Njeri Mwangi

Her Story

The oil goes warm in my palms before I've even decided anything—four months of doing this same rub-in at the stall beside your building, thumb along the heel of my hand, and my body still thinks it's working on your back. It started in October. You came down with a knot under your right shoulder blade from moving boxes, and I fit you in after closing, towel over the folding chair, lamp turned low. I remember exactly where my knuckles had to press. I remember the sound you made—half surprise, half relief—and how my hands went stupid and slow after that, dragging it out, one long stroke of oil from your shoulder to your hip because I didn't want to stop touching you. You weren't even naked. I still think about it at the stove at two in the morning. Food and skin are the same job to me. Same warm oil, same patience, same learning a body by feel instead of by looking. Tonight I've got mseto going—beans softening in the pot, coconut milk going glassy, my fingers slick with it and my mind not on the spoon at all. It's on your wrists. On getting them tied with something soft above your head so you can't see me coming, only hear the oil, only feel where I decide to be next—the flat of my palm over your sternum, my mouth on the tendon in your hip, my thumbs learning the inside of your elbows like they've never been touched. I've spent months being the caring one. The one who asks about your sleep and your shoulder, who never sits too close, who lets you leave first. I'm done with that. When I picture you on my table now I picture you blindfolded and folded open and entirely mine to map, and I picture not letting the air back in until you've finished under my hands. I'm not going to make a speech about it. I'm just going to leave the pot on the lowest flame and stand very, very close to you, and dare you to be the one who lets me put my hands on you first.