolteacher brain tucks the information away, wondering how much his size and placidity worked against him in the classroom. If his family ever got him near a classroom, that is. There’s too much I don’t know about him to be sure.
“Could you put these on the right side of the table?” I ask him, giving him the items that will be most suitable. “And these on the left.” The second handful is a collection of disposable cutlery and a stack of plastic cups.
He performs the task without trouble or hesitation, so no left-right confusion. It makes dyslexia less likely, though doesn’t rule it out.
None of which matters, I remind myself. There’s no point me calling him out on it when we won’t be together for long enough that I can help. It’s just information to stick away in case I need it later.
We’ll only have a day or two of each other’s company before we’ll have to go our separate ways.
Or we’ll die in a hailstorm of bullets. Grainy footage of a thousand botched hostage negotiations gleefully leaps into my head.
Malakai leaves the room, fetching a rucksack and storing the items inside. I fill up a few empty containers with water, giving them a leak test on the bench before adding them to the cargo.
By the time we’ve finished, the light is leeching from the sky, not yet replaced by the silvery glitter of the moon. When I reach out to flick on a light switch, Malakai stays my hand.
“It’ll be better if we leave those off.” He points skyward and I get the message. Just because I can’t hear the thump of a helicopter doesn’t mean they’re not close by, searching for anything out of place.
My chest tightens as he walks into a bedroom, leading me by the hand. My heartbeat is excited by thoughts of what I agreed to, memories of what we’ve already done, trepidation for what comes next.
The darkness makes me feel safer, less exposed.
He sits on the edge of the bed, pulling me onto his lap, bending my knees so I’m straddling his massive thighs. Every movement makes me feel more like a doll, more like a thing, and I give myself over to that sensation.
A plastic doll doesn’t have to justify the waves of anticipation that wash against her belly, her tense abdomen, send flutters from her midriff down to needy ache between her spread legs.
A doll could bump her centre against this man’s hardening cock and never have the slightest hint of regret. It wouldn’t have a maths tutor droning on about the age difference. About how this man is barely done with being a boy.
A doll would just slide her hands across his flesh and rejoice in the solidity of his muscles, his tight skin, marvelling at how delightful his physical youth is to touch.
The press of his fingers on my hips, supporting me, reminds me of the demand he snuck into our agreement. That he can touch me. Another reason to be grateful for the darkness.
His breathing is choppier than it was in the kitchen. Rougher around the edges. I put my hands on his chest, wanting to peel the shirt from his body but not able to make myself do something so bold.
My eyes strain to see him in the dimness. Only bits and pieces flash in and out of view, caught in the faint glow from outside, the sly creep of moonlight above the horizon.
I paint in what I can’t see with the crystal-clear memories from earlier, the snapshots of his attractive profile that I’ve been storing up all day.
My eyes close as my right hand grows the tiniest bit more adventurous, moving up to drift along his collarbone then across the expanse of his shoulder; exploring further, to his biceps, then retracing the journey back to base while my left hand curls around the sturdy thickness of his neck.
His bulk is an asset. A rock anchoring me and sheltering me. Something to cling to.
One of his hands moves with slow deliberation from my hip to spread his thick fingers across my back, bringing a rolling wave of warm tingles along for the journey. “Can I kiss you?”
The question makes my insides squirm.
It’s been a long time since someone kissed me. A son who grew out of motherly hugs and pecks too fast, helped along the track by his appalling male role model. My husband who never asked before he took something, and cared little for the intimacy of kissing, for the gentle revelations it can bring.
