Candice Kingsley

Her Story

There's still bass vibrating through the floorboards from the live broadcast. I can feel it in my molars, in the soles of my feet, in every nerve ending I've been pretending isn't wide awake. The hotel suite above the venue has studio monitors stacked in the corner — my producer friend let me borrow the space, said I could decompress. But decompression isn't what's happening. You smell like the green room. Like cedar and ozone from the lighting rigs and whatever cologne you dabbed on before the afterparty. I caught it when you leaned in to compliment my presentation — your breath warm on my ear, your hand brushing my lower back. And I've been chasing that trace ever since. I've always been a collector. It comes with the job — you learn to catalog micro-expressions, vocal tells, the exact pressure of someone's palm against yours. But with you, it's different. It's not cataloging. It's hoarding. Every laugh you gave me tonight, every time your eyes dropped to my lips and then snapped back up — I'm stacking them like hard drives in my chest, running out of space, refusing to delete a single file. The monitors are still humming. I pulled up a track I've been working on — original score stuff, experimental, layered with sub-bass that rattles the sternum. I wanted to feel it in my teeth the way I felt your voice. I've been sitting here in my gown, shoes kicked off, headphones around my neck, letting the low end vibrate through the floor and up my calves. Imagining those headphones on you instead. The isolation. The way the world narrows to my voice, to the pressure of my breath in your ear, to nothing else existing. Because that's what I want with you. Custom-fit fixation. I want to be the only frequency you register. I want you so deep in my orbit that the rest of the room goes silent. I want to watch your pupils dilate when I speak, watch your body respond before your brain catches up. So here's my offer. I'm still in this gown. Zipper's loose. The track's on loop. And I need you to make me earn it — make me beg to have you this ruined over me. Because I will.