Love Is Red by Sophie Jaff

another Katherine. This Katherine is cool, almost cold. She doesn’t laugh much, or smile. This Katherine isn’t so nice. She tells the truth, though, even about personal things. She eats expensive food and is always dropped off at her building by a car service. Then she lies awake, staring up at the ceiling. She vows she will stop it. She vows, every time, that it was the last time. She is lying. She is waiting for the fifth dinner.
    This knowledge is the bitter gift we give ourselves.
    My pasta cools; the evening cools.
    â€œCheck, please,” he says.
    We walk side by side in silence. There are not many people around. We do not walk to the subway, nor does he hail a cab. I understand. He lives in this neighborhood. We are walking toward his apartment. This is it.
    Does it count if I barely touched my food?
    We stop at a metal black door around the corner of a brick building. Sael takes out a key. “Private entrance,” he explains to my raised eyebrow. Inside the building, the walls are brown and flaking, impersonal, giving no clues as to the tenants. An old freight elevator opens and we enter.
    Sael turns a key and we begin our creaky ascent. “This used to be a chocolate factory,” he says.
    Of course it was. Everything’s better with chocolate. I bite my lip to keep from laughing, a hysteria rising in me.
    The elevator doors part and we’re here. I look around, trying to take everything in; the open-plan kitchen, the bookshelves filled with books, a worn-out black leather sofa, an oak coffee table on which sits a cactus in a white pot, glossy prints on the brick walls. I want to go exploring, look at the art, see what books he reads, but—
    He closes and locks the door. There is something cold and final about the sound of the lock being turned. Click.
    â€œNow,” he says. “Don’t move.”
    I don’t.
    â€œLift up your arms,” he says.
    I do. He pulls off my thin black sweater. He turns it right side out and folds it, placing it carefully upon the arm of the black leather couch. He turns again to where I stand. I am wearing a sleeveless buttoned silk blouse tucked into my skirt. He gives the blouse a gentle tug and releases it. Its two tails hang awkwardly out, unsure and embarrassed. I have forgotten how to breathe. He starts from the top, slowly, deliberately sliding each one of my buttons through its slit.
    One.
    Two.
    Three.
    Four.
    Five.
    Six.
    Now my shirt is open. Shirt, then a slash of skin, then shirt. It hangs like curtains framing the window of my chest. He eases the shirt back from my shoulders. He is careful not to touch my skin. I can feel the warmth emanating from his hands through the silk. I want him to touch my skin but he does not.
    It’s so quiet you can hear the faint shhh of material, soft and slippery, in his hands. He turns and walks to one side of the room. I stand watching him. He slides open a closet door and hangs my shirt carefully upon a hanger. I am standing in my skirt, my underwear, my bra. My clothes feel too tight. I am aware of everything. The absence of some clothes highlights the presence of the others. The cool puff of air-conditioning on my arms, my stomach, my shoulders, my legs. I hear the soft hum of the fridge, my own breathing. There is a faint citrus smell, probably from an expensive oil diffuser. He returns and stands in front of me. Then his hands move behind me. I breathe in.
    Inch by inch, he unzips my skirt. The purr that the zipper makes is loud, terrifying. He takes his time. He gives the hem a firm but careful tug. My skirt slips down to my ankles and I am forced to step out of it, one foot after the other. I wobble but his hands close on the backs of my thighs briefly to steady me. He does not hang up my skirt, however, but lays it dexterously alongside the sweater. He reaches around me. He is deft. His expression is impossible to read as he undoes the clasp of my bra. He places it carefully upon