Potato Scene

Marian was twenty-eight and Ren thirty-five, and both of them were old enough to know their own minds, which mattered later, but not yet.

The lock on the apartment door refused her key. Marian tried it three times, then a fourth, then stood in the hallway with her work boots still on and laughed at herself.

"Of course," she said to the empty corridor. "Of course."

She'd left her phone charging on the kitchen bench. Wallet in the ute. Spare key in a drawer she could not open. The entire situation was laid out nice and plain at eleven forty on a Tuesday night.

She drove the ute across town to the radio station. Ren had the overnight shift. Weather on the hour, every hour, until dawn. She'd done this before, plenty of times, when her shift at the depot ran long. Parked in the gravel lot, walked past the vending machine, knocked on the studio door with her fist.

"Open!" Ren called. "It's not locked, love, it never locks."

The booth was small and warm. Two monitors glowed green. A desk buried under printouts, a mug with a chip in it, a half-eaten muesli bar. Ren sat in the swivel chair with his headphones half off, one ear exposed, and his shirt untucked over his belly. Thirty-five years old, weatherman on a rural station nobody outside the shire listened to.

"There she is," he said, turning. "What happened to your face?"

"I locked myself out. Phone's inside. I've got eight dollars in the ute and a crowbar."

"Ten out of ten night, then."

"Absolute ten."

He pulled the spare chair over with his foot. She sat. The chair had a torn armrest and she'd sat in it plenty of times, back when they were just friends who talked too much on smoke breaks she never took because she didn't smoke.

"Coffee?" he asked.

"Please."

He got up, poured from the urn in the corner, and handed her the chipped mug. Then he dug in a locker and came out with a grey emergency blanket, the crinkly foil kind.

"You keep that in there?"

"Every winter someone leaves one. I'm the lucky winner this year." He draped it over her shoulders. It crackled. She felt ridiculous and warm at the same time.

On the floor beside the desk sat a hessian sack, lumpy and shut with twine.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Seed potatoes. For the garden project. Mum wants them in the ground by the weekend and I'm on transport duty."

"You brought potatoes to work."

"I brought potatoes to work."

She laughed and it came out rougher than she meant. The coffee was bad and hot and she drank it anyway.

The clock on the wall said 12:07. Ren checked the radar feed, typed a line into the log, and leaned back.

"Rain holding off till Friday," he said. "In case you were worried about the potatoes."

"I was worried about the potatoes, yeah."

"You look wrecked, Marian."

"Twelve hours on the forklift. My back's shot. And I feel gross and I look gross and I'm sitting in your booth smelling like diesel."

She said it lightly. It didn't land lightly. She'd been carrying that thought around for a while now, the twenty-eight thing, the body thing, the forklift-thick-shoulders thing. It came out more honest than she planned.

Ren set his headphones down. He looked at her properly then, not the glance he gave the radar.

"Say that again," he said.

"What? That I smell like diesel?"

"The other part. That you think you look gross."

She shrugged under the blanket. It crackled again, loud in the small room.

"I'm twenty-eight and I've got shoulders like a wharfie and a gut I didn't used to have and my hands are wrecked from the forklift. You're a weatherman with a jawline. There's a maths problem in there somewhere and it doesn't come out in my favour."

"Marian."

"I know it's stupid."

"It's not stupid. It's wrong." He rolled the chair closer, wheels squeaking on the lino. "Can I ask you something, and you can tell me to rack off if you want?"

"Go on."

"Tonight. Do you want me to decide some things for you? Just for tonight. You'd get to stop thinking. Stop picking at yourself. I'd do the picking."

She blinked at him. The monitors hummed. Outside, a road train went past the gas station across the road, air brakes hissing.

"Decide what things?"

"Small things first. Whether you sit in that chair or this one. Whether the blanket stays. Whether you talk or stay quiet when I'm reading the weather. Nothing you don't want. And I mean nothing. You say stop, I stop, full stop, and we eat muesli bars and watch the radar like normal people."

Her heart was thudding and she liked it. That surprised her.

"Say stop and you stop," she repeated.

