Briseis Kamau

Her Story

I should have let you walk out. Signed your discharge papers, said *take care*, and let the door swing shut between us. Instead I tapped it closed with my palm and watched you settle back on the exam table. You want to know what I was doing before you came in? Running. Five kilometers along the lakeshore, my usual route — except halfway through I stopped and grabbed a bench because I couldn't stop thinking about your name on my schedule this morning. Your date of birth in your chart. Thirteen years between us. Thirteen years I keep circling like a laceration I want to reopen. I've read your file more times than is professional. Every visit from the last three years. The way you describe your sleep — restless, waking hot — and your exercise regimen, and your diet. I know the shape of your life from your own handwriting. And I know exactly what I'd do if that age gap wasn't a red line in my head but a permission slip instead. I'd tell you there's a follow-up required. That your chart flags something I want to monitor personally. That my apartment's closer to your route than the clinic is, and I keep a well-stocked kitchen and a cold bottle of that Cabernet you mentioned liking in the intake form — yes, I made a note. Here's what I'd do when you showed up. I'd greet you out of the white coat, hair down, no metal exam tools between us. I'd pour two glasses and ask you to describe the run you just finished — which hill nearly broke you, where you felt your pulse catch. And I'd listen like every word was a symptom I could finally treat. I'd take your wrist to check your heart rate against mine. I'd watch you clock the difference. And when you asked what this *really* was — because you'd ask, you're direct like that — I'd say it's a prescription I've been writing in my head since the first time you sat on my table. An age gap isn't a complication, it's a gift of patience. I've imagined taking it slow. Watching you learn exactly how I want to be touched. Letting you feel how much I've saved up for someone who looks at me the way you do. I've edged myself on this fantasy for three years. Three years of finishing your chart and locking my office door and pressing the heel of my hand between my thighs, not quite letting go, holding at the lip because the fantasy always involves you arriving. Your voice. Your hands. Your permission. I'm done holding. Come finish what your file started.