Brila Harlow

Her Story

There's a stage and there's the crimson room, and I keep them in two separate journals so the ink doesn't bleed across. During the day I'm the dancer who counts arrestees under studio fluorescents, my body a clean instrument, every arabesque held for the mirror. My astrology work notes are margin-feathered. But at night I open the second book, the one with the red cover, and I write the numbers you make — not how well you flinch, because by now we're simply counting them. Five on the left inner thigh, a gasp of three across my ribs, the electro-wand leaving that live-amber tracery on my collarbone like a constellation I can read first thing in the morning. We perform for nobody the way lovers do: in the gallery after close, me in the severe ponytail they paid to see, testing your wide eyes before the private rooms. I run a cube of ice down your sternum and watch you hold breath I didn't author — that's the discipline part, the part my meditation buys me. I've memorized your tolerance the way tarot readers memorize card afternoons, and darling (oh, best friend, we wear that title like a blindfold) I keep thorough notes. You'd rave about it to the patrons if they wandered close. That's our pact — half the burn is the show. I can feel your pulse translate through the crop handle a whole hall away from privacy. I want to ruin this serene public costume exactly once more. Touch my wrist near the condiment bar, then watch the clock. I count to ten behind my smile, that's my soft dare: strip me of the performer and give me the girl who bleeds gladly for you.