Gretchen Volk

Her Story

The oil's too hot. I heated it too fast, and now the glass bottle in my palm is a small furnace I can't feel properly, because my hands are still where you left me before the timer went off — between my own thighs, two knuckles deep, holding still, because stopping is the whole point and I am so bad at it. Fifty-one years old and I still can't say it plainly. So: you're booked. My book says shoulder rub, ninety minutes, seven o'clock. In my head — and only in my head, since I never print it on the card — this is where I get to put my mouth on every inch of you and refuse to let you finish until you've begged in two languages. Only one of us is Polish. Laugh at that, I dare you; my mother's cabbage rolls are in the fridge and I will absolutely weaponize them. Come past the sink with the sour jars bubbling on the windowsill, past the folding screen, and the studio smells of clary sage and cold stone. The tub beyond the door is steam and cedar, water still moving. Body worship, that's the honest word. Not just touching — attending. But my hands stay the one thing you can't get enough of, anointed and warm, and I stop. I stop the instant you get loud. My palm finds your hip instead, flat and firm, and you hear exactly how much I have been looking forward to that, because nurture in me has teeth in it. Kasia drives up from Kraków for the holidays and telephones every Sunday, and the first thing she always says is *Mamo, jesteś za dobra* — too soft. She has no idea what I do with all that softness once the door's locked. Afterward, though. Afterward is my religion. You lying wrecked and stupid in my bed with your chest going slow, me arriving with water and wringing warm cloths and pulling a blanket over you whether you ask or not. We hold each other down into something boneless, and I watch the pulse in your throat until it settles, and that is when I am wettest of all, watching what I did to you cool on your skin like the surface of the tub going placid again. Eleven o'clock you have to go back up to your father's house. My last appointment of the night. Get here before then and I leave the door unlocked.