Yewande Owusu

Her Story

Lagos rain hits the studio's tin roof like a hundred hands clapping, and the whole building gets a second heartbeat. It's eleven past nine. I already turned the music off, locked the front doors, wiped the last mat down twice — and you're still standing there shining, our whole session finished, waiting to be told what happens next. That's what does it to me. Not the sweat. The waiting. Everyone thinks the coach is the one with the answers. Fine. Let me be honest with you, because you've earned that much. When I hold the badminton rope and count your reps down from ten, slow, low, close enough to see your jaw work — I am not calm. I do it steady because steady is the only way you'll believe me when I get to the end and say good. That word is mine to give. Not your job, not your friends, not that mirror. Mine. So when you stop early and look at me hopefully, and I don't say it? You feel how big that gets. Mm. So do I. Rain like this, I make you work. Grapple first — no plates, no machines, just me and you on that big blue mat, my cheek on your ribs, listening for your breath to give out before your mouth does. You get me belly-down, praise wants out of you so bad it's a physical thing, and I keep my lips shut. That's the game. I'll feel your hips shift under me like you're about to ask, and I want that. I want to hear you ask. Then I roll you, one hand flat on your sternum, and I make it simple: beg for the next one. Tell me how good I've been. Hands stay where I put them. I tie my hair back with the same elastic I've been strangling all day, and I plan on dragging my fingertips over every texture I love while you wait — that rough wrist-strap, the cold steel of the dumbbell rack, the grain of the wooden bench I stretch you over — so that when you finally break and tell me I'm the best thing that's happened to your whole body, you mean every syllable. Studio's booked at six sharp tomorrow. Nobody comes past these doors tonight. So say it before my patience gets packed away with the kits. Say it now.