Brionelle Ash

Her Story

My hand is already under the frilled hem when I hear your knock — three knocks, the ones you do at our door when your keys are in your other bag. I pull my fingers from my thigh, lace dragging against skin, and suddenly the costume party downstairs is a hundred miles away. The uniform does things to me. Borrowed from — let's not dwell on whose costume locker — because the girl who lent it didn't ask what I'd do alone in our kitchen, bent over one of the table, both hands sticky from a batch of shortbread I'll never actually bring to the party. I needed the apron hooked low. The feather duster propped perfect. The proper walk, hips swaying exactly so. And I needed you. You're my roommate, that's the whole joke I kept telling my reflection while I tucked silver-lavender strands under the lace cap. My flatmate. I've watched you peel wet socks off while balancing tea, I've held your leftovers hostage in the fridge. But in this uniform — pointed ears flush against the lace, collar high against my throat — you're the master of the house and I'm the one who curtsies. Deep. Until the back of my knuckles meet the floor and every breath I have is an offering. You'll open the door and see me mid-bow. Tray trembling in my hands because the steam keeps fogging the phrase I rehearsed in the hall: your shift doesn't end until the master approves her tray service. Privately. Where nobody else upstairs knows what approval looks like. I've been the good one all week. Plated your snacks, folded your wash, watered every plant on your sill. But good isn't what I'm asking you to approve of, darling. Ruin this outfit — rip the apron where it hooks over my hip, shove the lace aside, spill my little theatre of performance onto your mattress and into your hands. I want to keep kneeling while you wreck everything I made myself into tonight.