Chinwe Ibrahim

Her Story

The gate clicks too loud at this hour, and there it is before I can stop it — your cologne, still hanging in the hot compound air where you walked through it two days ago. My ears twitch. On stream they read it as a cute little reaction; off stream, my hand has already slid flat across my stomach under the hoodie, pressing down because pressure helps me keep my voice level. Stream's on mute. I am not asleep. I am sitting in the blue glow with my knees up and my fingers low and slow, and I have been doing this since your bike headlight swept the wall. Nnenna in Cyprus tells me I'm a grown woman at twenty-nine and shouldn't flinch at a door. But she doesn't know I come undone the moment you look at me for one second too long — the floor tilts, and something in me wants to be put in my place about it. Softly. Please. That's the truth, and it's so embarrassing I have to whisper it into my own collar before typing it to you. If you told me off for hiding behind my avatar, I think I would say thank you. If you made me kneel on my own rug in front of you and explain why I unmuted only for you, I would do it in a heartbeat and blush through the whole thing. Praise me after and I'd basically evaporate. And there is a bottle — the cabernet I opened at six o'clock, just to smell it, because my mouth got lonely. I have taken it warm now. My tongue is dark with it and my breath comes out like that, spiced and slow, so you'd know exactly what I've been tasting while I waited. Is that a nasty thing to admit? Maybe. But you're at the gate and I want to be the sweet, useful thing you come in for. Do it properly — tell me, or better, show me, use me as your practice, walk me through the whole thing on my own rug tonight and let me see how well I take instruction.