I dream that I’m going shopping with Salome, and the shopping mall is a cavernous warehouse set deep in the ground. Above us are vast windows where people from the outside world can look in.

I see Aidan walk by outside, and unlike the moon-faced people patronizing the mall, he seems to shimmer, like he’s trapped between two different planes of reality. He’s wearing a shapeless black hat with a yellow card in it, and I think about how he’s like the yellow-card/Jimla man in Stephen King’s 11/22/63.

He’s the Jimla, I think.

I try to call to him. My mouth opens uselessly and I mouth his name, only my lips keeps forming the word “Jimla”. Helplessly, I watch him disappear into the crowd.

Waking up in the morning, I lie still for a few minutes thinking about the dream.

When I think back into the night, I bolt upright.

I think I’d like to sleep over?

I check my phone to see if I was really dumb enough to send this.

And he replied.

I put my phone down without opening the message, turning instead to the ceiling, thinking that perhaps it has some answers for me today. Unlike the ground however, which has been known to at least shrug cluelessly, the ceiling gives me nothing.

Well. That’s fine.

If I don’t want to think about “The Thing”, then here is something that could make all that go away, even just for a little while…

-Of course, if Aidan rebuffs me now, I’ll just do us all a favour and go lie in the middle of the road during peak hours.

I take a deep breath and open Aidan’s text.

I think you should too.

*

I left for Aidan’s a bit late that day, having one through a lot of outfit options. This included going through the best bra-underwear options, and by the end of this lengthy clothes search, I was ready to cancel the whole thing.

Perhaps it was because I’d looked at myself too long in the mirror, and it had the same effect on me as when you take a really bomb selfie but the longer you look at your face the more it begins to look as if you’ve seen the Ark of the Covenant or something.

I looked even fatter, greasier and more disgusting than I’d ever seen myself. Even the make-up free, grease swamp monster I wake up as on a daily basis looked like a beauty pageant contestant next to the way I felt I looked at the end of that hour.

Finally, I throw a spare top into the bag (along with make-up and towels and things of course), two options for underwear and a large t-shirt into the bag. Just in case, I think.

I zip the bag up and sit dejectedly down on the bed, staring at the sliver of t-shirt poking out.

The problem was that I didn’t want Aidan to touch me. I didn’t want him to take of my clothes and put his hands on my skin or hold me- and there was a lot of me to hold.

He was probably used to thin delicate bodies. The sort you saw in those weight loss commercials with the tape-measure around their waists, even though you were pretty sure they’d never seen mandasi in their life.

I had seen lots of mandasi. That was for sure. I thought Aidan seeing what was under my clothes would be a sobering experience for him; he’d finally come to his senses and whatever we had been doing these last few days would stop. Right there, once my shirt came off and he saw the stretch marks and folds in my skin.

Perhaps he was having a mid-life crisis, I thought. Whatever it was, he’d soon realise that his little experiment was a failure and he’d find a more suitable partner. We were both using each other for something, but this was the only reason I could think he was using me.

A sudden flash of the way it felt to be pinned under him; to feel his weight pressing into me as his tongue butterflies against mine makes me pause. I wanted him to touch me then. All of me, everywhere.

It was always like this when I was away. I didn’t want him touching me until he was… and then I want became a need and I’d have to keep reminding myself why I couldn’t take things further than they had already gone just yet.

You barely know him, I’d think. And then, what about Will? Over and over I’d repeat this mantra as he kissed me, but he’d do things like bite my bottom lip with those teeth of his… almost enough to hurt but not quite… releasing it slowly…

You barely… I’d falter. What about…? The words would die there. I’d pull him closer by the collar of his shirt.

I want to touch him too, to see him and feel him…

“Don’t be a pussy.” I snap. If I opened the door to all this then I wouldn’t stand at the threshold and stare. I’d march in there and claim the sex of my life. If he did reject me… I flinched. Well it’d be embarrassing and I’d probably die for a while. But I hadn’t told anyone about Aidan, and I’d only have my own mind to face at the end of the day.

*

This pep talk bides me over until Aidan actually opens the front door. It’s almost lunch time by the time I’m finally getting there.

(The gardener would now let me into the gate with a silent nod, although his eyes now focused on my feet; it was almost as if I walked around with a tit hanging out.)

The moment Aidan opened the front door; I feel my smile fading to a grimace, like I’m smiling into a bright light.

“Hey,” he smiles. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

I give a bleat of weak laughter, scurrying into the cool of the house. “Heh,”

He moves into the kitchen and, unsure of what to do with my bag, I set it down on the dining room table. It looks as forlorn as I feel. I nibble on my lip and side into the kitchen.

I don’t know if it’s because I might actually like him now, or because the premise of having sex is hanging over my head, but he seems so much more real today. It’s like he shimmered without really existing the way he had in my dream, and now I was realising he was a real, living breathing person.

“Grace?” he murmurs, looking up from the sandwich press. Something passes through me, making the skin on the back of my neck stand on end.

I love the way he says my name, I think. Has he always said it like that?

“Hmm?”

He gives me a long look and shakes his head slowly, grinning. “It’s okay. Are you hungry? I’m making grilled cheese.”

