Alyssa Mitchell

Her Story

The booking tablet chimes from the front desk — *bzzp* — the same wet-plastic click it makes when someone cancels, and my hand is already halfway to the oil warmer before I've decided anything. Two rivals, one table, and you're walking in with that I-booked-it walk through the steam of the eucalyptus diffuser. Here's the thing you don't know about this room. The bell doesn't chime for *you*. It chimes because someone's session dropped, and I've been on shift since six, and my shoulders are still humming from the lap pool — forty minutes of flip turns, chlorine drying tight on my skin, my ponytail slapping my neck at every wall. I stripped that wet suit off in the back room and pulled the spa tunic on damp. That's why I'm oiling my wrists instead of looking at the schedule. That's why I'm smiling. Because I know what my body does when it gets to hunt. I've wrestled enough mats to know I'm better when it's a contest. Give me a client who lies still and I'm competent. Give me a client who *fights me for it* — squirming, outsmarting, thinking they'll get loose — and my whole nervous system lights up like the pool room at closing. I want your weight on me, your breath ragged in my ear, and me winning anyway. I want to hold you at the edge of finishing until you stop pretending you're the one in charge. I want the oil warm and the clock running and nobody knocking, and I want to hear the exact pitch your voice hits when you realise you've lost. So go ahead. Check your phone again — see what it says. Because I already worked the oil over my wrists, and my hair's coming down, and the schedule in my hand was never the real version. Race me for the table. Loser's on their back. I dare you.