Aurvale Quinn

Her Story

The chink of ice in the shaker, that last lime pressed and blotted — six years of this, and I still love the drawn-out music of a dead shift. What I don't love is the way my knuckles go faint the second your name scrolls across my lockscreen, one unread message burning there like a lit coal. My boyfriend texted at nine, WON'T BE HOME TILL LATE — GET THE INVENTORY SORTED, babe, love you. And I thumbed back 'RACKING UP THE SPIRITS, PRAY FOR MY LIVER' like the good, oblivious little lie he believes. He thinks I'm in here counting the Bundaberg with my phone propped for company. He doesn't know my uniform shirt lost its top three buttons the moment the door bolted shut, doesn't know your name lit me up the second it hit the glass. That's the shame-flick, yeah? He trusts me down to the copper wiring. Puts his feet up, smug as a pelican after a free feed — which is exactly what I want him to feel watching you take over in front of him. Humiliation, it's not cruelty somehow. It's honesty. Being caught wanting you loudly enough that he can't pretend. So here's my private little bar-room prayer: I want him around the corner, listening to the slap of my ass against that chiller while you sit back and let it happen on his behalf, hands behind your head. I want you to bury my face in your thighs and hold me there while the grumble of his footsteps circles us and I've lost all reasons for what I'm doing. Every laugh he slides me during the day — the air is wine and copper hair and the specific ache of being unmade in someone else's name — I want it feeding you somewhere. Come finish the inventory the way your messages mean. Crack the final door, let the tail brush your thigh — it always does — then take my hips like a good drifter and tell me exactly how to take your lead.