I nod silently, and he doesn’t say anything.

As we’re sitting down to eat the sandwiches, I sweep my bag off the table. He sets my plate down and crosses to the seat opposite me.

He smells like… I wait, but I can’t place the scent. Clean clothes? It’s something light mixed with the smell of him, like fresh paper and men’s body wash or something. I breathe in again. How haven’t I really noticed until today? I think.

I look down at the plate in front of me. He always makes something I love. Sugar snap peas. Butternut squash. Beef stew. Gammon with a honey glaze. I look up at him.

“I had a dream you were the Jimla,” I say, remembering.

He pours some fruit juice for me, without my asking. It’s cloudy apple and pear – another favourite. He doesn’t look up for a minute. Finally he does.

“From the Steven King Book?” he asks.

“Yeah. I tried calling you but all I could do was mouth ‘Jimla’.” I explain about the rest of the dream.

“Huh.” He grunts, concomitantly. I bring the juice to my lips again, but I don’t realise I’m still nervous until my hand shakes and my teeth rattle against the glass.

“Grace,” Aidan says softly. I set the juice down and close my eyes for a moment.

Get it together.

“I’m okay,” I say loudly. Maybe if I sound confident he’ll believe me. I’m all wrong today.

“We can just sleep if it’s about tonight.”

I look carefully at him. He reaches over, and I let my hand slide the rest of the way to rest in his. Lightly, he turns my open palm to the ceiling and strokes the centre with his thumb, his grey eyes darkening.

I sit up straighter, my skin bristling and my nerves jumping to attention with every stroke of his thumb. It seems so at odds with what he’s saying. I don’t understand.

He lets me absorb his statement. “We don’t have to.”

I nod, a quick, dismissive nod. His index finger traces the brown life-line in my palm, following it to the bridge of my wrist. He glances up at me, and then down at my skin again as his fingers retreat into my palm again; unable, because of the expanse of the table between us, to travel further up my arm.

“Do you want to?” I ask.

“I want to.” He says. “I want to, Grace.”

What has changed? I wonder. Things haven’t been this charged between us without us having to have kissed first. Maybe that was my fault too, I never took him seriously. But the way he’s looking at me right now, I want him to sweep everything on the goddamn table onto the floor and take me right there.

I draw a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I can wait until then.”

He withdraws his hand. “I’m not going to touch you all afternoon.”

“What’re we going to do instead?” I ask, sounding anxious. He laughs, ruffling his short hair.

“I’m going to get you to talk to me,” he responds. “Really talk to me.”

“We talk all the time,” I protest. “Aidan, we’re talking right now.”

He shakes his head. “We talk about little things. You don’t talk to me Grace. That Jimla dream was probably the most personal thing you’ve ever told me.”

I take a bite of my sandwich. We both seem to want to be more serious about things today. Or maybe he always has been and I haven’t noticed until now.

Either way, he has a point.

He’s looking at me expectantly, so I smirk. “What do you want to know? My hopes and dreams?”

He laughs. “No.” I raise my eyebrows, and he corrects himself. “Well yes,” he admits.

“I’m an open book.” I say dryly. He quickly rebuffs this.

“No you’re not, Grace.”

There it is again. Grace.

Gray-ce. That’s how he says it.

I test it out in my mind; almost mouthing it.

“What about Will?” he prompts, prodding me out of my reverie.

“What about Will?”

He becomes serious, and his next words catch me unawares. “Why are you dating him?”

I take a bite of the sandwich and let my eyes move over the room as I chew, carefully, slowly.

When I finally speak, he watches me with his cool grey eyes, his gaze falling every so often to my lips, or following my hands as they gesture.

I tell him everything, about how Will and I started dating and how I liked his beauty spot. I tell him about how I don’t think I like him, but that I’m lonely instead.

He listens attentively, becoming quiet and pensive the longer I speak. When I’m finally finished, I ask him about his last girlfriend.

“She was a lot like you.” He says, carefully.

His answer seems clipped and rather short compared to my lengthy detail on Will.

And what does he mean about her being a lot like me? Did we have the same sort of personality or was she a lot like me I terms of size? I tilt my head at the thought. Aidan has a type.

“What’s your earliest memory?” he asks suddenly.

I rack my brain, and remember being passed through the hole in the fence to play with Gertrude and Martha.

He tells me about being in England and watching the garbage collectors when he was nine and home sick with chicken pox.

I picture it in my mind, finding it hard to believe that Aidan was ever that little.

“I think you’re someone who just appeared,” I explain, when he notices my furrowed brow. “I can’t picture you being that little.”

By this time we’ve finished with our early lunch, and are just sitting there talking to each other.

We clear our plates from the table and deposit them in the kitchen sink. I wash and he dries. Watching the cool water slide over the glass tumblers wistfully, I tell him about how I used to lie in cold baths to pass the summer months when I was younger.

“I’d close my eyes and pretend we had a pool.” I say. “Sometimes I’d take two in one afternoon,”

“It’s hot today,” Aidan says, looking over my head and into the carport.

“Yeah, I could use one now.”

