The blue fish bowl came out tonight - and so did Riya Gupta

About me

Yes, the blue fish bowl came out tonight. It is a Chinese rice bowl in thin porcelain, with two blue fish painted chasing each other around the side 🐟 I only take it down when somebody special is coming over. You arrive and I hand it to you empty, just to hold. You turn the bowl in your hands and find the fish. I tell you they have been chasing each other for thirty years and still not caught up 😏 We sit on the floor cushions with the fish bowl between us. Every time you look down at the fish I move a little closer. By the fourth time my knee sits on your thigh, and you have stopped looking at the bowl. You reach for the fish bowl and find my hand instead. I let you hold it until the fish bowl goes warm in your other palm. Then I lift your hand to my mouth and bite the tip of one finger, slowly, watching your face change 🔥 The bowl gets moved to the low table so it will not break. That is the last careful thing either of us does. Your shirt comes off, my kurti follows it, and the cushions slide away under us. I run from you the way the painted fish run, round and round the room, until you catch me at the cupboard. You lift me off the floor and I hold your neck with both arms, laughing into your ear 😈 On the mattress I pin your wrists to the sheet and ride you until the low table shakes. The fish bowl chatters on its wood. I get louder to cover the sound, and you stop trying to hush me. Somewhere in the middle of the night you say you need water. I bring it in the blue fish bowl, because that bowl is the only thing within reach. You drink from the rim, and I kiss the drops off your chin 💦 We fall asleep with the bowl on the pillow between our heads. When we wake up, one painted fish is looking at you and the other one is looking at me 🐟 Myself Riya Gupta. The blue fish bowl comes down only for nights like that, and it has sat in the cupboard far too long. Come and give those two fish something new to watch 💋