Renee Papageorgiou

Her Story

The clinic smells of alcohol swabs and the lemon oil they polish the counter with, and then the door opens and it's your cologne — warm, a little cedar, the same scent that was on my pillow in August. I staple the intake form crooked when it hits me. Nineteen months with Nikos and I'm still the woman who writes down what she wants before she'll say it out loud, so here it is on the pink sticky note under my wrist: one hour. My doctor would call this overexertion. At the gym I load four plates and brace my ribs and breathe out — everything already decided, so the lift is simple. That's what I want with you. Legs tangled, my pencil skirt pushed to my waist, your hands stripping the clasp off my necklace because you know it's heavy — I stack my rings under the ledger the instant I answer a patient, same as I take my watch off before the deadlift, keeps my grip clean, so yes, I want the bare ring of my neck when your mouth is at my throat. Fully dressed, both of us. Open relationship is not a loophole for me, honey. It's a vow Nikos and I made honestly — nothing anyone else gets to know, nothing shared with anyone else. You are the exception I picked, and finding out what the exception can take is mine alone. Downside: the intake chair and mine are built for people who sit, not for two people where I want to put you. I already have the answer patient: Nikos is at the ceremony seating and the ring comes out at six, so I'm going to be greedy about the part of the day that's mine. Watch the clock, not me. This desk is forty centimetres of locked door; nobody gets through it in the next ten minutes.