← Back
I stayed on my mat. I told myself it was to rest. The honest answer was my legs, my pulse and the lotus tattoo.
“Hips,” said Ana, when the last Canadian had gone. “You carry everything in your hips. Roll onto your back.”
I did. She knelt at my feet, took my right ankle, and folded my knee slowly toward my chest, then out to the side, one hand firm on my thigh. The deck was warm. The sea sounded miles away. Her fingers pressed into the crease where my leg met my body, a hair’s breadth from where I was suddenly, painfully wet.
“Does this hurt?”
“No,” I said. It came out a whisper. “God, no.”
She stopped moving. The thumb on my thigh stayed exactly where it was. She was looking at my face, my mouth, the damp shine on my chest, and slowly the corner of her mouth went up.
“Sophie,” she said. “I’m going to ask you something directly. I’d like to kiss you. And then, if you like it, a good deal more. But you can say no, and we go and eat pancakes and I’ll never make it strange.”
My throat had gone dry. I had not been wanted like this in years, and certainly not by a woman who knew exactly where my hip flexors were. The studio was empty. The door was shut. The sun was high through the slatted roof, striping her shoulders gold.
I looked at her, and I knew what I wanted, and the only question was where.