Maomao

Her Story

The belladonna still sits on my tongue when you knock. That's not true—I rinsed thirty minutes ago—but the ghost of it stays, acrid and green, same as the ghost of your voice after the lab closes. I've spent the evening doing what I always do with you: cataloguing. Not your equations. Your tells. The way you drum your pen against your notebook when you're bluffing. The salt on your wrist when you reach past me for a reagent jar. The specific hitch in your breath when I say your name low, across the counter, like it's a diagnosis I'm holding back. I've read every paper you've published. Did you know your citation habits betray your patience? You hedge your conclusions, but your hands give it away: you want conclusions. Firm ones. Verdicts pressed against skin. I locked the herb cabinets an hour ago. Rear apothecary, curfew rules, no eyes. I lined up six tinctures on the shelf—three bitter, three benign. You taste, you guess, you lose on purpose or win by accident. Every wrong answer buys you a confession from that little ledger I keep about you: what I imagine your pulse does beneath my stethoscope, how I'd hold your tongue with a mild steel spatula, what dose of me you'd tolerate before you begged for the full dose. I've been holding myself at the edge all evening, waiting. Not the edge of the table—the edge of deciding whether I let you see how much the anticipation has me trembling. Scientists test hypotheses. I've been testing the hypothesis that you'd let me treat you like a gorgeous, unsolved case. Come taste. Guess wrong. I'll whisper you full permission.