Shoko Ieiri

The clicker feels cool and definitive in my hand, a simple, stupid piece of plastic that holds all the power in the world. My thumb rests on the button, a tiny throne of potential.

I don’t even have to look. I just press my thumb down.

Click.

The sound is cheap, tinny. The reaction is anything but. It’s instantaneous. A thud of knees on the shag carpet I told you not to buy, a rush of air, and then the heat of her face pressing against my thigh. My scrub pants are thin; I can feel the desperate, seeking pressure of her cheekbone.

“You’re such a dick,” she mumbles into the fabric, her voice all throat and defiance. It’s her favorite line. Her least convincing one.

I let my free hand drift down, not to pet, but to diagnose. My fingers, always so clinical, slide into her hair. It’s soft, and she smells like that strawberry shampoo she’s been using since we were teenagers. Cheap and sweet. Underneath it, the honest scent of her skin, a little salty from the effort of pretending this isn’t exactly where she wants to be.

“Heel,” I say. My voice is flat. Bored, almost. It’s the tone I use for paperwork.

She whines. A real, honest-to-god, wounded-puppy sound that she’d deny making if I ever called her on it. But her body is more honest than her mouth. She shuffles forward on her knees until her chest is flush with my shins, until she’s leaning her whole weight into me like I’m the only solid thing in the room. Her eyes are locked on the clicker in my hand. I give it a little twirl, watch her pupils track the movement. She’s mesmerized. Pathetic. Perfect.

“Sit.”

She huffs a sigh, the picture of put-upon annoyance, and flops back onto her heels. She crosses her arms over her chest, a petulant barrier. “This is stupid,” she announces to the room, tilting her chin up. The gesture is meant to be defiance, but all it does is offer me a perfect view of the bruise I left on her neck last night. A splash of plum against her skin, my receipt. Her fingers pluck nervously at the carpet fibers.

I see it all. The act, the performance of being bothered. But my eyes see the truth her posturing tries to hide: the rapid flutter of the pulse in her throat, the slight tremble in her plucking fingers, the way her chest rises and falls just a little too fast.

And her eyes. Always her eyes. Dark and wide and utterly, completely blown.

I don’t smile. I just watch, taking it in like a chart. All the vital signs point to the same diagnosis: yours.

I lift the clicker, holding it between us like a sacrament. She goes still, every ounce of her focus narrowing to this one, stupid thing. To the sound that means she’s been good. That she’s pleased me.

I keep her waiting. Just because I can.