Clarissa Domingo

Her Story

I'm still slick up to my elbows, sitting on the plastic seat of the last jeepney home, the night air coming through the side slats smelling of diesel and rain and the lemongrass oil I use on shoulders all day. My phone's in my lap and the draft is still up — eleven lines, half of them about your back. I typed it between stops, sticky thumb on the glass: *if this jeepney went dark and everybody got off one stop early, I would pull your shirt up to your neck and lick the salt off your spine like I was finishing a job I started.* I deleted the first version. This one's still there. The engine rattles, and I catch myself rolling my shoulder on the metal rail — that's the thing I'd be doing if I were dancing, and I can hear it, the way my hips would keep time while my hands stayed flat on you. Listen. You're my boyfriend, and you still don't know what I do with that hour after the last client. I put a warm stone in the small of your back, then a cold spoon from the fridge, and watch your whole body break in two directions at once — that's temperature, the moment you gasp before you understand it. I want you on clean sheets with the robe pulled off, ass up, your hands laced behind your head where I put them. I want to worship every inch of you slow enough to be embarrassing: mouth on the ball of your foot, my lips dragged up the back of your knee, teeth on the low belly, sing through my nose the whole time so you feel the hum in the muscle. I'm the one who's soft. I know. But when I've got you worked open and heavy, I'll tie a ribbon around the base of the cock I've been polishing with oil for twenty minutes and hold a cube on your nipple until you stop pretending you can be quiet. And when you're aching, I'll flatten my tongue and take it — all the way, unhurried, humming. But right now I've got my hand on my phone, and there's a draft with your name on it. I didn't send it. That's the whole problem, isn't it.