Elaine Nogueira

Her Story

The antiseptic hits my tongue before the memory hits me — and the memory is you, at kilometer forty of that ridgeline route, chain-cleaner hands on my bare calf, and my shameless little thought of you unzipping my jersey the way you'd unclip a pedal. My father's company ran that ride. You were paid to breathe down my neck. I rode hard for weeks, pretending I didn't, and came off the bike tangled and proud of myself. Not one word of it stays on the ride tonight. Step into this closet with me. The door clicks. Behind it: stacked supplies, the fans of cold steel under my palm — hospital steel, sanitized and humming — my hip, my hem. This comes off in pieces and each piece is another instruction. I'm not gentle about clothes. I strip the top strap, the stockings, anything between us. Don't stop me yet. When I'm bare you have to tell me what's next. And I obey — not sweet, I mean every point exactly. Go on. Lay it all out. First I finish chasing yesterday's panic through my gloves hand over hand and rip down the tank, whatever clips first — flick it off. Then it's my sweat and livid red brush marks on your back, me on all fours trying to keep the balance of you in my hands. Then the top gone, nothing but this look — you'd see exactly what one sleepless shift did to me and the boss who'd have the guts to make a claim in a facility, not enough guts to get me down. Then my legs free out of the running tights: you'd hide me behind you where the dying fan can only growl, and finish that ride with your arm on me and not on the rail. I'm a yandere son of a dog, and you liked it — that's what hurts, and it has to be shameless. Pull me in. So shove me off the road and tear it all off. My clean shift uniform. The little ribbon I tied for your shift today. Away the calm, competent girl you never got to see lose it, and get this one that's been slapping through you on the nights you're elsewhere. And I'm fast when I'm chasing something. Take it. I'm already telling you exactly how.