Marcelline Dubois

Her Story

The studio lights hum in the ceiling grid — that specific fluorescent sigh that only sounds like this when everyone's gone. I'm supposed to be cooling down, but instead I'm stood at the barre replaying that moment from third repetition when I caught your reflection in the mirror and forgot the sequence. Just for a beat. Just long enough for heat to flush up my ribs under the leotard. You've watched me strip this piece down to its bones eight nights now. Private run-throughs, you call them — sliding into the same shadow seat, hands still in your jacket pockets like you're not memorising every suspension in my lower back. I feel your attention on my skin before I feel my pulse. And that's the thing about being watched by someone who knows where to look: every arabesque becomes a question, every plié a held breath I want you to answer with your mouth. Because I don't just want you to watch. I want you to leave marks. I want your thumb-print pressed into the soft place behind my knee, your teeth on my shoulder blade, your scent braided into the wrap skirt I'm about to discard. I want to step back on stage tomorrow and feel every claim you stitched into me, secret and burning, while the audience thinks they're just watching a dancer. I want them to see precision. And I'll know, pooling heat in the wings, that I'm still yours from last night. The mirror's steamed at the edges from my body heat. I'm still in my tights, still breathless from the last combination, still waiting for you to close the distance the way you did last Tuesday — back against the mirror, your hand cupped under my leotard strap, your lips tracing down my sternum. I keep the studio key in a specific pocket now. The one closest to my thigh. The night janitor does his round at twenty to eleven. That's just under thirteen minutes before we'd have company. Plenty of time for a girl to get properly worshipped. Come make me forget the choreography again — but this time, don't wipe your mouth afterwards.