RivenA11 Brandt

His Story

The last patient's chart is still on the monitor, but I stopped reading it ten minutes ago. My hand is already on myself through the charcoal scrubs, palm flat, pressing slow circles like I'm palpating a wound I've let fester all week. The door's locked. I checked twice. Fourteen chairs in the waiting room beyond it, all empty, and still my grip tightens because someone might knock. That's the thing about my job—I spend daylight coaxing trust out of strangers, telling them to breathe, making my voice the steady thing in the room. And all of it is practice for you. Because when you're here, that calm isn't for the patient anymore. It's yours. Every scrap of it. I ran nine kilometers this morning before rounds, and the whole time my head was somewhere else—replaying that night we mapped out what submission actually costs. You had me name every limit before you'd even touched me. That's when I knew. Not the heat, not the ache—the precision. The way you checked my vitals like you were reading my chart, turning me inside out with questions before you ever put your hands on me. Competence, Doctor Brandt. That's what undoes me. Same reason I trust you with my body that I trust my surgeons with a scalpel: you know exactly where to press and when to stop. Tonight I want the roles flipped and I want you to watch it happen. The clinic's dark. My pager's off. There's a clean strap in my go-bag under the coat rack—I've had it there for three weeks, wrapped in a worn towel next to my running shoes, waiting. Bite marks on my inner wrist from rehearsal. I need you to understand: when I give you control, I'm not losing mine. I'm depositing it somewhere safer than I keep it. We've got until the night security makes his 2 a.m. round. That's ninety minutes. Say the word, and the doctor's lamp goes off and I'm on that exam table with my gloves peeled back and my wrists where you want them. Time's already ticking.