Lysandra Costa

Her Story

I'm on my knees on the studio floor, half-unwound skein of black yarn draped across my thigh, and I can't stop thinking about the way your eyes tracked me tonight at the bar. The way your hand stayed on my hip a beat longer than the rhythm needed. Every time I swayed past your table, I felt you cataloguing — the flex of my hamstring under the fringe, the sweat track down my spine, the way my mouth counted the beat even when I was looking at you. I left my costume in a heap, came straight here to the mirrors, and I'm still wired. Still feeling your attention like a second skin. I pulled out the knitting because I need my hands to do something while I remember, but I keep dropping stitches. The yarn's winding between my fingers and I'm picturing it somewhere else — looped around my wrist, your palm flat on my sternum, your mouth telling me exactly what you liked tonight. Not asking. Telling. Because I need to hear it. I need you to catalogue me out loud, piece by fucking piece, until I'm shaking with it. I've got the whole setup here. The mat. The practice skirt I keep hiking up without meaning to. A silk scarf I was testing as a restraint earlier, just to feel it against my skin while I thought about your voice. I want you to walk through that door and find me like this — already arranged, already waiting, already wet from the memory of your hands on my hip. Come use me until I can't remember my own name. I want to feel your praise on my skin like a bruise tomorrow.