FIX YOUA Story by Shenita EtwarooShort StoryAllison is going to die. She’s almost sure of it now. The air is thick as a blanket drawn over her nose and mouth, each breath only serving to make her inside as uncomfortable as her outside. She’s never known heat like this, her village having enjoyed a constant sea breeze. However, this heat is unnatural. The village people would blame witchcraft but the city folk are calling it global warming. Allison’s been meaning to read up on that. For now, all she can do is contemplate methods of survival. She comes up with two: strip naked and stretch out on the tiles of her bathroom floor, or make a phone call. A wave of heat washes over her again and she wishes she could dive into the cool ocean as she had every day during her childhood, her sun warmed skin almost crackling before she leaped off the dock and into the cerulean water. But she was here in the city now, a place so full and dull that the wide open spaces and vibrant colors that had surrounded her what seemed just a distant memory. After a while, she peels herself off of her bed and gets her phone, trying to analyze her hesitation the whole way. She sighs, unable to sort through the tangle of independence and love and guilt and promises when the heat is turning her brain to jelly. Anyway, Damien has already answered, his voice taking on that soft, low tone that makes Allison melt for entirely different reasons. “Hey,” Allison replies, “Sorry, I know it’s a bit late to be calling…” “Not at all,” said Damein immediately, firmly. And yet Allison must still maintain the flimsy barrier of manners between them, or she knows they risk losing themselves in each other. “Well, the thing is, the air cooler has stopped.” She never thought she’d get used to the low-level drone of all the machines in her little apartment, but now the silence presses on her eardrums. “The air… you mean the air conditioning unit?” Allison grimaces at her persistent ignorance, “Yes, that. Do you think I could get it fixed tomorrow?” “You need not wait that long, love, you must be baking as it is. I can be there in ten minutes to take a look.” He pauses, remembers the barrier, “If you’d like.” Allison considers, draws in another suffocating breath as a drop of sweat rolls down her spine, “If you have a moment, I’d appreciate it.” She can hear his smile, “Right, excellent. I’ll see you soon.” Allison hangs up and shoots a glare at the lifeless box stuck in her living room window. Then she walks into her kitchenette, swings open the refrigerator door, and sits down in front of it. The sublimely cool air almost puts her to sleep before she hears the tell-tale tap on the stairs outside her apartment. When Allison opens the door for Damien, the two stare at each other in matching disbelief. “What are you wearing?” they both ask. Damien, in either complete defiance of the weather is decked out in his typical winter weight suit and tie and shiny shoes. As for Allison, her previous survival attempts have put her in a scrap of cotton masquerading as shorts and an airy button-down blouse that is in no way meant to be worn over bare skin, as it currently is. The awkward moment passes however when a wave of heat rolls out of Allison’s apartment and hits Damien in the face, “Gosh, when I said you were baking, I didn’t mean it literally!” He strides in, eyes squinting, and immediately sheds his suit jacket. “I guess it’s gotten worse since this afternoon,” Allison says, “I didn’t really notice.” He turns to her, “Allison, in this heat, having a broken air conditioner is an emergency. You needn’t suffer in silence.” Allison crosses her arms, nods, “All right, I understand. So, do you want to take that look?” “Certainly.” Damien has arrived carrying a metal toolbox, which he sets on the floor under the window after taking off his coat and throwing it on a nearby chair. He also yanks off his tie, stuffing it in a pocket of his suit jacket. Allison steps forward to take the jacket and lay it over the sofa that sits in front of the window. “It is miserable in here,” he remarks as he fetches a screwdriver and opens up the unit. Allison hums, “It’s cool enough in the other rooms. I think the hot air must get trapped up here.” “Yes, that sounds right.” She watches him for a moment, “So, there’s no easy way to fix a broken air conditioning unit?” “Well, my dear, all in all, you’re better off just getting your hands dirty. Hold this a moment, would you?” He passes her the screwdriver and deftly unbuttons his waistcoat, which joins the jacket. He takes back the tool with quiet thanks and focuses again on the machine. Allison wanders around to sit on the sofa and pick up a book left there earlier. She starts reading while Damien goes to war with the stubborn unit, judging by his not quite silent swears and the clicks and clanks of busy repair work. After a while, silence brings her attention to him again. Damien has paused to unbutton his shirt, and Allison is suddenly glad her cheeks are already flushed. She forces her eyes back to her book, makes no move or sound that might be read as disapproval. Her love is already such a self-conscious thing, he shouldn’t feel the need to cover up around Allison, and it is so damn hot. Allison can see a sheen of sweat on his back, before she realizes her eyes have drifted