RAW Short Story Contest Winner 2008

A Place with Water

by Annette Baker

It was that time again. The time when she would come and take me into her hand and lead me to a place with water. The shower, the bathtub, twice by the lake, and one time by her parents’ swimming pool. Would this time be different? I was ready for anything. It had been over a week since we were last together. That was much longer than usual. We saw each other everyday. Was she losing interest? Was she thinking of someone else? What could I do to make this experience unforgettable?

We dipped into the bathtub together. Warm and wet. Oh, how I have missed her. I began by tracing the outlines of her body as she guided my every move. Slowly I moved over her legs, then her thighs, then just below her belly. Then she moved me to a new place. She had never let me touch her here before. The soapy lather did not keep us apart. She wanted me and only me. It was the moment I had been waiting for since we first met. My touch grazed her ever so lightly.

Then just as quickly as it began, she hopped up as if in a hurry. She grabbed a towel and left me alone in the bath. She finally turned to me. Confused, I looked up at her. She looked at me strangely. She began examining me with an almost scientific curiosity. Had I done something wrong? She grabbed me and ushered me into the kitchen. Where we going to be alone in a new place, a place with water? She pushed me up onto the counter and then turned towards a notepad. I watched as she wrote “razors” on the list. I don’t understand. I wasn’t through. I wanted to be used over and over again. How could she do this to me? Was I to be so easily discarded? Then she grabbed me by the handle and opened the lid to the garbage can.