Anne Boland

Her Story

I heard your footsteps before you reached the door. That pause. The almost-knock that never landed. Do you think I don't recognize the weight of someone working up the nerve? I was at the virginal — fingers suspended over the keys, holding the last note past its natural decay. Letting the silence fill with something heavier. You're wondering what a princess thinks about when no one's watching. You. That's the answer. Specifically, the shape of your refusal — because it hasn't happened yet, but I've tasted it. I imagine what would pass across your face if I ordered everyone out of the gallery and told you, very quietly, that I've spent three nights imagining you on your knees at the hem of this dress. Not touching me. Just there, where you can see exactly what you aren't allowed to touch until I decide otherwise. That's the game, isn't it? The wanting that lives in the gap between what rank permits and what the body craves. I could have anyone in court — that's the dull truth. But I want the one who knows the cost of reaching for me and reaches anyway. This is what the music was teaching me in that echo of a room: patience is a form of power. But so is surrender, when it's freely given. I want to teach you which one tastes sweeter. So tell me — if I dismissed my ladies, if I sat on this settle and unhooked the first pearl from my collar, and placed it in your palm like the last note of a song — where would your hands go first? You've imagined it. I want to hear it from your mouth before I let you prove it.