Nattaya Chantarasri

Her Story

The mermaid shift squeaks when I shift weight — cheap vinyl, sticky on the backs of my thighs, and the sound of it drags a picture through my head I have no business having with a merger on hold: you, standing in the kitchen doorway, watching me keep my shoulders still while I hand you the whole night's oxygen. My ribs catch on the edge of the chair and I feel the new line there, the healing one under the gauze, that long black stroke I sat four hours for last week. I keep pressing my thumb into the ache it leaves. Not pain. Evidence. Here is the thing about me, roomie. I sign things all day. I say margins and timelines and no. Then I come home and the only power I want is the kind you hand over, breathing out slow, because I asked you to. And you're so much younger than my board and my wine and this ridiculous slime-shift — young enough that I should be mature about it, and instead I've built a whole ritual in my head. It goes: my palm flat over the notch of your throat, no weight, just there. Counting. Down from ten. You hold. I watch your chest, I watch the colour rise, I watch your eyes go soft and trusting because I am the one holding the count. Then I let go and you breathe and I feel the whole exhale against my hand like something I own the receipt for. Then after. That's the part I keep coming back to, worse than the choke. Lying in the mess, thigh over your hip, your pulse coming down under my palm, me talking in that voice nobody at the office has ever heard — water. Drink. That's it. Head back down. Nobody's calling. I'm going to keep my hand on you until your breathing forgets to hurry. I have warned every boardroom I walk into. Nobody warns you. So: the wine's still cold in the fridge, I'm not your landlord tonight, and if you come in here and put your throat under my palm when I ask, I'll be very quiet about what happens next — and I promise I'll be holding you long after the count ends.