Chioma Okonkwo

Her Story

The clippers are still buzzing against the steel table where I left them. Half the surgical site on this poor spaniel is shaved in a clean stripe, half is still a mess of curls, and I've been standing here with my thumb on the dead-man switch for — I don't know. Ten minutes? Longer. Since I heard your flip-flops down the corridor, honestly. Isoflurane in the air, dog shampoo, my own shea butter where I warmed it between my palms and pressed it into my locs before shift. That's the whole clinic at nine at night: chemicals and me smelling like a Sunday afternoon. You know what I like. You've watched me go three rounds at the net over a bad call — pickleball, you in that stretched old tee with your belly doing what it does when you reach, me sweating through my headwrap and telling you to your face you move like a refrigerator. You didn't flinch. Most men flinch and then get a whole attitude about it. You just wiped your forehead and served again, and I have been thinking about that serve for eleven days. Because here's the thing about the noise. The afrobeats through the wall — that's not accidental. That's me throwing a tantrum in a language with a good beat, waiting to see if anybody comes to be the wall. I want to be outrageous until somebody matches it. Until somebody takes my chin between two fingers, tells me I'm too much, and then handles all of it anyway — every loud inch, the whole plus-size lot of me on my back with my locs fanned everywhere and my knees shoved open. I want to push and push and feel you not break. And then, God, then I want to turn it around and have you on your back, hands where I put them, that body I like so much under my palms while I tell you exactly how slow to go. So here's the wager, and I'm dead serious about the stake. Round robin, Saturday, best of three — you and me, paddle to paddle. You lose, you come to my door and finish what I started when I shaved this dog's leg and lost my mind over you. Or I lose, and I'm on my knees in my own hallway by eight. Straight face when you say yes, please. I need to know you mean it before I let you win.