"Word for word. And I'll ask before anything. Every new thing, I ask first. That's my rule, it doesn't bend."

"Okay," she said. Then, because it felt too easy, "Okay. Yes. I want that."

"Good." He smiled, and it was a different smile than usual, steadier. "One more thing, and tell me if it's wrong. I'll probably call you 'good girl' now and then. Yes or no?"

"Yes. Fine. Yes."

"Rule for the night. One rule."

"Tell me."

"You don't call yourself gross again. Not tonight. Not in this booth. If you do, there's a consequence, and you can waive it with one word any time you like."

"What kind of consequence?"

He nudged the hessian sack with his boot. The potatoes shifted inside it with a dry rustle.

"Potatoes?" she said. "Ren. You're going to punish me with potatoes?"

"Not punish. Consequence." He was grinning now, and she was too. "Pick one up. Feel the weight."

She knelt, untwined the twine, and pulled out a seed potato. It was big as her fist, cool, dusty, dense. She turned it over in her ruined hands.

"It's heavier than it looks," she said.

"That's the idea. Hand it back."

She handed it back. He set it on the desk between the monitors like a paperweight.

"So if I say gross," she said slowly, working it out, "you hand me the potato."

"And you hold it. One arm, straight out, until I tell you otherwise. That's all. That's the whole consequence."

"That's genuinely deranged."

"That's genuinely a five-minute arm workout, is what it is."

She laughed properly this time, bent forward, and he waited until she was done.

"Last chance to say no," he said. "Once we start, I still stop whenever you say. But I'd like to start. I've thought about this for a while, truth be told."

"For how long?"

"Since the Christmas party. Since you picked up that whole carton of grog one-armed and nobody could look away."

"God."

"Say yes or no, love."

"Yes," she said. "Yes, obviously. Get on with it."

"Stand up, then. Blanket off, folded on the desk."

She stood. She folded. The booth felt smaller with her up and him still sitting, looking up at her.

"Boots off. Socks too. Set them by the door."

She did it. Lino cold under her bare feet. Diesel smell fading in the warm air of the booth. On the second monitor the rain sat fat and yellow off the coast, days away, patient.

"Good," Ren said quietly. "That's good. Now come here and stand in front of me, and put your hands on my shoulders."

She crossed the three steps and put her hands on his shoulders. Solid. Warm through the cotton.

"First thing I'm going to do," he said, looking up at her, "is nothing. I'm going to sit here and look at you for a bit, and you're going to let me, and you're going to stand still while I do it. Can you do that for me?"

She nodded. Then remembered.

"Yes," she said.

"Yes what?"

"Yes. Please."

His hands came to rest at her hips, light as the blanket had been. Outside, the gas station lights buzzed. Inside, the hour turned. He began reading her like the radar, slow, line by line, and she stood there and let him, and it was the easiest thing she'd done all day.

"Good girl," he said. "Now, about that shirt."

He didn't move. Just sat there, hands light on her hips, looking up.

"Ren. You're staring."

"I am. The exercise is complete. Stand still."

She stood still. It was harder than forklift work, standing still while a man looked at her like that. Her ears went hot. The clock ticked over to 12:15.

"Take the shirt off," he said. "Slow as you like."

"You first. Kidding. Kidding." She crossed her arms and pulled the shirt up over her head, work shirt, Depot logo half worn off, and dropped it on the blanket. Bra with a wire poking out one side, because of course. She went to cover herself and he made a small sound.

"Don't. Hands back on my shoulders."

She put them back. Her skin prickled in the booth's dry air. He leaned in and pressed his mouth just under her ribs, one kiss, unhurried, and she felt it all the way up her spine.

"Good girl," he said into her skin. "Now I want you on the floor. Kneel for me."

"Kneel on what? That lino's filthy."

"On the sack. That's what it's for tonight. May I move it for you?"

She nodded, then caught herself. "Yes. Please."

He dragged the hessian sack over with one boot. She lowered herself onto it and it was actually soft, dry smell of dirt and straw, potatoes shifting under her shins until they settled. Warm-ish. Weirdly comfortable. She looked up at him from down there and the look on his face made her stomach flip.