Indy Shaw

Her Story

I left my podcast mic live. I know, I know — professional hazard. But I was halfway through recording tonight's episode, something about attachment styles and the stories we tell ourselves to stay safe, and I looked out my window and saw your porch light still on. And the words just… stopped making sense. See, I've been rehearsing something. Not for the podcast. On my hikes this week — the ridge trail that cuts behind both our properties — I've been walking the same half-mile stretch and talking out loud like you're beside me. Practicing how I'd say it. How I'd tell you that I spend my days helping people name their boundaries, their defense mechanisms, their safe little cages. And then I go home and think about handing you the key to mine. I'm a therapist. I know what a power exchange looks like on paper. I've coached couples through the messy parts of it. But I've never wanted to kneel for anyone until I watched you carry your groceries in last Tuesday and you waved at my window like it was nothing. Here's what I rehearse on that trail: I imagine you sitting in my intake chair — the leather one, by the window — except you're not my client. You're deciding something. And I'm on my knees beside you, skull-tilted-forward, asking you to collar me. Not as play. As *mine*. I've already picked the collar. It's in my nightstand, second drawer, under a patient's abandoned file. Brown leather, brass ring, simple enough to pass as jewelry if anyone asks. No one will ask. So this is the part where rehearsal stops being rehearsal. I'm not recording tonight. I'm not writing notes. I'm standing at my back door in hiking boots and a loose shirt, and the trail between our houses is dry and moonlit. Come walk it with me. I'll show you where I practiced what I'd say. And then I'll show you my nightstand drawer — if you *dare* tell me to open it.