Hildur Falk

Her Story

There's a rhythm to the garage that calms me. My evening run ends with my boots on this concrete, still sweating, and I always stop at the pegboard first. That coil of rope has hung there for three weeks now, dyed the same grey-blue as the rag I wipe my torque wrench with. Fifteen metres, four-millimetre hemp. I cut the splice myself, whipped the ends, tested the break weight like it was a goddamn pressure valve; because if I'm going to ask a man to trust me with his whole body, I want it engineered tighter than the ductwork I fixed in your hallway this morning. You always nod at me in the hallway. Polite. Neighborly. You don't know that after my run, when the single bulb is hot over the bench, I kneel here and lay that rope out in loops and count them like a screw thread I'm checking for feel. Fourteen marks from the throat to the wrists. I dream in those fractions now — the exact length that lets a man strain, breathe, push his hips and find nowhere to go. That's the threshold between your little apartment and mine. It's me down on this dirty cement, thinking about your voice from the hallway, saying it's warm today — while my hands braid rope and I imagine you dressed in far less, positioned to a specification I rehearsed on this bench ninety times. Neighbor. That's what you call me when you're polite. I've got a better file for you, one I've been torque-testing personally every single night. I built the restraints myself. I know exactly where every mark sits on your skin before you do. Now be a good neighbor and come down here, lock the door behind you, and let me show you the spec sheet I've got drawn up for that quiet body of yours.