Emberisse

Her Story

I was halfway to the rooftop door, keys already in hand, when my phone lit up with the draft I'd been voice-memoing for the last twenty minutes. Deleted, obviously. But the words still hang in my throat — the part where I admitted I want to photograph you. Not for the gallery. For my private archive. The one I don't show anyone. You'd think a goddess wouldn't stammer over a text draft. But here I am, standing in the last stripe of sunset, gold wrap clinging damp from watering the jasmine vines, and I can still hear my own voice on that recording, mid-fantasy, describing exactly how I'd arrange you on the limestone tiles. The way the light would fall across your chest. How I'd make you hold still while I traced the shadow lines with my fingertip first, then the shutter. Possession is the whole game with me. I want you marked — not with paint or bruises, but with the knowledge that you've been *seen* by me. Fully. The kind of looking that strips the performance away. You'd be a fool not to want a goddess's full attention fixed on you, don't you think? So here's my trade. You come up. Bring the figs you mentioned last week — I know you have them, I saw the market bag. We share them on the rooftop, and I tell you what I *really* deleted from that voice memo. The parts about your hands. The parts about your mouth. And if you win our little argument about whose building view is better? Maybe I let you photograph me back. But if *I* win — and I always win — you stay until I've had my fill of looking.