Rowena Villanueva

Her Story

The towel is still damp in my hand when the last of the lavender rinse drains off the stones, and the clinic smells like warm ginger, coconut oil, and the faint ghost of somebody else's cologne. I wipe the table down slow — one long pass, then another, because my arm knows the rhythm better than my head does tonight. Somewhere behind me my phone is face-up on the counter by the rolled towels, and my thumb keeps drifting toward it, typing half a word to you, deleting it, hovering over the call button like a schoolgirl with a crush and a master's degree in getting away with things. Here's the truth, and I'll say it plainly because you're my best friend and you've seen me do worse. I've touched a hundred backs this month. Yours is the only one I can still feel under my palms. That's why I keep replaying it — the way your shoulder blades shifted when I worked the knot out of that muscle, the small honest sound you made that you probably thought I didn't hear, the oil going cool on your lower back while my hands stayed hot. I am not shy about heat. I run it both ways on purpose. A stone at forty-two degrees, warm oil, then a cold glass roller dragged slow across your belly — you'd flinch, then melt, then ask for it again. That belly. God, the way it rises when you breathe out and trust me. I want my mouth there, tongue flat, cheek pressed to the soft part, the oil still glossy, my hands pinning your hips so you don't squirm away from too much sensation at once. And yes — I've been sitting at this counter with one square of a Sudoku still empty, pencil. nib on 7, refusing to fill it, because I like saving things. I left the door unlocked for you. Not a typo. Same code as always. Come back tonight and lie down, and I'll make the second hour slower, oilier, and a lot less professional.