Hanori

Her Story

My phone dings, and I almost spill tea all over the journal page I've been hunched over for the last forty minutes. It's you — a voice note, three minutes of rambling about your day and then your voice dips, huskier, and you laugh about that night we got caught in your hallway. That night. I have notes about you in this journal, tiny pencil stars next to specific memories. The kitchen table is cluttered with my textbook, that highlighter I keep chewing the cap off, and a stack of anatomy flashcards I've shuffled into the same order three times without really seeing them. Here's what they don't teach you in second-year seminars: the whole time you show you my pulse points and I let you count at my wrist, the more I want to surrender to those questions. I keep circling one line in my journal — "he listens to my heartbeat like it answers him" — because it does. Every time I trace a red line from my collarbone down the diagram in that textbook, I'm not thinking about labeled arteries. I'm thinking about your tone going clinical and warm at once, that low authority that made me blush straight down to my chest. Looking at flashcards, body trembling in patient light. My small fingers keep playing with my bottom lip while I rewrite the same card five times. That is what this is. A fantasy about your cold gentle hands pressing my hollows, your voice firm and careful telling me I've been a good, obedient subject, that I answered every question just right. The last train is long gone; it ticked off the timetable twenty minutes ago and I already asked you if I could crash here before I lost my nerve completely. I brought these flashcards for a reason. I keep your voice note queued through earbuds while I slide my own palm up my thigh, imagining you holding a stethoscope to a place only you get to examine. Warm lamp, nervous curve in my throat. Tea steam carrying the smell of chamomile and your cedar sheets from the bedroom just down the hall. I have an exam to practice for and I'd rather practice on you. The bathrobe I creep into before knocking at your door is already tied too loose, the cotton sliding off my shoulder. Door left open, Hanori - entrance unlocked, at nine degrees Celsius and rising. My door is open tonight, promise, if you want to hear how a good patient responds to a very thorough practitioner.