The Repair Clause

My name is Barbara and I turned twenty-nine back in March, which I mention because my ex-husband used to say I'd act thirty-five by the time I hit thirty, and here we are, close enough. I run tenant relations at the Bellwood Apartments, which is a fancy way of saying I listen to people complain about parking. I've been divorced a year and a half now and living alone in a one-bedroom in my own building, and I like it fine, mostly.

The tap in my kitchen had been dripping for two weeks. I'd put a towel under it and told myself I'd call maintenance, and then one Tuesday evening I heard a knock and there was Desmond from 1B, the guy who lives in the basement unit here, standing in the hallway with a toolbox because Mr. Albright had sent him over to check the radiator smell I'd put in a work order about. Desmond is twenty-three, works building maintenance for the same company I work for, and I'd seen him maybe six times in eight months, always in the elevator, always looking at his shoes.

"You got a leak too, Mrs. Hollis? Mr. Albright said maybe." He said it to the doorframe more than to me, and I laughed and told him it's Ms, and actually I'm not a Hollis anymore, just Barbara. He went red to the ears.

"Well, since you're here," I said, and stepped aside, and pointed at the kitchen sink like a woman presenting a game show prize. "It's driving me nuts. Drip, drip, drip, all night."

He set the toolbox down on my floor and knelt under the sink with this quiet focus I wasn't expecting. I made myself a plate of leftovers and ate standing up watching him work, which felt a little predatory of me, so I turned on the TV. He had the valve apart in about ten minutes, held up a little rubber washer that had gone flat and crumbly, and showed it to me like evidence.

"That's your whole problem. Five cent part." He said it almost apologetic, like the washer had personally let us both down.

"So I've been listening to a five cent washer ruin my sleep for two weeks. Wonderful." He almost smiled at that. Almost. It was the first thing close to a smile I'd gotten out of him and it did something warm in my chest that I decided not to examine.

He put it all back together, ran the water, checked twice, wiped his hands on a rag he kept folded in the toolbox like a man with habits. I have habits too, I just don't fold them. I got a bottle of red out of the cabinet, mostly because I didn't want him leaving in under a minute and partly because the evening had turned into something and I wanted to see where it went.

"You want a glass? You fixed my sanity, least I can do."

He looked at the bottle, then at the door, then at me, and said okay in a voice about half the size of him. We sat at my little table with the wine and he held his glass with both hands like it might escape. I asked where he learned to fix things and he said his grandfather, and a school shop class, and then he went quiet again, and I let the quiet sit there because pushing him seemed like the wrong move. His knee bumped mine under the table when he shifted, and he froze, and I said it's a small table, relax, and he laughed, actually laughed, one short breath of it.

When I reached to top up his glass our hands met on the stem of it. Just fingers over fingers for maybe two seconds, his hand warm and rough across the knuckles, and neither of us pulled back right away. I looked at him and he looked at me and the whole room got very small and very warm. Then he did pull back, ears going red again, and I topped off my own glass and said nothing, because what was there to say that wouldn't have scared him straight out the fire escape.

What I learned over the next half hour, once the wine loosened that hinge in him, was that Desmond plays violin. Started at eight, his grandfather again, still plays, has an actual instrument in his basement apartment. I nearly fell off my chair. The kid who talks to doorframes plays violin.

"You should play for me sometime. Only if you want to. It's got nothing to do with the washer."

"There's no charge for washers!"

"Right, so it's just a concert. Even better."

He came back Thursday with the violin, actually came back, and played in my living room with his eyes closed most of the time. I sat on my couch with my wine and watched his fingers and thought about his hands under my sink and got warm in places I'd been neglecting for a while. He was twenty-three and shy and I was twenty-nine and divorced and I decided, sitting there listening to him saw through some old piece I didn't know the name of, that if he was going to be shy forever then I'd have to be the one who wasn't.

When he finished I clapped and he flinched and I patted the couch cushion next to me, and put a glass of water in his hand because he'd had half a glass of wine and I wanted him clear. He sat. We were close enough that I could feel the warmth off his arm.

"You know you can kiss me, right. If you want. I'm tenant relations and you're maintenance, I don't sign your reviews, and nothing about your job touches this either way. You'd have to want it, that's the only rule."

He turned and looked at me for what felt like an eternity, working up to something, and then he leaned in and kissed me, careful and a little stiff, and I put my hand on the back of his neck and softened it into something better. His mouth tasted like the wine. He made a small sound when I opened for him and I felt that sound in my whole spine.

I pulled back enough to talk. "Come here. Slow. Nothing happens you don't want, and same for me, we just say it."

He nodded against my mouth. I took my shirt off myself, bra after, and let him look, and he looked, and then I took his hand and put it where I wanted it, over my breast, and his breath went shaky. We undressed him together, me working his buttons while he kissed my shoulder, and he was skinny under the work shirt and hard already and embarrassed about it, and I told him embarrassed looks good on him and he made that laugh again into my hair.

He watched me the way he'd watched the valve under the sink, total focus, and I decided I liked being his repair job. I got him sat back against the cushions and took my jeans off the rest of the way, underwear after, and sat with one leg folded under me so he could see everything, no pretense about it.

"First we do this honest," I said. "Watch me. Then you."

I leaned back against the arm of the couch and let my knees fall open. He made a sound low in his throat when I touched myself, one finger sliding through the wetness first, then up to my clit, small slow circles. I kept my eyes on his face while my hand worked, and his eyes kept dropping to my fingers and coming back up to mine like he couldn't decide. My nipples were hard and I reached up with my other hand and pulled one, and that made his cock jump against his stomach where it was leaking at the tip.

"Touch yourself too," I said. "I want to see it."

He wrapped his hand around himself slow, awkward at first, and then I showed him the