Queen of Hearts, Servant of Spades
by Anatoly Belilovsky
"I love your hands," she says.
Her date lifts their hand from where it covers hers on the tablecloth between them, stares at it briefly. "Funny you should say that. No one ever noticed my hands before." They lower their hand, squeeze hers briefly. "I am a pilot; I guess I need good hands."
They hold hands on the walk back to her apartment. She imagines her date wrestling a hundred tons of metal across the sky. She feels the strength of her date's hand. She feels like they can walk forever like this, holding hands.
It's less than a mile's walk. "Good night," she says. "I had a wonderful time," she adds, truthfully and with finality.
Her date's expression does not change, but their posture stiffens. "Good night," they say, break hand contact, turn, and walk away.
"I love your hands," she says.
Her date pauses both their speech and their gesticulation, stares at their hand briefly. "I get that a lot," they say. "I volunteer at the shelter, handle dogs and cats all day. My hands are made for holding and petting." The look in their eyes is half self-congratulatory smirk, half leer.
As they walk, her hand feels their possessive, demanding grip, the stiffness at their elbow that demands they walk in step. At her door, she frees her hand from theirs with an effort.
"Good night," she says, and adds a lie: "I had a wonderful time." She opens her door, slips through, and shuts it in their face. The door is thick enough that her date's last words to her are garbled, but the tone is clear enough.
"I love your hands," she says.
"Just my hands?" her date asks.
"That's all I see right now," she says, "other than your face." She pauses, and lies: "I like your face, too." In truth, she does not see their face, except to note it's a face, and its expression which right now is a faraway look, a thousand-yard stare, she can read expressions but faces as such are all the same to her.
"I like your honesty," they say, with just enough irony to make her smile.
They never get around to telling her what they do with their hands, nor reach over to hold hands on the way to her apartment. Halfway there, she touches their hand herself, for the first time in as long as she can remember.
They do not recoil, much.
She holds the door open for them, leads them up the stairs, directly to her bedroom. They wait, standing still, same thousand-yard stare, infinite patience, as she undresses, approaches, leans into an embrace.
