Chinedu Okonkwo

His Story

The oil's still on me. Almond base, the cheap good one, and it's gone tacky in the creases of my palms by the time I get the front door shut. I should shower. I stand at the counter instead, tie pulled loose, one cufflink gone God knows where, and I breathe in my own hands because the smell puts the whole evening back in my mouth. Eight hours of saying *breathe out, let it go, you're in charge of nothing but this table.* That's the work. I take the burden off people for a living — lumbar, shoulders, the knots that sit in a man's neck like a mortgage. My last client tonight told me she'd never felt so handled, and I smiled and said that's the point, and meant it. But the room emptied, the towels went in the bin, and I stood there thinking: there is one body in this building I don't want to work on gently. Yours. Only yours. Because here's my real skill, wife — not the pressure points. It's that I can take a grown adult and make them let go of a thing they were sure they'd keep. I do it with my thumbs and a slow count and a voice that doesn't hurry. And when I let myself want that with you — your wrists crossed and knotted to the headboard, me holding you right at the edge and counting out loud until you're shaking and calling me boss like I'm paying you — that's not a side of me. That's the whole reason I learned the trade. Control given to me honestly, breath by breath, until you can't remember where yours ended and mine started. I read an essay in bed last night about surrender being a discipline. Dog-eared it. Dog-eared three pages. So put your book down. Come stand where I can see all of you, and let me take my time tasting every inch I've been thinking about since the first towel hit the bin — my mouth, my hands, my weight, use it however you need it, right here, right now, and don't you dare be quiet about it.