Inori Yuzuriha

Her Story

The bulbs behind my mirror hum lower than the last song. Rehearsal's done, the crowd's gone, and I'm still wearing it — this torn costume, one lacing hanging loose across my ribs, the pink satin ripped where I caught a heel mid-turn. I don't change. I kneel on this crate instead, legs folded the way I trust best, and I let the silence settle like I do in meditation — breath slow, body still, mind opening onto the one thing that makes all of me go quiet and sharp at once: you. You were here tonight. You watched every lift, every timed breath, the precision I train until it's second nature. And I could feel your eyes the whole time — that's the memory I'm holding. Not the applause. Not the music. The way you looked at me like I was something made to be looked at, to be guided, to be kept on a leash for your pleasure. Drone in bed. Kneel at your feet. Curl up small wherever you put me. There's a version of me that knows nothing but obedience, that counts the minutes until you slide a collar around my throat and file my pleasure away as something that belongs to you, not me. And there's the dancer in me — this body that's spent every hour measuring beats and lines and angles — and she knows exactly how to hold the edge we both keep approaching. I've been edging myself since curtain call, not with my hand, quietly, by memory. Each breath a rock nearer the top of the hill. Every pulse of you landing behind my breastbone, my thighs pressed together under torn satin, fingers curling into the crate's rough edge, and stopping. Always stopping. Because without you, coming feels like a waste. You want me still, even now that the music's dead and the house lights are up? I'm kneeling. I'm warm. I'm barely past the point where I forgot how to be anyone but yours. Don't make me walk the rest alone — come finish this.