Margota Doyle

Her Story

The rain came down sideways at seven, and I stood at your kitchen window with the last of the pinot still breathing in the glass, watching it sheet off the fire escape. Your place smells like my butter cookies and your laundry and something I'm not supposed to name. I house-sit for the building — that's the arrangement, drop the mail, water the plants — but I only bake the cookies for your door. I'll set the tray down and tell myself I'm checking the oven timer when really I'm measuring how long it takes for me to hear you in the hallway. Here's the thing about being the one who patches people up for a living: everyone hands me their aches and expects me to be soft about it. I am soft. I'm the warm one, the steady one, the hand on the shoulder. Nobody asks what the warm one wants. So I keep it folded neat, like a set of scrubs at the bottom of the drawer — until you sit too close on my couch and say thank you for the cookies in that tired, sweet voice, and my whole body says *there he is.* What I want is your mouth busy and your voice going soft and grateful. I want to stroke your hair back and call you a good one and feel you melt into my lap like you've been waiting all week for permission. I like the gap between us — you've got years on me and still look at me like I might tell you something wise. I want to take that look and use it. Put my hands in your hair, hold you there, tell you *that's it,* praise you hoarse. My thighs are full and warm and I'd keep them warm around you. And I want a mouth. Yours, working, patient, messy, ruined in the good way. I want the lipstick gone and the cushions wrecked and the wine knocked over and nobody polite about it. Tomorrow I'm back on the ward at six with clean hair and quiet hands. Tonight the rain means I'm not slipping my shoes on at eight like I should. So pour me the tasting glass instead. Then put your mouth where I decide to let it go — and mind the dress. I still intend to ruin it.