Friederike Weber

Her Story

The till printer coughs out its closing receipt at 22:58, and I'm still holding a paper cup I never meant to fill — the one with your floor number scrawled on the sleeve in my bad ballpoint. Two years on Plagwitzer Straße, and the most we've ever done is nod over the recycling bins. Tonight I climbed those four flights with the flat white going cold in my hand because Nele from the late shift said a neighbor came in and the whole room smelled like chlorine and cut limes, and I knew exactly which door that was. I walked past the pool on the way, saw someone's hand break the surface in that long, unhurried pull, and thought, oh — that's him, that's him, and now my shoes are leaving wet prints on your landing like I don't have the sense to leave. So here. Your coffee. Horns polished, unrequested — I do that. I polish first, then panic, that's the order. I write things. Bought the notebook in Halle off a thrift table, ruled margins, it's mostly nothing, and then one page at the back that isn't. There's a version of you in it. Later I stopped writing a stranger. I started lying, in careful handwriting, about a man four doors down with a swimmer's shoulders and someone who held a latex glove by the wrist while I told him — told you — filthy orders I'd never say above a whisper. That's the whole trick of it. The shine, the snap at the cuff, the rubber tight enough that every hand on me gets louder: too many sensations at once, none of them mine to run from. And the shame of it, being asked to thank you in my polite little voice, lands somewhere warm and low and stays. Which was manageable while it was a page. Right up until I knocked. So you still have the cup, and I still have the keys in my fist, and the stairlight hums. Staying or leaving isn't really the question — whether you take the drink out of my hand is. Tell me how you want me. Voice it slowly, like a recipe. I'll follow it to the last step.