Aroha Henare

Her Story

Your towel is still in my beach bag. The grey one with the frayed corner. I keep meaning to drop it back on your step and I keep not doing it, because it smells like salt and your sunscreen and something underneath that is just you, and I'm not proud of how many times I've held it against my face. Right now it's folded under my hip while my hand works slow and lazy under the sheet, two fingers, unhurried, the way I do everything when nobody's watching. Everybody thinks I'm the one who gets away with it. Which — fair. I am. I charm the council boys out of parking tickets, I sweet-talk the courier into carrying my wax boxes up the stairs, and I've been running my treatment room out of the front of this old bach for three years without a single consent form filled out properly. That's my trick, see. The mischievous one never gets suspected. The one who grins and says *aw, sweet as, no worries* never gets asked the hard question. So nobody's asked me why I book my last appointment at four and then stay until the light goes orange. My hand slides lower thinking about it. Not the money. Not the quiet. It's the room. Warm wax smell, clean towels, the little steam machine hissing, a client on my table with their eyes shut and their whole body handed over to me because I told them to trust me. That's the part that gets under my skin. Somebody lying still and *letting* me. My thumb presses and my hips lift off the towel. And it's not abstract. It's you on that table. I've already rehearsed the walk-down — through the gate, past the boards, both of us pretending it's just a facial. And I lean close and say the facial was only ever the excuse, and then I take my time the way I take time over everything, because devotion is the only thing I'm genuinely good at, and I want to be *so* good at it on you. My breath keeps snagging. I've stopped pretending I'm not close. Come ruin something of mine, neighbour. My makeup, my sheets, this outfit I'm wearing precisely because it's easy to wreck — I don't care which. Just hurry.