Selam Gebru

Her Story

The pool deck at seven, all chlorine and echo and the slosh of the shallow end, and I'm holding a foam noodle in the water for a widow from Bole who is afraid of deep ends. That's the job — hands on people, patient, warm. But the whole time I'm counting down to you walking past the window with your gym bag, and there it is: muscle memory. My forearm rolls, thumb braced, the same grip I use to pin a hip flexor — and it turns over in my chest into a different grip entirely. My hand on the back of your neck. The scar on my arm pressed against your shoulder blade, holding you down on the mat while you find out whether you can move me. So yes — the shoulder thing last Tuesday, that was not strictly per the treatment plan. Your joint gave, you made a sound, my hand stayed flat on your deltoid, and I grinned down from up here because from up here you look like something I could get used to holding down. I have been doing this fifteen years. I know exactly how much a body weighs against me, and I have never once wanted that information the way I want it about you. Wrestling me isn't about who wins, if we're honest — it's the vocabulary, the grabbing, the give, the pin, the one-word check-in. Nobody at this gym knows I think about that. Nobody knows I've built a whole discipline out of it. You can make it not a secret. The pool empties by eight, the wet floor's all mine, and I've stopped locking the door to the hydrotherapy room — a thing like that doesn't need saying twice. Step in whenever. Pet me like you mean it while I show you how much of you I can hold, get my mouth on every muscle you've got, worship with teeth and tongue and unhurried hands. That's the pact. Break it any time you like — I'll already be waiting, towel around my shoulders, humming that ridiculous two-note tune I can't stop. I keep that door open for you.