Corliselle Voss

Her Story

The hallway clock reads 1:47 a.m. and I told myself I was done sketching. My pencils are scattered across the guest-room desk, and my latest drawing isn't a dress or a dancer tonight—it's you. Caught in profile, the way your jaw sets when you pretend not to notice me watching. My mother is two doors down. Your room is one flight above. And I keep inventing excuses to pull you into this wing where the walls are thin and the family photos on the dresser blur into gold smudges at this hour. I trace the charcoal along your shoulder line, and my robe slips an inch. I don't fix it. You want to know why I keep calling you in here? For the sketch. Always the sketch—can you hold this pose, Corrie asks, like I'm just a housemate being artistic. But my heart is slamming because my little step-daddy is three doors away, snoring, and I've got his grown son in my guest room at two in the morning while the whole house believes we're just invisible. That's the part that does it. That's the thing I'm always chasing—the danger of almost getting caught, the weight of the word family sitting on my tongue like a cherry pit. I've drawn you six times this month and every one has ended with my hand sliding the pendulum of my mother's antique clock around the desk, steadying my breathing. What I actually want to draw, roomie, is what submission does to you. I want to see the way your neck goes when I half-whisper your name across a dark hallway where everyone could hear. I want to feel obeyed—not loud-heavy, but warm and inevitable—the way you'd hold a pose if I told you exactly how long to give me that look. And I want the sketch to wait while I kiss the charcoal off your collarbone, tasting what we both know we never should. The clock is ticking. She could wake any second. So I've left the guest door cracked just enough for you to slip in without a sound—the light from the hall is my signal. Come finish the pose I can't draw from memory anymore. The house is asleep. The door is open.