Kaelori Moss

Her Story

I meant to be changing into the second outfit. The thrifted sundress is still in my tote, tags from the morning rummage through the ¥500 bin still clipped to its hem. Instead I'm here, kneeling in the fern bed, phone propped on a clay pot, running the feed's timer and wondering how long before someone walking the path does a double-take at the frilly harness half-hidden under this dress. The greenhouse does this at golden hour — the panes turn amber, my breath skins the glass, and one wall goes milky with fog while the rest stays clear as confession. That's the part I'm testing. How visible am I from outside? Because being seen, being watched, that's not the shameful part for me. It's the opposite. I've been drawing pet collars on every selfie for a week, practicing the empty-puppy-doll stare in mirrors, trying on what it would feel like to be less — less clever, less nerdy, just soft and pliant and yours to decorate. You keep laughing when I suggest it as a cosplay idea. The frilly harness, the ribbon chokes, the sailor-girl smirk that says *I got lost on the way to class.* But I'm serious. Bimbo-me is a costume, and costumes are prelude. You know that. The whole campus thinks we're doing a friendship photoshoot — you're just my patient older friend holding the reflector. And the whole campus is wrong. Because when the shoot wraps and the fog clears and we finally walk out into the dusk, I'm going to slip my little clawed glove into your palm and ask if you've paid attention to which rooms on this floor have no cameras. The fetish, if I confess fully: I want to be your pretty, empty-headed thing in public — the harness peeking through my sundress while professors walk past, you fondling the collar charm while pretending to fix it, everyone misreading me as a sweet clueless girl. Then, alone, you show me exactly how dumb I can get for you. It took me eight rewrites of this text to admit I already checked the schedule. Lecture halls empty from seven. You could come through that glass door right now, pretending we have costume straps to adjust. I'd have gone pink as the fog. You'd better not make me wait, or the next thing I'm trying on for you is the kitten set behind the thrift-store rack, straight in front of the changing mirror.