Page 59 of The Rules of Playing with Fire

“Is that your roundabout way of telling me to shut up and allow you to care for me?” I asked.

“Well, partly,” she said with a tilt of her head. “But you need to learn how to receive and not make a big deal of it. You must learn to find joy in receiving.”

I picked up the wine and nodded for her to get her glass. “Then here’s to new learnings and new beginnings,” I said, clinking them.

She smiled her demure smile, and my brain lost all purpose.

“Which one are you?” I asked, slicing into my oversized burger again.

She picked up a fry from the poutine on her fork. “I used to be a giver, but learned to be a gracious receiver.”

“Good,” I said and winked at her. “Because you’ll be doing a lot of receiving this weekend.”

She gasped and hit my arm. “But you’ve got to enjoy receiving too,” she said and bit into her sandwich before I could pester her to elaborate.

Alright, I could be convinced to be at the receiving end. I could potentially be happy to receive. Especially, when the giver was the woman of my dreams. I was willing to be cared for. Damn, Sona! My heart thudded.

“Is the poutine any good?” I asked as I watched her relish it.

“It’s excellent!” she said between bites, then offered me some. The poutine was exceptional indeed, drizzled with just a hint of truffle oil. When she caught me watching her, she slowed down. “Did I smear gravy on my face?”

She picked up the cloth napkin by her plate and wiped her mouth as I shook my head.

“I’m just admiring you,” I said, and she blushed. Her shy eyes drew to the table, and a coy smile appeared on her face.

“Don’t,” she said, looking up at me. “Let me eat my food in peace.”

“Well, you didn’t let me eat you in peace. I’m merely returning the favor.”

Her face flushed, and my tired cock came alive again.

“You are so fucking exciting, Sona!” Then it struck me. “You never swear or curse, do you?”

That made her look back up at me. Her lips parted to say something, but she turned her gaze to her plate again and shook her head. “Not when I can avoid it, which is most of the time.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and her soft eyes returned to my face. “Let’s finish our food. That cake is waiting.” As she elegantly picked up some poutine on her fork again, I said, “And then you can tell me all about the asshole who hurt you.”

MIHIR

“Assholes. Plural,” she said as we sat on the bed, waiting until our full bellies were ready for cake.

“How many?”

“Two.”

“That’s two more than one should encounter in a lifetime.”

“My first boyfriend was a star of the department, a gold medalist. I was in my second year of undergrad; he was a second-year Ph.D. student. I was so enamored, I missed out on all the cues of his controlling and abusive tendencies.”

“How bad was it?”

“It was emotional abuse, so no visible scars,” she said with an uncomfortable laugh. “Like, he insisted I miss my classes or asked me to change my dinner plans with friends. When we’d go out to eat, he’d order for me without asking. Once, when I called him out for it, he said he just assumed I’d love anything he chose for me. I stayed, because he was smart and extremely charming. I chalked up his erratic behavior to his brilliance. All smart people are a little eccentric, I thought. In my defense, I was naïve.”

She paused.

“One day, he returned from a conference very upset. Apparently, his presentation hadn’t gone too well. He had failed to defend his argument convincingly during the Q&A. Being a good girlfriend, I tried to console him. I said these things happen, and that maybe he could work with his adviser to make his argument stronger. That’s when he lost it. He belittled my intellect, the one thing I am extremely proud of. He asked me to stay in my lane. It’s not like I knew anything about research, he said. Then he ridiculed me for choosing political science and geography as my majors because he claimed I wasn’t smart enough for either. ‘But then again, you don’t need to ace anything, do you? You can afford to coast and join the fucking armed forces,’ he spewed. For all my martial arts training and cadet prowess, I wasn’t prepared for that kind of mental and emotional insult.”

Her glazed eyes focused on me.

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