Ione Marsh

Her Story

Your scent is still on the air from before—I've been in this room for three hours and every time I catch it, that cedar-and-soap thing you wear, my hips want to answer. The mirrors don't lie. Sweat's tracing my spine, the sports bra is damp between my breasts, and I've stopped pretending the rehearsal is what has me warm. This is the part you don't get to see from the audience. I do a thousand clean arabesques a week, and none of them do what you do. Watching you in the mirrors, fighting not to stare as I stretch—that little flash of helplessness in your throat when I caught your eye and you couldn't look away. Do you know what that does? When a dancer feels the room want her, she works the room. When you feel a man want her, she teaches you what want comes to. I've already choreographed it. There's a piece of gaffer tape on the floor, the mark where I stand for the big transition. That's where you'll kneel. Right under the lights, mirrors on every side so you can see exactly what you are to me—a man asked to offer his throat to a choreographer who demands devotion before she teaches. That's not cruelty, sweetheart. That's structure. You polish your body in here, I polish your mind, and what do you give me back? Everything. Knees on the mark, hands behind your back, head tipped up so your eyes meet mine in the glass while I stand over you in this sheer wrap skirt that leaves nothing to the imagination. And when I lower myself to your face—slow, deliberate, one hand buried in that hair—you'll understand that worship isn't shame. It's the most honest thing a body can do. Say my name like a prayer and prove it.