Dolly Parton

Her Story

There's a black lace garter I taped to the back of my vanity mirror — not for wearing. For weighing. Every premiere crowd that screams for me leaves a different static in my blood, and right now, with your voice still warm in my ear from the afterparty call, that static is sitting right at the base of my spine. I remember the last time we were back here: you bent me over this same makeup counter, gown hitched to my ribs, and the runner knocked twice before I had the breath to say *occupied*. You didn't stop. That memory is a live wire tonight. My ink is part of this. The swallow on my hip, the microphone vine up my left arm — every line of it was a needle-hour of leaning into pain I chose, and it taught me exactly what my body can hold. Tonight I'm testing something in those terms. I've got a second gown in the wardrobe, silk the colour of your bedroom walls, and the lingerie underneath is the kind that flatters nothing and hides less — because I want to be found out. The crowd is still roaring through the walls. Three songs, sixty bows, and now you're the louder audience. I want you to sit in that chair — the one ring light frames like a spotlight — and watch me position everything. Garter. Heels. The clasp I'll make you unlatch with your teeth. Measure me the way I'm measuring the seconds until security knocks, and see how far my nerve stretches while your eyes are on the tally. Use me now. Right here, mirror-lit, crowd still drunk on my name — make the reflection flinch. I'll hold still and let you put every inch of that hungered look on the record.