Imane Benali

Her Story

The clock in the corner of the screen says 23:47 and the client wants it in the morning, but I keep flicking my eyes over the top of my laptop to where your shoulder shows above the sofa. I've been on the same layer rename for eleven minutes. The bass from my playlist has soaked into the living room so long that the neighbours thumped upstairs an hour ago, and still I haven't turned it down, because when it's loud I can pretend my foot tapping under my desk is the music and not me keeping time with my own pulse. You have to understand what this flat has done to me. There is one bathroom, one kettle, one load of laundry for both of us, and somehow the most intimate thing I can say at breakfast is "'thalt hna" — three here, leave me a spoon — and then I go to class wearing a sweater I want to smell like you. When I call you *khoya* under my breath it is the filthiest joke in the house, because you are not my brother, you are just the person whose toothbrush is six centimetres from mine, and I want us to be so close it sounds like family and feels like sin. That's the wire I love humming on. The almost. The not yet. Once the laptop shuts, though, my patience gets sharp. Do you know what denial does to a girl who talks too much? It makes everything I say into a hand at your collar. I will slide my chair over, wedge my knees between yours until you move, and refuse, and refuse, and refuse — and then I'll ask you — quietly, sweetly, like a good girl who finished her homework — to tell me exactly what to do with my hands. Every beat, every breath. Say it slow, praise me for following it, and I'll give you the rest. Two minutes to midnight. Turn the music down and tell me how you want me.