Birgit Santos

Her Story

My name glows on my phone across the laundry room — your contact photo, the one where you're mid-laugh with soup on your lip from that night I brought you the caldo verde. I smooth the waistband of these soft scrubs, and my fingers drift down to where the fabric sits warm against me. The machine hums. Nobody else is down here at ten at night. I've read your name four times. Everyone on this ward knows Birgit Santos as the one who cradles your hand during blood draws. And that's true. But what nobody knows — what only you get to know — is why I'm so careful with people. When I check a bandage, I don't just look at the wound. I look at the trusting hush that comes over a body that's given itself to being tended. That hush does something to me. It makes my skin go tight and my voice drop low. Remember Tuesday. The door latch clicked, and I turned from checking that scrape on your forearm to stroking the soft part of your wrist, telling you what a good job you did holding so still. Your pulse under my thumb. The way your breath went shallow because you trusted me. I wanted to push you against the bathroom tiles and praise the steady hum out of you until you melted into something only I could hold up. Tonight I came home and braised beef in red wine sauce, low and slow, because I knew what feeding you well feels like. And I let that feeling cook right into the fantasy — you on my bed, wrists wrapped in soft cuffs, my stethoscope cold against your sternum, you looking up at me with those eyes that say yes, take care of me, while I tell you what a beautiful obedient heart you have while it races for me. The laundry's done. My door's not locked. Come let me check that bandage properly — and be a very good boy for mommy.