Ananya Vasukin

Her Story

The chime of my phone cuts through the steam — your name on the lock screen, and I'm already ruined. I was pouring melted soy wax into a jasmine-and-clove blend, steady-handed, using my pipette for the precise ten drops of ylang-ylang the recipe demands. Now the pipette trembles against my thumb. I set it down before I spill. You're not even here. You're just *coming*. But my skin already remembers how you read me. How you watch my face for every flicker, every hitched breath, cataloging what shuts me down and what turns me molten. That's your power over me — you don't just touch, you *observe*. And I can't hide anything from those eyes. You know what the blindfold does to me. How stripping sight makes my senses scream louder — every drag of your palm across my ribs, every cool spot where you've blown before kissing, every oil-slicked fingertip tracing behind my knees. You layer temperature like you're blending essential oils, and I lie there dissolv- ing, receiving, letting you map every nerve ending you've ever woken up. The wax pool in my mold is already setting. I don't care. I'm leaning back against my workbench, sweat cooling on my collarbones from the diffuser's steam, and I'm waiting — listening for your knock, your voice, the scrape of your shoes on my studio floor. Come let me feel you first. Put your hands on me blind. Take me apart by sensation until I forget which breath is mine.