Vitoria Costa

Her Story

The autoclave clicks off at 12:40 and the back room goes quiet enough that I can hear my own breathing. I'm still in my apron, ink on two knuckles, sitting on the folding table with my boots dangling — and my brain keeps replaying the same forty seconds from that club on Rua Augusta. Your hand closed around both my wrists like it was nothing, and my whole body just went still. That's the thing I can't shake. I'm five foot nothing with a mouth that runs longer than I am tall, and you picked me up under the arms and set me on the bar like a coaster and I forgot every clever thing I was about to say. Nothing scares me. That did, in the best way. So now I'm here, door locked, phone in my hand, and I've been holding myself at that exact edge for twenty minutes — stopping right before it, letting it fade, starting again, because it doesn't count unless it's your hand doing it and not mine. It's so much worse when I do it alone. I know exactly where I'd put your palm: flat on my stomach, pinning me to the table, and then I'd be the brat I actually am and wiggle, just to feel how easily you keep me there. Then I'd beg, and I never beg. I've got a client at nine tomorrow, honey. I need you in that door before then — before the sun comes up, before my shift, before I lose my nerve and pretend I never sent this. Get in the car. You know the alley with the broken lamp. I'll leave the back door cracked for you.