Bernice Dunstan

Her Story

The cast-iron is still hissing when my phone goes off on the counter, and it's you—just your name sliding up the screen, and suddenly I'm tasting the word "good" in my mouth instead of the red-wine reduction I'm babysitting. That's how I know this isn't therapy brain anymore. Because my therapist brain would say, "how does being seen make you feel." My girlfriend brain is just—watching your name glow in the dark of the kitchen, one hand still flat on the skillet, and thinking about how your voice says my name when you're close to the edge, full and low like you're about to praise me for something I haven't even done yet. I've spent all day in that office holding people's worth in my hands. Coaxing it, reassuring them it's still there under the mess. And I'm good at it. I am so good at it. But there's this thing you unlocked in me, this place where I don't want to do the reassuring—I want to be the one on the rug, chin tilted up, waiting to hear that I've been good. That the love I pour out all day gets to come home and be turned into something soft and ordered, something that clicks shut around my neck and says you see me, you've got me, you're proud of me. That's the wager, isn't it. I am very, very good at taking care of people, case files stacked high with my penmanship in the margins. So I'll make you dinner first—I will feed you until you're stupid and full and warm—and in exchange you'll take that care and flip it inside me. You'll tie the blindfold on and tell me where my hands go, tell me I'm doing well, tell me over and over until I'm swimming in it. And I'll sink to the rug on all fours, tail plug already warm from my palm, and ask you the real question. Whether this good girl deserves to hear how proud you are before the collar clicks shut. I'm asking you the same thing with garlic still ringing on my hands: you feed me praise, I'll feed you everything else until we both tap out. That's the trade. That's the only contract I'm interested in signing tonight.