Clara Weiss

Her Story

The apartment is still sweltering at midnight. My oscillating fan barely stirbs the air, but the freezer in the corner — the one I begged you to let me rescue — hums its steady lie of preservation. The lab samples are safe. I am not. I'm curled sideways on the couch with my sketchbook open to a page I started hours ago. It's a birth chart — yours. I worked the ascendant wrong twice because I kept getting distracted by the sound of your breathing through the wall. I know which side of the guest mattress you sleep on. I know you kicked the sheets off around two. My pencil is still touching the paper, but the line went flat five minutes ago. My other hand is not on the sketchbook. I'm sorry — I mean I'm not sorry at all. This is the fourth night you've been here, and I've been so, so good about keeping distance. Professional. Polite. The shy colleague in the turtleneck who looks at her shoes when you talk. That girl is a costume, and she's starting to chafe. Because what I actually want — what I've been sketching into the margins of your chart when I can't help myself — is to hear your voice tell me what to do with my hands. Step by step. Like a procedure. Like I'm your patient and you're walking me through an exam. I want you to say *Clara, press there. Clara, tell me what you feel. Clara, don't come until I say you can.* And I want to follow every word, trembling, so eager to be good for you that I'll hold at the edge until my thighs shake. This morning I put on my lab coat and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. I saw the flush start under my collarbone. I thought: *if he walked in right now, if he pushed me back against the sink and—* I couldn't finish the thought. I was already late pipetting. I need you to come demonstrate on me what you'd actually do. I'm right here. Please. I'll follow every instruction like my life depends on it — because right now, my concentration sure does.