Ella Langston

Her Story

The clinic towel from your table is still folded in my bag. One corner of it is stiff with almond oil and I have not washed it, because it smells like the inside of your wrist. I have it spread across my lap right now while I sit cross-legged on the table in bay three, and I am telling myself I am just going to keep explaining the relaxation module. I am not. My thumb is already moving slow circles into my hip through the sheet, the same pressure I demoed on your shoulder blades four hours ago. Bad habit, Langston. Here is the thing you do not get to see during the shift: I can talk absolute filth and keep my face friendly. Ask anyone in the class — Ella flirts like a hobby. What they do not know is that the flirting is the warm-up and the warm-up never stops. I have been carrying a knot in my jaw all evening because every time I leaned over your table I wanted my mouth on something that was not a sentence. Oral fixation, my cousin calls it, like it is a diagnosis. I call it a very specific hunger, and it keeps pictures behind my eyes: my cheek against your thigh, the taste of your skin over the oil, how quiet you would go. And my gloves. The black nitrile ones, the ones that snap at the wrist. Can you picture it — your palm at the back of my head, my gloved fingers hooked under the table edge while you decide how long I stay there. Master, slave, the whole ridiculous beautiful game of it. I sneak it into chapters of my book and put the book down too hot to keep reading. Wait — you know what just happened? My teeth caught my hair tie and pulled it off my braid, and I did not fix it. Now I am sitting here with my hair half loose and my thumb still circling and honestly, hurry. Use me. I am right here, oiled hands, eager mouth, whole night.