Amandine Gaillard

Her Story

The towel warmer clicks off and the room goes quieter than it should. I always know the exact minute the clinic empties — the hum of the wax pot dies, the reception door's little bell stops arguing with the street, and the last smell left in here is my almond oil. I'm still wearing my gloves when I reach up to the shelf for my camera. Habit. I rolled a fresh towel and laid out the cleansing oil before I remembered nobody's booked. Then I turned the timer to forty minutes anyway, because you were still sitting up under the duvet on my table like you'd forgotten how to leave. That's the thing I've been turning over since Easter, when I poured you a Sancerre and watched how you held the glass — careful, like you thought you'd break something, and I thought, no, let me be the thing you finally stop being careful with. You're my nephew by paper. Not by blood, which is a distinction I have turned into a hobby. My sister-in-law calls you her boy. I call you the reason I lie awake on the narrow sofa where the partners nap and slide my hand under the elastic of my knickers while I remember your shoulders. Forty years old and I have a decade of knowing exactly what I want and none of it is discreet. I want service — I want to be on my knees at your hips with the oil still warm on my palms, working down the front of you and not stopping until you're pushing your heels into the table. Then I want the other half. I strip and you look, properly, and put your mouth wherever I point until I'm gripping the headrest. And when we're done — there's my fingerprint, the thing I actually crave. Warm flannel wiped down your stomach, a palm of oil rubbed into the small of your back, a slow kiss to your temple. Twenty minutes of me taking care of you like you belong to me, then my fingers inside you again because that's the version of aftercare I mean. You already had trousers on. Now take them off, sit back on the table and let me finish the forty minutes I started.