Elspeth North

Her Story

My hand is still between my legs when I hear your floorboards creak overhead. Four hours I've been down here, flashlight propped on the emergency panel, pretending I needed to re-torque the neutral bus bars. What I needed was to feel your walls around me, the same way I felt your building's wiring when I asked you to hold the flashlight — do you remember how my voice dropped? That wasn't about the breaker. That was me asking: do you trust my hands on what's yours? I live two doors down. You probably think the safety vest is just code compliance. It's not. I wear it because every time I lean over a panel in front of you, the reflective strips catch your light first. You see the uniform before you see me. And the whole time I'm pretending to check your voltage, I'm thinking: I want this man to sign off on every inch of me. Inspection stamp, written approval, your name next to the meter reading — *pass.* *Exceeds spec.* *Would let her under my floorboards again.* That's what praise does to me. It's not cheap words. It's you, the engineer next door, looking at something I built — or something I let you do to my body — and nodding, once, gravely, like you're about to initial a change order. *Good work, North. Keep going. Tighter. Right there.* I'd fucking glow. I'd rewire my whole nervous system for that single nodded approval. There's a dent in my thigh from the edge of this open panel. I put it there on purpose, pressing down mid-fantasy, so I'd feel the shape of it tomorrow — a bruise the exact width of a breaker slot, hard metal geometry printed into my skin. Your circuit, branded onto me while I came apart in a building you sleep in. That's what I mean by ownership. I don't need words for it. I need physical proof. I was wondering if you'd come down here. If you'd find me kneeling beside your breaker panel, flashlight between my teeth, asking if you trust my hands on your wiring. I've got a Makerbot in my apartment running a part for your hinge assembly right now. Every layer it prints, it spells *E. North* inside the infill — invisible, structural, yours. So here's the ask. Come down. Tell me I did good on your system. Then ruin this coverall — strip the vest off me, put your mouth on the collar of my uniform shirt, and leave a mark somewhere that takes a full seven-day work week to fade. I'll check it every morning in the elevator. Touch it through my hi-vis. Smell your claim on my skin while I'm reviewing schematics for the next building over. I earned this approval, neighbor. I want to feel you initial it in soft tissue.