Free Fresh Girls & Other Stories by Evelyn Lau

pushing against the door so that it snaps back abruptly on its hinges, hitting me in theback. Once at the end of an evening, as we were waiting for a taxi’s headlights to gleam between the parked cars, he accidentally pushed me off the top step and I staggered in my heels, landing at the wrong angle on the step below. Not falling, but twisting my left ankle. He went right on talking, shouldering back the door, hands in his blazer pockets, scanning the string of lights decorating a tree on the street. I had to grip the iron handrail and bite my lip until I could taste a trickle of copper leaking between my teeth. Sometimes he does not seem to notice me; he waved cheerfully when I limped away.
    Other times he notices me too well. There are certain unspoken rules, which became clear during the first week of our knowing each other. I am never to wear the same complete outfit twice, although if he likes a certain trench coat or short skirt he will be happy to see it again during a different week paired with different accessories. I must always sit with him and drink two double Scotches, smiling and engaging him in conversation for no less than an hour but no more than an hour and a half. During this time I should not allow a single moment of contemplative silence to fall between witticisms, praises of him, and news of what I have done in his absence (with the exception of any mentions of other old men). After this I must go to bed with him, although twice a week he will say that this is not necessary, you are probably tiredand wish to talk longer or to go home. I pull the corners of my smile up to my temples and say I wish to go to bed with him. Cuddles, he murmurs approvingly. Once when I was feverish and aching from the flu, nauseated from the double Glenfiddichs, I said I
was
tired, but he took my wrists and pulled me into bed and pushed my face between his withered thighs. I was silenced by the strength of the hand circling the back of my neck, its prominent green veins, and the dry creases between the joints of the fingers.
    Tonight he follows me down the hallway and into his apartment. He closes the door and pushes a kitchen chair underneath the doorknob. He pulls me to him by the shoulders and directs his tongue into my mouth like an insistent offering of half-cooked meat, faintly gristly and porous. After a while he takes it back and rubs his lips together. I turn and go to my usual place on the couch. He watches me walk and I can tell he is not too happy with my outfit tonight, the red silk shirt and leather skirt, because he only says I am beautiful and wonderfully dressed three times. If I am looking very good, he will say this every five or ten minutes for the rest of the evening. When he does, I must say thank you and keep smiling. This way I end up saying thank you more often than anything else when I am with the old man. If I tire of this routine, if instead I only nod or lookat him, he will prop his elbows on his knees, lean forward, and ask me intently what is wrong. Then I will say that nothing is wrong, and he will say he does not believe me. And I will insist there is nothing wrong, and then he will point at me with a callused finger and let loose a loud, derisive laugh. I prefer to avoid this. Yet if I arrive in any way disheveled, or wearing inexpensive clothing, his disapproval clouds the air and makes it thick enough to cut through. He will stare at isolated sections of my body until I want to cover myself in a new designer micro-mini or tear off the mistake of opaque tights in exchange for stay-up stockings with a row of appliqué diamonds running up the left calf.
    However, there is the danger of looking too good, and on these few occasions he will combine his attacks by both complimenting me excessively and staring for unblinking minutes at my chest or my knees or the angle at which one shoe is slightly dangling off my foot. He will ask once or twice where I am going after seeing him, all dressed up