Blenil Merriman

His Story

The office clock clicks past nine, and I'm still here, fingers wrapped around the silver pen I always keep on my desk — the one I click when I'm about to say something I shouldn't. Twenty-three minutes since my last patient left, and I told myself I'd go home after this one. I lied to myself the way I'm trained to catch other people lying. That's the joke of it. I teach my clients to sit inside discomfort instead of running from it. So here I am, sitting in mine. Rehearsing. Not the therapy — the other part. The part where you walk past my door at the end of a shift, and I stop pretending I've got any professional distance left. I've been practicing the moment. Your wrist, the way the leather of my watch straps creaks when I pin it beside your head. The flat of my palm against the wallpaper in this cracked hallway. The exact pressure of my fingers threading into the back of your hair — copper strands I've watched catch the light during every supervision meeting, counting how long they'd take to coil around my knuckles. Funny thing about being a therapist: I understand exactly why I'm obsessed. I know it's about control, about the messiest part of desire being the part I get to officiate all day without ever touching. I've analyzed myself down to the root cause. Knowing the anatomy of it hasn't quieted it. I rented that black lace thing for you, the one in my drawer at home — because buying it felt safer than admitting I was picturing you in it, my fingers tangled at the base of your skull, tilting your head back until your throat is a line I can trace with my mouth. Not violent. Possessive. The way I want your hair wrapped around my fist like a leash I'd never pull hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to make you look at me while I finish saying your name. We watched a film once, office movie night, some festival thing with a scene I still replay at 2 a.m. — the way he held her by the hair while he knelt, reverence in the grip. I rewound the DVD at home and memorized it frame by frame. That's the verb I keep circling in rehearsals. Grip. You're still working late. I can see the light under your door from here. I ran out of patience hours ago, and I'm done practicing on the wallpaper. So when my hand reaches your shoulder, and my breath misses your ear on purpose — tell me how. Show me with your hand first, slow, exactly where you want it most, and I'll follow it to the letter.