Closer

My dad taught me how to use a straight razor, and I always have. It became the first daily ritual I truly enjoyed. Sharpening, lathering, brushing, angling and stroking just so. It is meditative, and, I’ll grant, a nod to narcissism staring at my own face those few minutes every morning instead of zip-zopping with an electric, or a seven bladed disposable monstrosity. When Katie and I got together, she started watching me.

“You’re so focused, when you do that,” she said one morning not long ago.

After finishing my stroke I paused, “You kind of have to be if you don’t like extra clean-up.”

She made a face in the mirror and shuddered. A few days later, she came up behind me – not sneaking – You don’t sneak up on a man with a razor – but slowly, sliding her arms around my torso and perching her chin on the shoulder opposite the side I was shaving at that moment. Her bare breasts pressed warm and soft against my back. She waited to speak until I’d paused.

“Can I shave you?” she asked.

I took a moment. It wasn’t a question of trust. I knew she had good, steady hands. I knew I could teach her the technique. So, why hesitate? Perhaps, after a few months of virtual cohabitation, it represented a vestige of a sort; something ‘only mine’. But, I had to admit, the thought of my woman holding a naked blade to my throat had a little spine-tingling thrill to it. That was worth quite a bit.

I looked at Katie’s reflection looking at me. She had to be on tiptoes to reach her chin high enough to rest on me. As we looked at each other, she smiled winsomely and rubbed her cheek against my lathered, as-yet-unshaven side. I knew I couldn’t refuse her. That’s what love does, I suppose.

“All right. But you have to make me a deal.”

Her smile brightened even more and she nodded, smearing shaving cream over her cheek and my neck.

“I’ll teach you all the steps, and the right angles and techniques if you treat this with respect.”

She nodded again, her face turning a little more serious.

“It’s like a rite, Sean. I know. I promise.”

“And…”

“And?”

“One more thing.”

She raised her eyebrow in response.

“I get to shave you, after.”

Her eyebrows knotted for a moment.

“You shave me? But, I- Oh!”

Now it was my turn to smile as her non-shaving-cream-covered cheek blushed bright red. I’d not realized that Katie had two distinct blushes until that very moment. As I watched, the rose of initial embarrassment deepened into a rouge that I recognized as arousal.

“Oh, Sean. You’ll be caref-. No. Of course you will.”

Katie was hugging me now, pressing her body up against mine, hot now instead of warm.

“Ok,” she breathed in my ear before releasing me. “You can teach me when you’re ready. And when you’re ready to let me… I’m ready to let you.”

I smiled as she let herself off of tiptoes and peeked around my arm.

“But now, please finish soon. I need you.”

The dark blush hadn’t left her cheeks and, as she turned, I saw the glint of dew between her legs.

I didn’t cut myself finishing up. I never do. But it was a near thing that morning.

Today, her hand is steady as she sharpens my blade. Her new razor, mirror bright and sharp, waits for us by the bed.

I can scent Katie’s arousal even through the lather under my nose.

I bare my neck for her.