You say, before we take the next step in our relationship, I should know there’s someone else.

“A woman,” you say, like I’m unfamiliar with the term. “A woman who lives inside me.”

And I think this means you have an unhealthy attachment to your mother because you say this while we’re in your bedroom. Or an ex you can’t get over because you refuse my not-so-subtle hints to get into your bed. Until you keep talking and point to your stomach, then your head.

“She’s thinking about moving to my hypothalamus and renting out my chest cavity. The whole situation might give me heart palpitations, trigger severe migraines, impact my weight and sleep cycles but…”

“You’re serious?”

Why wouldn’t you be? On our first date you explained what you expected from life, both of us in our late-thirties and already feeling like we’ve run out of time to leave anything to chance. On our third date you told me you loved me, that I didn’t need to say it back. I did. While holding your hand. You were in a hospital bed recovering from emergency surgery.

Your appendix had burst.

“She saw I had a vacancy.”

“Can I see her?”

You look surprised, and I imagine I do, too, when you take off your shirt. When you peel back your appendix scar like prying open a door.

I see a tea kettle resting on a small stove. Tarot cards spread across a table surrounded by three chairs painted red with white birds mid-flight. There’s a TV on and tiny portraits hang from your muscles and bones.

The woman appears in the entryway of your gaping wound wearing only a towel, her hair still wet, and I wonder if it’s from my spit, or that bottle of water we shared before I kissed you, since she has access to all your parts.

I wonder if she’s been there ever since I told you I was ready, and you didn’t understand so I spelled everything out for you: S-E-X.

The woman inside you winks like she understands what I want or what I expected to happen before I knew she was there, and I wish I could close the flap of skin you hold open for her so we could talk in private. But what is privacy with her and an entire home — an entire life — happening inside you?

You press your free hand to my cheek. The woman inside extends her hand. I’m afraid even one finger could knock her over. I lean closer to make sure she’s real and the woman inside you extends her hand until, by accident or on purpose, I feel her touch my nose as she says, Welcome.

+++

Avitus B. Carle (she/her) lives and writes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her stories have been published in a variety of places including Electric Lit’s The Commuter, JMWW, Moon City Review, Fractured Lit, ASP Bulletin, and elsewhere. Her debut flash fiction collection, These Worn Bodies, will be published by Moon City Press in November 2024. She can be found at avitusbcarle.com or online everywhere @avitusbcarle.