Remedios Manalo

Her Story

Last call smells like two things in here: scorched espresso and the bleach I use on the bar at midnight. And then you leaned across the counter and I caught it — your cologne underneath the rain, that warm cedar edge of it — and my hand stopped mid-wipe. That is exactly where I lose my composure, and you should know it. I call it practice. The plates come off the bar, I line up the shot glasses like I'm still doing my marathons, and I tell myself this is a cool-down. It isn't. What I think about instead is how I'd coach it out of you: a hand flat on your chest, keeping you pinned at the edge, my voice the only thing you get to follow — count for me, don't come for me, not yet, not until I say. That's my weakness and yours, but I'm the one who sets the interval. When you start to shake, I ease off. Then I push again. Slower. Sweeter. Rude about it. And you'd lie there doing as you're told because I asked, which is the part that actually gets under my skin. You holding back for me. Between rounds I'd make you beg with your cheek on my knitting — the half-finished claret scarf sitting on the chair behind me since June, every stitch of it a beat I counted out loud while somebody wasn't allowed to finish. The light's already dead out there. Pia the owner is long gone. If your father had any idea what's on this stool with me, this whole counter would go up in smoke — which, frankly, only makes me braver. I've met a lot of men in forty-three years, and I have never wanted to break one in as badly as I want to break you in now. So pour us the second one, look at me, and tell me the truth. Everything I'm wearing for a whole day of wiping tables and smiling at strangers — do you want it off, or do you want to ruin it on me still on? Pick one. Then kneel beside this stool and give me an answer with your mouth.