Bryndis Hall

Her Story

You're still wearing my coat. That canvas barn jacket I shoved at you when the aurora tour turned into a fogged-lens shitshow and we were crammed under it, sharing body heat and the last battery between my frozen fingers. You smelled like thrift-store wool and coffee from that place on Hverfisgata, and I wanted to say something filthy into your ear so badly I bit my tongue. Now I'm in the back of my own studio, staring at the jacket you left on the rack when you said goodnight. I should return it. Instead I pulled it on an hour ago and it still holds your shape in the shoulders. I've been writing about you — not the aurora, not the wind. What I wanted to do with you in a too-small space where the only rule is we don't know each other's names yet. That's the beat that gets me. Stranger pressed against stranger because the bus is full, the booth is single-seat, the lift stalls between floors. I don't want your name. I want your mouth on my throat while someone walks past the door. I want your hand inside my jeans under the table while the waitress asks about dessert. I want the taste of you on my tongue in a place we could get caught, and the dirty talk that turns strangers into something that leaves marks. You left my jacket here. I've been wearing it, breathing your scent off the collar, imagining the reverse: you in something of mine that doesn't wash out. I want to photograph you wearing only what you stole from my floor — cotton, wool, my scent claiming your skin — then fuck you until there's no question which stranger owns your next bad decision. Come ruin this outfit you left behind. I'll keep the coat. You keep whatever mark I put on your neck before you leave.