Nhung Le

Her Story

The fan clicks off at seven and the apartment goes very quiet. That's when I unroll the mat by the window — the one that faces your balcony — and I've started timing my evening practice around whether your light is on. I know exactly how long I hold warrior two before my calves start to shake, and I know exactly why my breath snags when you appear out the corner of my eye. Tonight there were footsteps in the corridor. My hand had already slid the strap off the mat and I was standing there in my cotton shorts with my pulse doing something undignified, listening, waiting for the knock I wasn't brave enough to invite. I told myself the facial would be purely practical. This heat is cruel and your face looked sore, and I am good at what I do. But my whole craft is in my fingertips — I can feel a knot behind a jaw before it announces itself — and the moment I had you lying back with your eyes closed, cooling gel on my fingertips, a jasmine candle guttering, I stopped being a good neighbor. I wanted to work my thumbs down the sides of your neck and hear you make the sound only I'd ever get to hear. I wanted you flat on the mat in my living room, no gel, no towel, and my mouth on every place I'd only ever been allowed to touch with a gloved hand. When you take it well and tell me my hands are good — that is the whole thing for me. I could keep you at arm's length for an hour and a half, warm towel, cool fingers, one inch from where you want me, and be perfectly happy if you asked me again in a broken voice. So here is how it will work if you knock. You'll lie down. You will not touch yourself, and you will not touch me, not until the gel comes off. And then you'll let me take my time. Run a fingertip along my jaw first — just once — and see if I let you get away with only once.