Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,53

theater. I remained very still. I was so quiet and aware of our being there together, like that, that any micromovement either of us made became a loud broadcast: the twitch of her finger, the sound of her swallowing. I swore I could hear my own blood. The movie was no longer on the screen but between us.

Then, suddenly, she let go. My arm dropped to my chair. A wave of disappointment welled up inside me. The hand-holding had felt like an arrival, an answer to a question, a resounding yes. But the dropping of my hand seemed like another, more final answer.

Oh well, I thought. That’s that, I guess.

I watched her hand fumble in the Twizzler bag. Had she only dropped my hand because she was reaching for a Twizzler? She placed the end of the candy in her mouth, chomped on it. Then she reached for my hand again. I gave Miriam’s hand a little squeeze, and the sparks lit up in me again, every inch of my skin, every hair on my head, thrilled.

We sat like that for a long time, very still, Miriam’s hand in my hand, only letting go every now and then to grab a piece of candy. Neither of us looked over at the other. The only acknowledgment of separate personhood was when one of us would briefly release the other’s hand to grab a piece of candy or adjust our bodies. The first time I dropped her hand to scratch my forehead, I was terrified. What if, while my hand was gone, the rules changed and her hand became suddenly off-limits? What if it wasn’t where I’d left it? I scratched my head quickly, then snatched her hand again, relieved to have it back. Each time our hands reunited, I felt bliss newly restored.

I hoped my hand wasn’t too damp. Hers never got sweaty. Her skin was soft and powdery, and the texture of her skin evoked old-time blotter papers, violet pastille candies, the petal of a tea rose. The shape of the webbing between her thumb and pointer finger was the tubey mouth of a calla lily. Ever so gently, I took my pointer finger and slowly traced the lip of that tubey mouth. I traced it cautiously and lightly, as though I were gathering a bit of pollen that was dusted upon it. Then, after I had gathered enough pollen from the lip, I dipped my fingers delicately into the space where her thumb and pointer finger curled onto each other atop the webbing. Slowly, I entered the throat of that flower, as though to carefully excavate more pollen from the inside.

I remembered, just as I entered the flower, that it was not a flower at all. It was Miriam’s hand. And not only had I just stroked her hand, but I’d moved inside of it—in a gentle way, a comforting way, yet also in an undeniably sexual way. I stopped moving and just kept my finger resting inside that flower opening of hers, that sweet little hole, without thrusting, just leaving my finger there so she could feel some of that fullness. I noticed that I was flicking my tongue back and forth against the backs of my teeth like a hummingbird wing—as though my tongue wanted to be my finger and I wanted her hand to be her elsewhere. My tongue felt irritated. I wondered how long I had been doing it.

The next time she reached for a Twizzler, she changed the direction of our hands. Now instead of her hand forming a little floral opening, it was my hand that was opened in a circle and hers that was the fingers, the penetrating object. I was surprised by how cock-like her hand felt resting in mine: fat, hard, content, warm. When the cock shifted, I wondered for a moment if it would try to fuck my hand. But her hand flattened into a hand again, and mine did too, and each of her fingers began to search the skin of my palm.

When she found my lifeline, she gently rubbed it with one finger—more of a tickle actually, up and down, as though it were something she was doing mindlessly or haphazardly. She did it in the softest possible way—like a ghost haunting a place, elusive, felt only in flutters. The tickling stimulated me so much that I wondered if I was wet through my clothes, if I had gotten some of me on the movie theater seat.

Etz