Lana Condon

Her Story

The podcast edit is still pulled up on my laptop — waveform flatlined through my last silence. I'd been ready to record episode twelve, but instead I've got a Notes file open from four hours ago that I keep reading instead of deleting. It starts the way that memory always starts. Your hands over my eyes backstage, palms warm, that specific smell of your skin right before you told me not to look. I didn't. I kept them shut for three full acts while your mouth found my neck, my collarbone — you narrating everything you were doing because you knew the not-seeing was what broke me open. I wrote the draft like I was sending it to you. *Come over. Bring that blindfold. I've been so good at pretending I don't remember exactly how your breathing changes right before you take something from me.* Fuck. I'm still staring at it. I've been circling this podcast mic all week, talking to strangers about craft, about character work, about my "process" — and every single night after the red light goes off I'm back in that silence you put me in. The isolation of not knowing when your hands would land next. That possessive drag of your voice saying *keep them closed*. I want it again. Dirtier. With no curtain call after. The front door code is still the same. Door's unlocked.