“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Lies you tell.”
“Yeah.”
She laughed a little, sounding tired but genuine. I washed her slowly after that. Her arms. Her neck. Her stomach. Her legs. And between those thighs in a way that had her whispering my name as she grabbed the sides of the tub.
When the water cooled, I lifted her out, wrapped her in one towel, then used the other to dry her myself. She let me. I was shocked. Theory usually accepted help from me like it was a suspicious package left on her porch. Tonight, she stood between my legs, her hands rested on my shoulders, while I sat on the bench near the tub. She instructed me on why I should pat instead of rub water from her skin.
“You tired?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Hungry?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
She wrinkled her nose at me. “You be tryna feed me like I’m a stray cat.”
I shrugged. “You got stray cat energy sometimes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Boy!”
I smiled. “There she go again.”
“Barely.”
“That’s all right,” I told her softly.
I carried her back to the bedroom, but I didn’t put her in the bed. The sheets were fucked up, and I wasn’t having her sleep in the mess we made. I set her in the chair near the window, wrapped the towel tighter around her, then stripped the bed.
She watched me through heavy-lidded eyes. “You know how to change sheets?” she asked.
I looked at her over my shoulder. “You think I survived Siberia but fitted sheets gon’ take me out?”
“The corners fuck everybody up.”
“I wish the corners would.”
She smiled, then leaned her cheek against the chair. I changed the sheets while she drifted, not fully asleep, not fully awake. She said a couple of random, drowsy things to me. I just nodded. When the bed was straight, I went to a drawer and pulled out the cream I used on my scars.
The little jar looked plain, nothing special. But it had been made by an old woman in Moscow who regularly treated men who came back from places people pretended not to know existed. She had rubbed it on my face the first time while telling me, in Russian, that men always thought scars made them look interesting until they started itching and aching. She wasn’t lying.
I warmed a little between my fingers and knelt in front of Theory. Her eyes opened as soon as I touched her thigh.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Like you would let anyone else in here,” she snarked.
Like I would let anyone else touch you, I thought, but all I said was, “I’m putting the cream on.”
Her gaze dropped to the jar. “The one you use?”
“Yeah.”
“It works.”
