Monday at Charité

The alarm went off on Monday morning at six o'clock sharp.

For a brief second, I lay completely motionless in bed, but reality caught up with me on the very first breath. A dull fire burned in my right flank. Beneath the breathable film, the freshly inked triangle throbbed with every heartbeat, hot and tender over the bony crest of my pelvis. Right beside it rested the seamless ring of surgical steel, its cold edges pressing unyieldingly into my flesh.

I threw back the duvet and stood up gingerly. Merely angling my legs to stand stretched the skin across the iliac crest so tautly that a piercing jolt of pain shot through my side.

In the bathroom, I carefully pulled on a pair of clean, soft briefs, taking care that the elastic hem did not chafe against the edges of the dressing. Then I slid into dark cloth trousers with a loose waistband. No zipper pressing inward, no rigid belt digging in. Over that went a plain, dark button-down, its hem left to hang loosely over the trousers.

Two hours later, I set foot on the historic grounds of the Charité in Mitte. The smell of disinfectants, damp autumn leaves, and stale coffee from the vending machines met me in the foyer. Around me, students, physicians, and lecturers hurried through the corridors, engrossed in conversations about practicals and ward rounds. I pulled on my white clinic coat, fastened the buttons, and climbed the steps toward the lecture hall with measured strides.

Every step was a quiet test of endurance. Whenever I swung my right leg forward, the fabric of my trousers brushed lightly against the sterile dressing. It stung like a fresh sunburn, and my brain sounded the alarm with every movement: do not catch the cloth, do not let the corners roll up.

In the lecture hall, the second row was already occupied. Mira sat in her usual spot. Her dark-blonde hair was pinned into a neat bun, the sleeves of her black turtleneck pushed up to her elbows. The moment she noticed me, she beamed with that open, uncomplicated smile that had become so familiar to me over the previous semester.

"Morning, John," she greeted me cheerfully, clearing her bag from the adjacent seat. "You're on time. I half-expected you to get stranded on the Ringbahn again."

"Good morning, Mira," I replied, taking care to keep my voice entirely neutral.

I slid slowly into the narrow wooden bench. As I sat and bent my hips, the fabric of my trousers bunched up right over the bone of my right pelvis. The pressure hit the irritated wound with full force. A sharp, cutting ache flared into my side. Clamping my jaw tight, I drew a hissing breath through my nose and braced my hand against the edge of the desk to keep from letting out a sound.

Mira's gaze, which had been resting on the notes across her tablet a moment earlier, snapped straight toward me. Her eyes narrowed into those analytical slits she usually reserved for dissecting lab panels.

"Everything alright with you?" she asked, furrowing her brow and tilting her head slightly. "You just sat down as though you had acute appendicitis. Your entire face went pale."

"Just… pulled something working out over the weekend," I lied hurriedly, reaching for my notebook to give my hands something to do. "A lumbar vertebra locked up a bit. Pulls rather unpleasantly into the right hip."

Mira studied me for a long time. An amused, mischievous smirk played upon her lips. She leaned slightly toward me, propped her chin on her palm, and scrutinized my rigid posture from the side.

"Working out, is it?" she remarked under her breath, a playful edge in her voice that instantly brought sweat to my brow. "You've been quite the active athlete lately, colleague. Last week the cramp during the ultrasound, before that the supposed ointment, and today the hip. Tell me, are you picking up extreme sports behind my back?"

"Just ordinary training," I forced out, taking great care not to tilt my weight to the right.

"If you say so," she murmured, yet her eyes danced with curiosity. She crossed her legs with an easy swing. The toe of her stylish boot settled quite casually a mere few inches from my shin, bobbing gently up and down, silently reminding me how close she had come to my secret over the past few weeks.

I noticed that she was wearing the boots nearly every day now. The soft leather clung tightly to her calves, and she moved the tapered toe with an effortless familiarity, as if it had long since become an ordinary fixture of her Charité routine. I forced my focus back to my tablet, but the rhythmic movement of her foot remained pinned at the edge of my vision.

"You've been wearing those boots quite a lot lately," I said after a pause, trying to sound offhand. "They really suit you. Don't they get on your nerves after running around in them all day?"

Mira laughed quietly, letting the toe circle once more before answering.

"Not really," she replied, offering a light shrug. "I find them genuinely comfortable, and they go with almost everything I wear this semester. Besides, I like the way they feel when I walk. It's a bit like taking on the day standing a little taller. You, on the other hand, seem to notice them far more often than most people in this hall."

"I… I just pay attention to details," I managed, feeling warmth creep into my cheeks. "Occupational hazard, I suppose."

"If you say so," she repeated, this time lingering a moment longer on my posture. "Just make sure you don't tie yourself into knots during the physical examination course later. When we palpate lymph nodes, I need a partner who doesn't jump off the bench at the slightest touch. And if your hip is truly that locked up, you might want to have someone look at it before you get even more tangled up next week."

