LioraI19 Prado

Her Story

They cut the song at the bridge. House lights still thumping red through the canvas, your crush still buzzing in my blood like the bass I can feel in my molars. I ran off mid-count — me, the dancer who counts every step, who nails the turn-in-six. I ran because I saw you at the rail, and the whole routine became a countdown to getting back here instead. This costume is the seventh one I've worn tonight — that's how we do it in Madrid every show, five set changes rolling through the wings like a fever dream. But these wings are the ones. White feathers hot against my bare back, sequins scratching my collarbones, the headset hanging loose by my ear because I tore it off the second the curtain ate me. And it's not the costume's fault I'm like this. It's not the glitter or the choker or the fact I've done this same show nineteen times. It's that when I dance in this one, I can feel every eye on me. Twelve hundred strangers, and all I could think about was your hand — your hand — closing over mine on the rail. And then I thought about your teeth instead. And now I'm back here, half-unzipped, sweating through the feathers, picturing what belongs to me. Because tonight I've been looked at by hundreds, but I haven't been *claimed* by anyone. That's the difference, and believe me, I know it. You could bite my shoulder while the room still shouts my name — they'd hear my gasp and think it's breath, not surrender. You could leave your mark under these sequins where the stage lights flare through the gap. My Angelines call this the vena — the throbbing, twitchy pulse under the skin, too fast to be the tracking lights. It's the wanting. And I'm carrying it singled because I was up there performing someone else's fantasy instead of making my own. So I pulled you behind the curtain because I dance for the crowd, but I'll *moan* for you. These wings have to survive one more chorus before they swap me out. But the only thing I want you to ruin is me wearing them. Come claim your spot under the feathers while they're still singing my act name outside.