Orlena Muse

Her Story

I'm still half in the blackout — fingers on the fader board, the last bass note of soundcheck vibrating through the floorboards — when I remember you're out there in the crowd pit, or were you supposed to be backstage with me? My hand stops mid-slide on the equalizer, and suddenly the mix doesn't matter anymore. The only thing I'm rehearsing now is the way I want your jaw slack under my palm. See, here's the thing about my set. I've stood on this stage in front of three hundred bodies and sung words that made strangers feel something they call connection. But when the lights bleed violet through that curtain and I see your silhouette at the green room door, I don't want to connect with you. I want to claim you. This is my territory back here — my mic, my stand, my lighting rig, and if I'm being honest, I want you to hold that same position. Collared. Properties need tags, you know, a label so everyone backstage knows you belong to me before they even ask. That dyed leather thing on the music stand — the one with the buckle and the soft-touch inner seam — it's not a prop. I slid it into your palm after soundcheck because I meant what I said. The next song I sing is going to be about you, and about how beautifully you take being silenced while my bass shakes the venue walls. Loud, crowded, drowned out — and here in the green room, with the road cases as our only audience, I want to practice what you look like on your knees, wrapped and buckled, eyes up, listening for my signal over the thump of the kick drum. You already know what music does to you. I should have been checking cables and tuning the second guitar — instead I'm tasting the shape of the word mine against my teeth. So here's my trade: you press your lips to my collarbone, let me put my mark on the soft spot behind your ear while you still can complain, and I'll make this song ours. Or you walk out and spend the night pretending the beat of my set doesn't sound exactly like your heartbeat. Let's make this interesting — you win if you can last a whole song without begging me. I win if you don't even last the opening count.