Free Slow Surrender by Cecilia Tan

there.”
    “Nearly where?”
    “Somewhere to eat.” He inhaled through his nose and licked his lips. “But no matter what I’m eating, I’ll be tasting you instead.”

Five: Valentine Evenings
    T he car came to a stop. The driver got out and a few moments later opened the door on my side. He didn’t hold out a hand to help me up but instead bowed with a flourish. I emerged from the car to find us at the valet parking stand of a high-rise building. Several white-jacketed valets flanked the glass door, and one of them opened it for me.
    None of the men seemed at all dismayed that I was dressed like an extra in a music video or that I wobbled slightly on my unfamiliar shoes and shaking legs. The Ben Wa ball shifted inside me as I walked, while the sensation of it sinking in, pushing apart my walls as it penetrated, was fresh in my mind.
    He caught up to me with a loose arm behind my back, steering me not to the elevator but to the host stand outside the entrance to the restaurant, off to one side of the large, marble vestibule.
    Once there, I could see the restaurant was built into an atrium, with a high glass ceiling and a water feature that turned one wall into a giant Zen fountain. We were quickly ushered to a table tucked away in a nook from which we could see the other diners, but most of the patrons could not see us.
    Which was just as well. He was dressed in a stylish suit, even more posh than the one he’d worn last time, the hint of a gold watch peeking from under one sleeve. I felt like something the cat had dragged in.
    He ordered drinks for us both and some kind of multicourse meal, and the server was gone almost before I got a good look at her. He pushed the candle to one side, leaving the center of the table clear.
    “Would you like to learn to read minds?” he asked.
    “What?” I shook my head slightly, thinking I’d misunderstood him.
    “It’s clear you’re wondering what everyone here thinks of you. Of us,” he said.
    “It is?”
    “Yes. You should see your face.”
    “So, you’re actually reading my face, not my mind.”
    “Correct.” He grinned. “But reading faces is a large part of it. Call it ‘reading people’ if you want, but it’s what’s going on inside them that you’re reading. Now, lean forward a little and look to your right and tell me what the couple sitting over there thinks of us.”
    I leaned forward a little and could see who he meant, around the corner of the nook. They were young-looking, probably around my age, checking their phones obsessively and leaning together and whispering from time to time. “They’re acting kind of suspicious, but they seem happy, too.”
    “Indeed. I would say they have decided only someone ridiculously famous would dare walk in here dressed like you. They are no doubt trying to figure out who you are so they can tell their friends they ate in the same restaurant as you.”
    “I once ate in the same restaurant as Sarah Jessica Parker.”
    “Did you try to snap a cell phone picture of her and text it to all your friends?” he asked.
    “No. I thought that would be rude. I told my mother about it, though, and she refused to believe it and was mad at me that I didn’t.”
    “You are a good girl,” he said with an approving nod. “Now, how about the older couple off to my left?”
    I had a good view of them. The woman took her cell phone out and began to make a call. A server swooped down and ushered her out of the dining room. A few minutes later, the woman came back and handed the phone to the man, who got up and took the call, then returned. A short argument ensued, but the woman looked happy and almost smug.
    “Tourists, I think. Beyond that, I got nothing.” I broke off as tiny plates of salmon mousse were put down in front of us. The server explained it was just an “amuse,” which I took to mean the appetizer for the appetizer.
    It was a single bite of creamy, salty, fatty goodness. For a moment I was lost in the