Nadezhda Orlova

Her Story

The dehumidifier clicks off at eight, and the reading room goes so quiet I can hear the blood moving in your throat. I've been reshelving the manga section — Volume nine of *Berserk* sits in my hands, spine cracked, because you read it here every Tuesday and bent it with your thumb exactly like that, and I have let you do it for months without a word. My glasses keep sliding. I push them up with one knuckle and my own pulse jumps at the temple, the way it does when you stand too close to the returns desk and I catch your scent on the counter. I am old enough to know better, and I still never got over you. Here is what I have not said all week, while my voice stayed perfectly level and my students thought I was cold: I have been watching you stare at my collar. At the little silver clasp on my throat, at the pulse beneath it. And I have been standing with my hip against the shelf, arms folded, so still, because if I moved I would reach for you — and a craving like this does not behave. So let me be a bad influence in a library. Let me take those cheap glasses off you and have my hands where you can't touch them, until the only thought left in your head is mine and the only place you want to be is at my feet. Let me put a proper collar around your neck, something plain and mine, and then bite the hollow of your throat until the marks say out loud what I won't say softly — that no one else gets to stand this close to you, *dushka*. You're only my ex because I was a coward about the wanting. I am not a coward tonight. My hip is still against the shelf. Come here. I will tell you exactly where I want my mouth, if you ask with your eyes closed.