The line under his trousers and the mortgage call

I laid the thong on his ironed shirt. Black, thin, a strip of lace in front. He came out of the shower, saw it and stopped with the towel in his hands.

“You’re wearing this today. To your parents’.”

“Under my trousers?”

“Where else.”

We go to his parents once a month, on a Sunday, for soup and cutlets. There he is a son: he talks to his father about the car, listens to his mother about her blood pressure, sits in his place by the window. I didn’t pick that day by accident. At home it is easy for him to be mine — nobody is watching. I wanted to see what he would be like where he has to keep a straight face.

He put it on in front of me. The lace lay over the steel — he has worn the cage for three years now, and under the thin fabric the lock showed at once, like a pebble in a sock. I stepped in, took the string at the back between two fingers and pulled it up until it sat tight. He breathed out through his nose.

“Trousers.”

Under the trousers nothing shows. Only I knew he now walked a little differently — a shorter step, a straighter back.

In the car he asked, eyes on the road:

“What if they notice?”

“Who? Your mother looks at the plates, your father at the television. The only one who can notice is me. And I will.”

He nodded and said nothing more until we got there. At the lights I watched him shift in his seat and didn’t help.

At the table

In the lift he stood at the mirror and fixed his collar. I wasn’t looking at the collar; I was looking at him shifting from foot to foot.

“Stand still.”

He froze. The doors opened.

At his parents’ everything was as always: the checked tablecloth, the television with the sound off, his father in the armchair, his mother with the ladle. We sat side by side, he by the window, me on his left. For the first half hour I didn’t touch him. Let him get used to the chair, to the talk, to his mother asking about work and him answering while the lace reminded him, with every word, who had put him there.

Then I put my hand on his knee under the tablecloth. Didn’t squeeze — just put it there. He went on talking to his father about winter tyres, but finished the sentence half a tone higher.

When his mother went for the main course I got up to help, and on the way back I passed behind his chair and, as if straightening his shirt, hooked a finger round the string above his waistband. Pulled it up a centimetre. He put his fork down.

“Why are you sitting so straight?” his mother asked, setting down the plate. “Your back?”

“I’m fine, Mum.”

Steady voice. Red ears. She didn’t notice: she had the cutlets to think about.

After the main course his father called him to move the chest of drawers in the bedroom: “Your mother’s been asking for a month.” He got up and I followed — to stand in the doorway. The chest was heavy. He crouched, took hold, lifted, and I could see in his face what the string was doing with every step. His father gave orders: “Left. More.” My husband carried and obeyed his father, and looked at me. When they set it down I said, “Good boy,” and his father took it as meant for him.

The call

Over tea his phone rang. The bank, about the mortgage: we had been waiting a month for an answer on the rate. He apologised and went out into the hall. I gave it a minute and followed — to get my phone from my coat, if anyone asked.

He stood by the coat rack with his back to me, talking in his grown-up voice: term, percentage, documents by Friday. The voice men in suits use. I came up behind him, slid my hand under his belt and took the string in my fist.

He didn’t falter. He said “yes, I understand”, he said “that works for us”. I held on and listened. I liked how it sounded together: a mortgage rate and lace pulled tight by my hand.

“Keep your voice,” I said into the back of his head, very quietly.

He heard the man out, thanked him, hung up and stood for a minute without turning round.

“Approved,” he said.

“I heard. You spoke well.”

I let go of the string, smoothed his shirt down at the back and went back to my tea first.

With the tea his mother brought out a pie and gave him a double slice: “Eat, you’ve got thin.” He ate. Under the table I ran my foot along his ankle and watched him chew more slowly.

In the hall, saying goodbye, she hugged him hard, the way you hug a son, and her palm landed exactly where the string was under his shirt. He didn’t flinch. I stood with my coat in my hands and thought: she is hugging her son, and letting go of mine.

Home

In the car he didn’t undo his belt, though I saw he wanted to. At home, in the hall, he reached for the buckle — I said, “Wait.” I took off my shoes, hung up my coat, then came over and undid it myself. Trousers down. The lace in front was dark with sweat, the string at the back had cut into the skin and left a line. The steel under the fabric was warm.

“Stay like that.”

He stood in the hall in his shirt and my thong, looking at the wall. I walked round him, looked at the line at the back, ran my finger along it.

“Three hours. Your mother, your father, the bank. And nobody knew whose you are.”

“When they called, I thought I wouldn’t be able to talk.”

“You could.”

I took the thong off him myself and put it in his hands.

“Wash it. By hand, now. It has to be clean for next time.”

“Next time?”

“You’re going to the bank to sign in person. In these.”

He went to the bathroom. I heard the water and I heard him keeping quiet. Then the water stopped and he said through the door:

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For coming out into the hall. I wouldn’t have got through that call alone.”

I didn’t answer. He knew I had heard. I didn’t unlock him that evening: it wasn’t that kind of evening, and he knew it. He made the tea when he came out — with the line from the string still on him; by morning it was gone.

• Pick an evening where he has to keep a straight face: his parents, dinner with friends. At home submission comes too easily.
• One signal every half hour — a hand on his knee, the string, half a sentence. No more: he is thinking about nothing else all evening anyway.
• If a phone call, work, a serious conversation comes up — don’t step back. That is when he feels you are with him even there.
• At home don’t let him undress himself. Take it off him, show him the mark, say out loud how many hours he was yours.
• He washes the underwear himself, by hand. That closes the evening and opens the next one.