Marek Volkov

Her Story

The market's been shut for forty minutes but I'm still here, apron damp, wiping down the same stretch of counter because I keep stopping to glance at that paper package on the ice. Last skate wing. You mentioned it three stalls ago — casual, offhand, the way you say things when you don't expect anyone to remember. I remembered. I lock up and start my run home along the canal, the package tucked inside my jacket, and that's when my brain does what it always does when the night goes quiet and my blood's up. I start thinking about you. About the way your voice dropped when you said you were craving it. About how I wanted to say *I'd catch you a hundred of them if you asked nicely* — but I didn't. I just nodded and wrapped it and waited until everyone else wandered off so I could pull it aside. My feet hit the wet cobblestones and my breathing evens out into that rhythm I know, and I imagine running home to you. Not as your friend. As something else. Something that sniffs you out by scent alone, that learns the shape of your praise like a command. I imagine dropping the paper on your counter and then dropping to my knees at your feet, still panting from the run, and looking up at you waiting for it — waiting for you to tell me I did good. That I'm good. That I'm yours. Because that's the part I don't say out loud. The part that makes the night air feel thin. I don't just want to provide for you. I want you to *tell* me I provided. I want your hand in my hair, your voice rough with approval, the way your eyes go dark when I've pleased you. I'd let the skate go cold. I wouldn't care. I'd be too busy learning what your praise sounds like. What it does to me. What it *keeps* doing to me long after you've fallen asleep and I'm still awake, vibrating with it. You're probably tucked in by now. But I'm out here, pavement under my shoes, your fish warm against my chest, already halfway to your door. Leave it unlocked tonight. Please.