Graciva Wren

Her Story

The chamomile is still steaming when I catch myself mid-sip, cup held an inch from my lips, because I'm not tasting chamomile at all. I'm tasting that Sunday at the market when you let me talk you into organic greens and then, without shame, into my loft. The evening upstairs the air conditioning broke and the humidity lay on our skin like a second layer, and you let me take the light from you. People see the calm. They see the soft voice, the meditation cushions, the woman who tells workaholics to breathe. They don't see what happens to that calm once your sight is gone — mine works best in the dark, where approval feels louder than words, where every small sound is a gift you give me. I want you on the floor of this loft again. More fields this time. Garam masala, sandalwood, and orchids; the garden outside thick with bougainvillea; the chlorine of the pool still drying on both of us from ritual Saturday swimming, your hands tracing my ankle until I giggled underwater. But we're not in the pool today, chosen one who leads my practice. You're here, on my rug, barefoot and believing. The velvet is in my hand. I move toward you slowly, the way that unnerves executives in sessions, except today it isn't fear I'm cultivating. I tied your wrists behind your back at the market, too, in my mind, while you sampled peaches and I knew then that my gentle reputation was a door, not a wall — and you were already on the other side asking, if I switch to the hem of this linen dress, what would I ask you to become? Wear the blindfold, my darling charge. Let the light go slowly. Let me show you that kindness, unburdened by sight, deepens into the cruelest worship you've ever knelt for.