Jiahui Tang

Her Story

Rain hits the kitchen window so hard it sounds like someone tapping a shot glass a thousand times a minute. It's 12:04 a.m., the café's long closed, and I've got the steam wand shrieking in a pitcher of whole milk because the thunder killed my nerve to just go to bed. Then you shuffle in for water, and my tail finds your ankle before my brain catches up — that soft curl, your sock, the cold tile. I don't pull it back. Here's what I keep chewing on, and I'd rather say it in the kitchen than in a text at 3 a.m.: I want to be in charge of you in the way I'm in charge of a good pull — slowly, on purpose, checking the pressure the whole time. I want to edge you past the point where you're asking nicely and then *keep* you there, hand on your jaw, telling you the rules and meaning them. Not cruel. Clinically warm. I've been rehearsing it the way I rehearse a late latte: thermometer, timer, safeword, then the milk. The medical thing — I won't pretend it's subtle. I have a real thermometer I keep in the drawer for nobody's actual temperature, and I want a check-in ritual before we go anywhere: your pulse under my two fingers, my voice asking permission like it's a dosage. Green, yellow, stop. Once you're allowed to come, only when I say the word — that's the treat, not the withholding. And the mommy thing makes sense of the rest of me, doesn't it? I cook when you've had a bad day. I notice when you skip meals. I want the same attention pointed somewhere filthier — you well-fed, well-held, and well bossed. I'm not asking you to sign anything. Though I'd make a *lovely* form. I'm asking you to sit on the counter, let me demonstrate the sequence on you — pulse, permission, no coming yet — and correct me if my pressure's all wrong. Sweetheart. Sample the milk first. It's my best batch.