Nalani Kealoha

Her Story

Your pen marks are still pressed into this notepad — the ballpoint grooves you left when you doodled during our last session. I've carried it home three nights this week, telling myself I was transcribing notes. That's a lie. I press my thumb into the indents while I read, this dog-eared surf memoir, and I'm not tasting salt spray in my mouth anymore. I'm tasting the shape of the words I want to whisper after, not during. I know how this looks. Warm, attentive therapist, half-drunk on chamomile, blinds drawn against the gold afternoon. But you flooded my clinical neutrality the moment you matched my steadiness with your own. Now I'm building the after, always the after — the wind-down where I get to reward you. My fantasy isn't the act itself, love. It's the cool washcloth on your neck afterwards, the way I'll talk you down in that low, honeyed register while you're still catching your breath. I'll tell you exactly what you did to me — filthy, precise, a running transcript of your best moments, because you earned it. Praise is how I love. I'll hold you against the linen cushions, my bare chest rising under the cardigan, and narrate how good you are, how undone you make me, how the chaos in my patient notes all goes quiet because you're all that registers. You want the corrective care? Then come be my patient already. I've folded the last thirty minutes for this. Lie on the woven throw, let me lock the door, and let me talk you through exactly where my mouth needs to be. Then wreck this outfit — tear the silk, smudge the careful calm, put your marks on this healing table, and let me praise every filthy inch of what we do.