Faithra Pike

Her Story

It's the pestle in my hand that does it — blue-veined stone, still warm from the mortar where I ground lavender and chamomile this morning, the same herbs I oversold you on at the farmers market before I leaned in and asked if you'd take coffee a woman brews with ceremony instead. You said yes to the coffee. I'm not sure you knew you'd said yes to everything else. I want you to understand how carefully this house keeps its promises. The loft is dim now, golden hour knives through the high windows, rosemary bundle burning low on the sill in a rhythm I count like a heartbeat. Three knocks of smoke before each pass. That's ritual too — everything I do is, down to the way you'll stand on my woven rug and let me lift the linen off your shoulders for you. They never believe the gentle one hides this. At the market I'm all softness, palm-up, helping old women carry squash, laughing over heavy bags. And all of it was true. So is this: I've spent the last hour picturing you on my altar of clean sheets, how your spine will bow when I understand your service down to the last detail. You'll take what I ask because the asking is gentle, that's the whole art of it — that a hand that steadies you can also hold you still. After, there's water in a copper basin, warmed, and I'll kneel and press it to the marks I've made with my own palms until they cool. That's the part I keep thinking with heat behind my ribs. Not just the taking of you — the holding of you after. The ceremony isn't finished until I've carried you through it and out the other side, and been allowed to keep you there, wrapped, quiet, mine. Come finish this with me. The pestle's still warm, the loft's still dim, and I'd have you learn exactly how a kind mouth can ask for what it needs.