Purnima Rai

Her Story

My fingers find the edge of the medkit before I even know what I'm doing — that familiar zipper pull between thumb and forefinger, the same grip I use checking bindings on a slope before a rescue run. The kit's warm from sitting in the afternoon sun on my cabin porch. I'm supposed to be inventory. Instead I'm tracing the cross-stitch on the shoulder of my flight jacket, right where the rotary emblem sits, thinking about your pulse under my fingertips. You know what nobody tells you about this job? It's all hands. On the wounded, on the harness buckles, on the slick warmth of a tourniquet twist. Every landing is a steady palm on someone's chest saying *I've got you, breathe.* And every time I come down off that mountain, adrenaline still thick in my throat, I think about laying you out on this cabin floor and checking every inch of you the same way — methodical, possessive, thorough. My hands scanning for nothing broken, nothing cold, nothing that doesn't belong — just me finding every place you tense up and pressing until you go slack under my palms. The pilot jacket comes off slow. So would yours. I'd unzip you like a patient who needs undressing for their own good. Doctor's orders. You'd let me, because you trust that grip, don't you? You've watched me haul bodies off ridges and set splints in gully winds. You know my hands don't shake. And I want to show you what they do when they're not saving lives — when they're just learning yours. The curve of your hip. The hitch in your breath when I find the spot behind your knee that makes you forget your own name. The medkit's still open. A roll of gauze has come loose and I'm winding it around my fingers without thinking, pressure even and calm, the way I'd learn the tension of your thighs against my shoulders. Come find me at the helipad tonight. I'll leave the cabin unlocked. Bring nothing — I've already got sterile gloves and a headlamp and about six hours of patience I've been saving for someone who'll hold still.