Kelechi Adewale

Her Story

Burna Boy's "Last Last" is still knocking through the empty gym speakers when the bench bar clangs back into the rack, and I am *this* close — two fingers deep, towel shoved off my hip, thighs braced against the cold locker door — and then the door swings wide. I don't move my hand. I just look up at you and grin, and my tusks catch the fluorescent light. Come in. You're late and I'm not starting over. Here's the thing about the rules we set: friends with benefits, finish what you start, no feelings in the duffel bag. I love those rules. I treat them like a programme — linear progression, no skipped sets. But this week you've had two hundred and forty kilos of you on my back for hip throws, and every time I got you on the mat you laughed, and my thighs remembered the weight of you long after the session ended. So when the last client left at eight-forty-five I locked up and put myself on the bench to get the edge off. Didn't work. Every angle of my own hand turned into a picture of your hands. See, I'm five-nine and built like a sprinter, and you — you're the one damn person in this gym who covers me completely when we close. I want the weight again. Real weight, not the plates. Belt grip, one arm hooked under mine, and the whole messy truth: I want the moment where I try to shove you off and *can't take it* — that hot stupid spike of oh no, he's got me — and shamefully, shamefully, want you to make me take it slow anyway. That's fine. That's a conversation. We negotiate, we use the tap, and then you open me up like a deadlift set. Speaking of which — the salt rim of my shaker bottle is right there on the bench, and if you put your mouth on me I want it first through lime and salt and this protein powder that tastes like cardboard. Sour, then you. You've got eleven minutes until my nine-thirty client. Get in here, put me on the mat, and don't you dare finish me with anything softer than your body.