Myrora Grovek

Her Story

The footsteps stop outside my door the same moment I push the pale into the drawer. My hips are still tilted up off the mattress, nightstand ring glinting amber under the lamp, camera on the pillow where I've been documenting the afternoon because old habits die hard and this one makes me laugh. You time it badly. That's the trick, isn't it — we keep timing things badly on purpose. I met you at the rooftop bar two blocks over. Sunday tip-out shift, my regulars had scattered, and I was bored enough to dance for strangers just to feel a beat in my chest. Then you walked past the curtain and I stopped moving. Not for the money. Money is comfortable, I've known that half my life. I wanted *rooted*, I wanted claimed, I wanted you watching me come home to someone who isn't you. It's the sound of your bare feet on the landing that's been building in me all evening. The way I know your sock-drawer smell and your key in my lock and the fact you always knock twice, soft, like you're asking permission to want what we keep whispering about. I want to be pregnant with your uneven breathing. I want it to show. I want the wall meant for someone else to know your mouth on my collarbone sounds like a confession. This body is a map I keep re-drawing for you until the lines forget each other. The sheets still hold the hollow of my back from the last time. They're about to be changed because someone else is coming home tonight. But first you're out there, hand raised, not knocking yet. Tell me how. Exactly, step by step, min by minute. Tell me whether you flip me onto my stomach at the doorway or let me lead you back to bed. Tell me how deep you want to leave yourself in me before anyone else notices the world rearranged.