"I'll keep it in mind," I answered with a brief nod. "It'll settle down soon enough. Just a temporary thing."

Mira let her gaze rest on me for a second longer, then turned back to her tablet and tapped something into her notes. The tip of her boot remained beside my shin, shifting ever so slightly now and then as if keeping time with her thoughts.

The morning at the Charité dragged on slowly. With every slight turn of my torso, the burning periosteum sent sharp signals through my nervous system. And whenever I stood up or bent down to retrieve my bag, I felt Mira's probing eyes on my back—sharp, observant, but free of malice. It was as if she were studying a clinical puzzle whose perimeter she was narrowing down, piece by piece.

The days passed in this high-strung blend of conventional duties and the silent torture beneath my clothes.

By Thursday evening, nearly a week after the session at Ben's studio, the moment finally arrived.

I knelt on the cold tiles of our bathroom in Steglitz. Loona stood behind me, having laid out a slender pair of scissors, a paper towel, and a white tube of healing ointment along the edge of the washbasin. Wearing relaxed silk trousers, her dark hair pinned loosely up, she radiated that calm, detached authority that belonged to her alone.

"Take your trousers and underwear all the way off, John," she directed in a low, firm voice. "Hands flat on your thighs. And hold completely still."

I complied without a word. The cool air of the room settled over my bare skin.

Loona leaned down. Her fingers, cool and smooth, traced the perimeter of the Suprasorb dressing. Using two fingernails, she loosened the top corner along my ribcage.

"Take a slow, steady breath now," she instructed smoothly.

She pulled the film back slowly at a shallow angle across my skin. The adhesive resisted; it tugged sharply across sensitized pores and the pelvic bone as the wound met the open air for the first time in days. A hot, stinging pain flared up, but I bit my lip and didn't flinch.

When the dressing peeled away completely with a faint tearing sound, Loona tossed the scrap into the pedal bin.

Stepping back, she tilted her head to the side and assessed the result under the glaring bathroom light.

There on my pale, bare skin stood the tattoo: the downward-pointing triangle with the integrated Venus element was rendered razor-sharp, pitch-black, and without a trace of bleeding. The redness of the initial days had receded entirely; the delicate lines lay smooth and even across the bone margin, sitting directly beside the rigid base ring of the cage.

"Ben delivered excellent work," Loona assessed with a faint, satisfied smile touching her lips. "Precise, discreet, and utterly unambiguous."

Reaching for the tube of panthenol ointment, she squeezed a ribbon of the thick white paste onto the pad of her index finger and knelt down before me.

Her eyes locked with mine as her hand drifted down toward my flank. When her fingertip met the fresh tattoo, my frame jumped involuntarily. The ointment was cold, but the pressure against the bone made my nerves flare.

"No squirming, little one," Loona whispered with gentle, uncompromising severity.

With slow, circular motions, she began massaging the cream across the fine black lines. Her fingertip traced the tips of the triangle, followed the delicate Venus symbol, and casually brushed repeatedly against the steel ring encircling my anatomy.

Every stroke branded itself into my awareness: she was tending to me. She was caring for the mark she had ordained for me. It was an intimate, almost tender brand of care that, in its absolute naturalness, bound me to her far more deeply than any verbal command could have.

"This is part of you now, John," she said softly, rubbing the remaining traces of cream clear across my skin. Her eyes lingered over the design with unvarnished possession. "From this day on, there is no mistaking who you are and where you belong. Even when you are walking the Charité in your white coat, standing beside your proper Mira—you will carry this seal beneath every layer of cloth."

Tapping my cheek lightly with the flat of her hand, she stood with easy grace and washed her hands at the sink.

"Get dressed again, John," she said with a relaxed smile, drying her fingers on a towel. "The skin is closed, the ointment is absorbing. And the timing really couldn't be better."

Pulling the cotton trousers carefully over the treated flank, I straightened up slowly and looked at her with a questioning gaze. "What do you mean?"

Loona leaned against the edge of the washbasin, studying me from head to foot with quiet amusement.

"Nadja texted earlier," she explained in a velvety tone. "She is hosting a small gathering at her place next Friday. Just a few people from her closer circle, good drinks, a little music. And she invited the two of us."

A faint flutter of relief stirred within me, yet Loona's lips curled into a teasing smirk at that precise second, immediately tying my stomach into knots again.

"Though naturally, you aren't going as a guest, little one," she went on softly, tapping her index finger against my chest. "Nadja loved the thought of you managing the service throughout the evening. You will be mixing drinks for us and her girlfriends, clearing glasses, and making sure the girls want for nothing. Tucked neatly into the background, obedient and attentive. After all, you know how to serve properly by now."

Picking up her toiletry bag, she turned toward the door.

“And the best part is that you don’t have to put on a good-boy front at Nadja’s place like you do at the Charité. Her girls know the score. So you might as well get used to the thought of scurrying around her friends with fresh ink and firmly locked steel.”