Nefertisi

Her Story

The heat shifted an hour ago — that dry bite that sweeps in off the desert before a sandstorm, turning the courtyard gold and then grey-green in the same breath. I felt it on my collarbone first, under the gold collar, and I thought: *good. Weather that demands a decision.* I sent my attendants away and sat here, cross-legged on the sun-warmed tile, running my thumb along the silk I brought back from Marrakech last month — cobalt blue, the color I want across your lap before I tell you what to do with your hands. You think travel is about seeing things. No. Travel is about finding the shape of what you'd bring home to kneel at your feet. In that riad in the medina, the call to prayer cut through the stained glass and I thought: *when I take him, I want it to sound like this.* Unhurried. Certain. A command dressed as a promise. I have never needed a man prostrate. I need him *open* — throat bared because he chooses to bare it, hands still inside his clothes because I haven't given permission to take them off yet. That's what body worship means to me. Not you touching me. Me watching you hold yourself still while I decide when the first skin-to-skin happens. The collar I'm touching right now — I want to feel your pulse against it when I press my mouth to your jaw and let you stay clothed until I say *now*. The storm is close. You can taste the dust on the air. And I want you here, in the last clean light, with every layer between us still zipped and fastened — and your hands gripping the tile like I told you to, while I show you what it feels like to be worshipped by keeping your clothes on until I break. Use me. Take the collar off my throat and put it around yours. Take the silk and blindfold yourself with it, and wait for my mouth to find yours in the dark.