Roseanne Griffeth

Batik

I buried my face in the soft hollow, that dished spot between hipbone and ribcage where her flesh yielded.  I held a tiny fold of skin between my incisors—sawing without cutting, making little designs in her skin, something an Asian lover taught me. I tattooed a lotus blossom in bruises and blood on her side while breathing raggedly, my fingers moving inside her, my thumb--her crux.

I had broken the rules when she approached me and I knew she had seen me dump the ashes off the side of the ferry, just to the left of the sign that said “Do Not Throw Things from the Decks”. After strewing the ashes, I looked around before sitting on the bench, hiding my face in my scarf. I saw her watching me.

My hands, bared to the elements, folded into my lap. Every time I glanced up, I saw her looking at them, hungry. Like she wanted to stick each finger in her mouth, suck them and swallow them. I shifted, watching her watch me, hiding the rock of my hips. I hid my guilty hands in the arms of my coat.

When next I glanced up, she smiled, stood and sat next to me.  I kept my eyes shuttered, looking anywhere but toward her. The wind coming off the Channel slapped me with her scent. Penhaligon’s Bluebells and snow, and I thought, it’s a very youngish perfume, more suited to school girls or ladies of a certain age who wear pink bows and barrettes in their silver hair.

 “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I’m dying to know what you just dumped overboard. You aren’t supposed to do that, you know.”

Oh yes, I thought to myself, as if she weren’t staring at my hands. Because I knew she was, but I said, “You won’t tell will you?”  I batted my eyes up at her and gave my lopsided smile, the charming one. My hands emerged from my sleeves like sleepy turtles and her eyes struggled to focus on my face instead of my lap. Part of me was sorry I left my gloves in the car.
 

“I won’t tell,” she said just loudly enough so the wind didn’t steal her words.

 “My dog died,” I said.

She used the opportunity to take liberties. She captured my hands, caressed them, held them in a proprietary way and said, “I’m so sorry.”

 “Thank you,” I said, reclaiming my hands.

 “I’m sorry,” she said, blushing and flustered, “but you do have the most remarkable hands.”
 

“Yes. I know,“ I said, taking the compliment in the manner a French lover had taught me.

After we disembarked, she treated me to a dinner of tripe in Caen. That night, she peeled my gloves off and did the very thing I had imagined, taking my fingers into her mouth until I quavered and flushed.  My breath caught.

When the morning shudders its first light through her bedroom window, I’ll have gone to the market for fresh flowers, strong coffee and bread. I’ll have left her a note, thanking her for a lovely time.  I’ll have drawn on my gloves, hiding the indecency of my perfect hands and made my way into the morning after first taking a shot of Calvados. At some point, during the train ride to Paris, I’ll remove my gloves and it will be as if she were right there, asking me to touch her.