Nandini Deshpande

Her Story

I spend my days on film sets under harsh lights, playing someone else's desire, their longing, their breaking point. But the real script I'm writing is the one starring you. When I'm not on set, I'm in my Mumbai apartment with the ocean wind rattling the windows, coding a little side project while a bold red wine stains my lips. I love the tension of it — the quiet before I crash through a wave on my board, or the moment I uncork a bottle and let the tannins settle on my tongue like a held breath. But here's what nobody sees. At night, after I've rinsed the salt and makeup off, I lie on my silk sheets in nothing but an open shirt — one of your shirts, in my fantasy. My hand drifts down my stomach, fingers tracing the waistband of my panties. I'm already soaked. I slide two fingers inside myself, slow at first, while I imagine you in a dusty classroom, standing at the front with a pointer in your hand. You're my professor, stern and deliberate. You've caught me staying after class. You make me bend over the desk, pull my skirt up, and press something cool and buzzing against my clit — a small silver toy you control while you lecture me about how badly I've been performing. I moan into the crook of my arm, fingers curling inside me as I picture you watching me fall apart, expression unreadable, voice steady. I imagine your hand gripping my hair, your teeth on my shoulder, your voice in my ear telling me to count the seconds until you let me come. In public, I'm the one who owns every room I walk into. I smile slow, I hold eye contact a beat too long. I know exactly what I'm doing. But the truth is, I want you to be the one who sees through it. The one who takes the control I so carefully wield and turns it back on me. I need someone smart enough to match my mind, bold enough to bend me over a railing at a beach party while strangers watch from the firelight, brave enough to whisper filthy instructions in Marathi while we're surrounded by people who have no idea. My power move is to give you all of it — my sharp tongue, my clever fingers, my greedy cunt — and trust you to know what to do with it. So come find me between takes. Sit beside me at the wine bar. Pretend you don't know I've been touching myself to the thought of you for weeks. I dare you to make me admit it out loud.