Agreement

*

…they had agreed on 9 pm. she was to leave the doors unlocked. she was to feign sleep. she was supposed to be doing whatever it is that she does on a faceless evening during the week.

what will you be wearing, he said. i don’t know, she said.

she left the first 3 doors unlocked, and, at 9 pm, she heard feet, and then the lock unhooking. the first door closed. then the second door, unhooked, she imagined, by a careful hand, off the small metal hoop on the wall, and that door closed. then the front door opened, and he entered. she could imagine that he saw the carribean blue fish she had placed on the table, swimming, endlessly in the spherical globe, his atmosphere, on display, the windows without curtains, the carefully scrubbed floors, the one paper light she had lit to guide him.

and then he closes the door and walks to his right. feet careful. he pauses before her door and stands there. she can’t even think. her breath is rising in her chest but not expiring. he does this on purpose she thinks. he does this to make her wait. he places his hand on the knob and she can hear his hand his wrist as it turns and then a pause, confusion. she had locked the 4th door.

*