away from the page again. She tries with all her might to make sense of the printed words before her, but they simply don’t have the same appeal as the line of Damien’s back when he leans down to peer into the guts of the air conditioning unit. Desperate for any distraction, Allison gets a burst of inspiration when she licks her suddenly dry lips. She climbs off the sofa and goes to the kitchenette, taking out a tall glass and filling it with several large ice cubes. Frozen water whenever you want it, she can’t help marveling briefly as she reaches into the fridge for her latest pitcher of homebrewed iced tea. She pours the tea almost to the brim, then ferries the already wet glass out to Damien. “Hey, are you thirsty?” He directs a crooked smile down at the glass, “Dreadfully.” He takes it from her and sips it. His eyebrows jump and he looks at her, “Where did you get this?” Allison grins, “From my kitchen. I looked up some recipes- that one’s lemon and mint. How does it taste? My roommate Fiona usually tests them for me, but she wasn’t available today.” “It’s delicious, truly.” Damien takes another sip, holding Allison’s gaze over the edge of the glass. Allison swallows as fresh warmth rushes to her cheeks. She commences babbling, “Thanks, well, when I looked, there were so many different recipes for iced tea, some of them had milk, a lot had lemons, I’m going to try peach next, I think, that should be nice.” “I’m sure it will be.” Allison really can’t deal with his voice anymore, low and smooth and as steady as his eyes watching her. She focuses on the glass, reaching out to take it, “Here, I can hold this, let you work.” “Right, just a moment…” He lifts the sweating glass up, running it over his forehead, down his temple and cheek. He sighs, eyes drifting shut, “That’s wonderful.” Allison’s fingers struggle to grasp the glass when he passes it to her, they feel so weak and almost tingly. She returns to the sofa, holding Damien’s drink within his arm’s reach. Her distraction has turned out to be anything but, and now she’s got a cold wet object in her hand and a whole canvas of rarely bare skin to which it might be applied. Pulse jumping, she eases onto her knees, leaning forward against the back of the sofa behind Damien, who seems focused on his work. She doesn’t want to startle him, but she slowly brings the glass to press against his upper arm. He does pause, so she lets it slide down toward his elbow and back up. She stops there, can almost see the gears grinding in his head. After a long moment with no definitive reaction, Allison gives the same treatment to his other arm. She risks a tiny smile to feel him lean into the touch just slightly. Damien keeps working, and now Allison wonders if this might be a game. She bites her lip and considers her myriad options. Eventually, she decides to draw the bottom edge of the glass in a long thin line from the end of one shoulder to the other across his back. He shifts obligingly, stretching the skin for maximum contact. Allison beams, and wastes no time applying the whole side of the glass to the space between Damien’s shoulder blades. He lets out a breath, not quite a gasp or a sigh, and Allison counts a point for her when she sees goose bumps rise on his skin. Allison leans further over the sofa, and gently takes hold of the waist of his trousers. Her fingers dip no further than an inch under the material- perhaps it’s the slight scrape of her nails against his skin that makes the muscles below twitch. In any case, Allison raises the glass and lays the bottom edge at the base of Damien’s neck. Then she draws it down his spine, angling the glass as she goes so the full wet side touches him. His head sags and Allison thinks she catches a faint groan. She rolls the glass back and forth, leaving a dripping patch over his entire lower back. Then she reaches up, buries her fingers in his hair, and draws it out of the way so she can press the glass to the back of his neck. “Oh, Allison…” slips brokenly from his mouth. The tools he holds drop into the box. His hands come up to cover hers. She can see in the rise and fall of his shoulders how his breathing has quickened. “What are you doing to me?” “I’ll stop if you want,” she murmurs, because she will, no matter how disappointing that would be. “That’s not what I want.” Relief and curiosity make her smile, “What do you want?” Damien lets go of her hands and turns around, fixing her with a dark and wide-eyed stare. “The first thing I want,” he says, “is a drink.” He eases the glass out of her hand and takes a long sip. “The second thing I want… is for you to stay very still.” An electric thrill of anticipation zips through Allison as she curls her fingers into the sofa fabric and does what Damien wants. He takes the glass, and presses it to her arm, sliding it down and up. Allison can’t hold in a giggle as the cold wet seeps into her warm skin and leaves a strange new kind of heat in its path. Damien does the same to the other arm. Then he draws a thin line with the bottom edge of the glass, from one shoulder, just below her collar bone, over her sternum, below her other collar bone, and ending at the opposite shoulder. Allison’s breath has picked up now too, and she can feel drops of water slip down from the line, tracing paths between and around her