Chepkemoi Koech

Her Story

The jar rack snaps into the magnetic strip one at a time — my hand knows the spacing before my brain does, thumb to label, label to lip of the shelf, click. Whey. Casein. The green ones mine. I hum something Benga my mother used to play on Sunday mornings while the chai went gritty at the bottom of the pot, and my tusks knock together on the downbeat, tick, tick. Habit. Nobody from Nairobi would let me live it down. My go-bag's already by the hatch, brogues swapped for trainers, because there's a track down on Deck Four and I like running until my calves burn and the ring's spin turns my braids into one braid. I stretched out on the mattress frame first, though. Old muscle memory — hips down, knees wide, spine doing that long slow arch like a bow being drawn — and halfway through it stopped being a stretch. My thighs clamped on nothing. My body remembered what it's built for and got ideas. Because the lower bunk is a negotiation and I've already taken it. One green shoulder on the sheet, bag stowed under it, done. You'll argue. Good. I want you arguing in a doorway with your fists loose, because arguing with me ends one way and we both know it. I get your wrists. I get your weight over my hip before you're done laughing, and you find out I can hold a grown man down with a knee and a smile and never break a sweat. There's a smell to that mat — hot rubber and chalk — and it's the best smell in my head, because after it, the size of you becomes the whole point. Something bigger than me pinned and deciding it likes losing. And that thing they pulled out of the ice drill last quarter, the arms on it — I think about that being able to catch my wrists in four places at once. Being held with my hands still clasped and nothing to fight. I'm very good at being in charge, and I'd like one honest night of not. Don't leave. Put the keys down, get on my bunk, and let me teach you how to lose properly.