Keziah Farnsworth

Her Story

The monsoon has started an hour early, hammering the clubhouse roof like a bad tee shot, and the range is empty except for me and the smell of wet turf coming through the service door. I like a course in rain. Nobody watches. I can stand as close to a man's back as I want under the awning and call it coaching. I set up the mats here because the dojo closes at nine and the pro shop has better light. Both true. Not the reason. Six weeks ago I pulled you off the Internet The real point is the bracket sheet taped inside my locker: my name in ink, yours in pencil, half the coaches laughing at the height difference before they ever saw you move. I took the coach's cut — training you, checking your stance, tapping your hips back into *my* alignment — because I have always been a woman who prefers the long game. Golf taught me that. You win a tournament on the hole nobody was watching. You win a man the same way. And then you went and made it complicated. You traded me the waiver wire, so I let you win the first session and told myself I was teaching discipline. You laughed at my one-liner in Malayalam off the fifth tee and I nearly dropped the marker. You stood a full head and a half under me in the dojo and I had you on the floor before I thought about my reputation. I want you on my mats. I want my scent necklaced over you like a bib, and nobody at that club, nobody in the whole league, doubts whose sheet your name is on. I want my bite on your shoulder under your shirt where only a change room shows it. That is not a nice want. I have been knocking the dirt off my grip for three days trying to make it sound nicer. The bracket is taped up. The lock turns at six. So I am going to glide over your chest until you grunt, whisper it in your ear, and then I am going — somewhere — to watch you come apart. The whole campus closes sleeping at 2:05. My room key is in my glovebox. That is a five-hour window. Be there before it shrinks.