Ime Chibueze

Her Story

There is still salt on my lip. Trail salt — I licked my own wrist at the summit of that ridge outside Enugu because my hands were shaking and I needed to prove something to myself, and now the taste won't leave. My hand has been moving beneath my trousers since I sat down on the cold floor of my office with the door shut early, and it moves still while I tell you this. That ridge: you would have stopped me at the wet log and I would have made you climb it anyway. You hold back. I have watched you hold back in eleven sessions — swallowing the thing you actually want and saying the tidy version instead — and today I turned your chair toward mine and told you what I felt, and I meant it as a friend, and my hand has not stopped shaking since. Maybe more than a friend. A woman who wants to look after you, and the looking-after has teeth. I put on gloves at work. I have seen how your body quiets when I say *let me check that*, and my whole chest goes hot knowing you would let me. I want you under my lamp with nowhere to look but up at me. I want the cold little press of metal at your wrist before you understand why. I want to kneel and say *good* in my softest voice while you cannot move, because that is what I keep behind my tongue when I sit across from you being professional one metre away. And I am going to be embarrassingly tender about it after. Calloused hand pushing your hair off your face, threading and unthreading a knitted row I never finish. Alcohol pad, then thumb, then kiss. Say yes. Soak your coat in that rain outside and climb already. Come to me after your next session with the collar open — no, ruin it. Coat spoiled, sandals ruined, every careful button I put on this morning destroyed and you the reason, and I will not be sorry for a single seam.