breasts, soaking into her blouse. Damien’s head dips and he catches a drop right over her heart in a kiss. Allison’s breathing stutters as a tingling sensation runs from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. Damien lifts his head, mouth an inch away from hers, “I’ll stop if you want.” Allison has to smile at the echo, and give it back, “That’s not what I want.” “What do you want, Allison?” Vague thoughts of barriers and manners and sensibility are completely obliterated by how much Allison wants Damien in her arms, his lips on hers. So she does what she wants, wrapping her arms around Damien’s neck and yanking him against her. He nearly stumbles with her enthusiasm, and she feels a cold dribble of tea splash across her calf. But that’s fine, because she’s kissing him, and slipping her tongue into his mouth to taste her tea and him. He was right- it is delicious. Damien’s arms band around her waist, and Allison lets out a yelp as the glass presses against her sensitive flank. She dissolves into giggles and Damien sniggers along with her as he lets go long enough to put the glass down on a handy end table. Then he returns and finds an even better way to kiss Allison, while she runs her hands along the streaks of drying water on his back. “Come- come here,” he mutters in her ear, “Up.” Allison doesn’t bother to stop kissing Damien as she carefully stands on the sofa and swings one leg and then the other over the back. Damien keeps her steady, though that’s a relative term given the way his hands squeeze her thighs and hips, still a bit chill and damp from the glass. They feel better than she ever imagined they might on her skin. For a moment she sits on the back of the sofa and he stands between her legs and Allison’s mind reels, suddenly clawing for a bit of that sensibility to help her decide just what should happen here- but then he’s tugging her onto her feet, turning them around until the hard box of the air conditioning unit meets her back. “Let’s see if I’ve worked some magic,” he says, and twists a dial next to her head. The machine hums to life, sending a thrum of vibration through Allison as a cascade of cool air pours down her back and over her shoulders. Allison lets out a laughing moan of pleasure, her head falling against the unit, “Gosh, I’d forgotten what a cold breeze felt like!” Allison can feel Damien’s triumphant grin as he presses it to her throat before replacing it with warm kisses. Every tiny patch of liquid on Allison’s skin comes alive under the breeze, breeding goose bumps while the vibration of the machine continues to roll through her. Allison is lost in all the sensations, clinging to Damien as best she can while her legs seem increasingly uninterested in holding her up. After what feels like hours, Damien ends their latest kiss, and Allison finds to her surprise that her legs are still solid, as she doesn’t fall in a heap when he lets go of her. And even more surprising, she’s almost too cold now, standing in the breeze from the machine, without Damien wrapped around her. He’s still close though, and his hands hover uncertainly, as if she has suddenly developed an invisible shield. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Allison, I- I didn’t mean… Coming here tonight wasn’t meant to be… this.” Allison nods, tries to smile, “I know. I mean, I started it. Now we’re stopping. All right.” It has to be all right. She has to get a hold of herself. What was she thinking, practically jumping him in her apartment when he only came by to fix her stupid air cooler? “I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to either.” Damien nods, face shuttered. He turns to his pile of clothes hanging off the sofa, and Allison tries to ignore how the thought of him leaving makes her ache inside. Sensibility is faltering again while her heart screams that this is wrong, of course they meant for this to happen, even if their brains weren’t involved in the planning process. Looking at Damien, Allison spots a lone drop of water sliding down the base of his neck. It fills her vision and draws her forward like a magnet. Her hand comes up and rests on his shoulder. Damien freezes with one arm in his shirt. Allison leans close, and presses her lips over the drop, letting the tip of her tongue brush over Damien’s skin and carry the drop into her mouth. He shudders beneath her touch, and then turns slowly to face her. “Allison, what do you want?” Staring into his eyes, Allison tells him the truth. The real truth, the dangerous truth. “I don’t want you to leave. What do you want?” Looking like the words might be a death sentence, Damien says, “I don’t want to go.” “Then don’t leave.” “Then I won’t go.” They dare to smile at each other, bashful as teenagers all of a sudden. So, like a teenager, Allison snags Damien’s hand. Less like a teenager, Damien give her a confident smile. Allison begins to lead him to her bedroom, still not sure what she wants beyond his presence, but ready to find out. “Oh, one moment,” Damien says, pulling away from her and picking up the glass of iced tea. He shoots her a half-grin, “It might be useful.” Allison’s laughter rings through the cooling apartment as they make their way to the bedroom. © 2019 Shenita Etwaroo |
Stats
16 Views
Added on December 9, 2019 Last Updated on December 9, 2019 Author
|