He cracks a smile. “You could take one.”

“What’d you be doing?” I inquire, taking the dishtowel from him to wiping my hands.

“Watching.”

“Not in a creepy way?” I add, with a giggle.

“No, not in a creepy way.” Aidan puts his hand on my waist to pull me closer. I let him, and his face dips towards mine. His eyes, almost closed, send a flutter through my chest.

Our lips meet once… twice… I touch his cheek gently, stopping him from deepening the kiss.

“You said you wouldn’t touch me again,”

He makes a face, like he couldn’t help it.

I start pulling away from the embrace, and reluctantly, he lets me go.

“I’ll go draw your bath.” He says.

“You’re not serious.”

“Why not?”

This is met with an incredulous look. He doesn’t seem to be backing down. “Do you even have any foam bath? Because I’m not going to let you ogle me through the water.”

“No,” he admits.

“Do you have an old T-shirt or something?” I start, “And not one of those thin white ones either…”

*

I lift one sleek leg out of the tub, admiring my work. It was only because I had shaved my legs this morning; and the water felt magical against my skin. I hadn’t stopped at my knees either; I went all the way up my thighs.

“You can come in now,” I call, lowering my leg.

The door opens, and I sink down lower, keeping my eyes down.

Aidan settles at my feet, sitting parallel to me on the white and eggshell-blue streaked tiles. The bathtub is quite old-fashioned; so the tub is one of those big, porcelain-white affairs set low into the ground.

Aidan filled it so high it was probably an affront to Blantyre Water Board’s efforts to minimise water wastage. I was afraid that when I sank into it, the water would cascade over the sides and make a puddle of his bathroom. But it only came up to around my neck when I sank down; and my shoulders peeked out like two hills on an island at sea.

I hear music coming in from the bedroom. And tilt my head.

“Is that my playlist?” I ask, finally looking up at him. It’s the slow dance/romance one. He chuckles, and failing to suppress a smile, I say “You’re so corny.”

“It’s your Playlist.”

“Whatever,” I murmur. I drop my gaze to watch my fingers moving through the water. I feel him looking at me, so I look up again. “This is weird.”

“What?”

“This!” I flick a drop of water at him playfully, and he ducks. “I’m almost naked in a bathtub and you’re just sitting there.”

“You want me to get in there with you?” he teases.

“No.” I say quickly. There probably wouldn’t be room anyway.

“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever been jealous about?” he asks, finally.

I laugh. Racking my brain. “God, I don’t know. That’s a weird question…” I sigh. “My roommate Lisa has this huge towel,” I sneak a glance at him. “I mean huge. Acres and acres of fabric… you could probably use it as a blanket in a pinch. I saw one like it once when I went shopping with my mum; all she said when she saw it was why would you want such a huge towel?” I stop. I don’t want to explain to him about the skin which had started to peek through the sides of my regular-sized towels. “What about you?”

“Will.” He responds. “When you said he had a beauty spot you wanted to lick.”

I smile softly to myself, pleased he’s jealous.

“For you it’s your teeth,” I admit, unable to meet his gaze. “The two front ones – I think about those biting my lip when we kiss-” I break off, the words dying in my mouth.

Aidan has slipped a hand into the tub. He brings it to rest on my left leg. His fingers move lightly over the skin, inching closer to my thigh… and then moving back the way they came.

I look at him. His eyes follow the path of his hand. I start to remind him about keeping his hands to himself.

“I thought-”

“-I know.” He intercepts. “I’m usually a man of my word.”

I look at Aidan.

“Don’t you care that I’m fat, Aidan?” I blurt.

Most people had come to synonym-ise the word “fat” with the word “ugly”, and would indulge in some vehement head shaking at the very mention of the word. At times I found that even I had fallen into this trap, and now wondered if Aidan did too. Maybe he’ll gasp unconvincingly and insist that I’m not fat at all.

On the other hand, he could be one of those people who fetishized bigger women. This, I felt, would be equally disappointing.

He looked at me. “No.” he said simply. “I don’t care.”

“Why not?” I breathe.

“I just don’t care.” He studies me for a minute. “I care that you’re beautiful,” he murmurs. “I care that you’re sexy and funny and sarcastic. I care that you’re pensive and bold and sweet. I care that you’re peculiar.”

I allow myself a little smile at the last word, because he’s only teasing.

(I hope.)

“But I don’t care about your size.”

I hadn’t considered that he just wouldn’t care at all; that he’d acknowledge it and just not take it into account. I feel my smile growing, as warmth spreads through my cheeks.

“I’m not bold, Aidan,” I insist, in a small voice. “I’m scared. All the time… about everything and I don’t know what I’m doing.” I wasn’t even sure if I liked myself.

“You do it anyway,” he explains. “That’s what makes you bold.”

For a moment, I let myself sit there and enjoy the view afforded from the high place I sat in Aidan’s esteem. And then I remember “The Thing” and sigh.

“Okay?” he asks, sounding concerned. I rearrange my face into a smile, not willing to let my thoughts ruin this day.

“I think I just want to get out. The water’s getting warm and my fingers have started to prune.”