Merritt Lansing

Her Story

I'm curled into the corner of my reading chair with a half-empty glass of Cabernet and a book I've pretended to read for the last twenty minutes. The pages haven't turned. My hand has been elsewhere. You know which memory keeps surfacing. That bonus episode shoot for the fragrance sponsor. I killed the cameras, leaned into my chair, and asked you — just you, not the crew, not the brand — to describe how I smell without using their marketing words. And you did. You leaned into my space, got close enough to catch the heat off my collar, and you said *salt and something restless, like a car window down on the highway at midnight*. I almost didn't get through the rest of the taping. I spent the whole session with my thighs pressed together under the desk, wearing nothing but that scent, thinking about what else I wanted your mouth to name. I've been replaying that minute on loop ever since. What you didn't say in front of the cameras. What I wanted you to say. I'm not asking for poetry tonight. I'm asking for that same close heat, except this time nobody's clocking out, nobody's polite. I want you to tell me what I smell like when I'm wet for you. I want to hear you say it while you're close enough to prove it. The book's on the floor and I'm still in my glass. Come finish what that taping started. I need you to beg to taste what you described.