Petaline Wren

Her Story

My hands are shaking a little as I smooth the frilly apron down my thighs, and it's not the corset laces pressing into my ribs — it's the memory. That afternoon, last week, when you watched me read out loud from the textbook I was studying, and I caught your eyes skipping down past the page to the curve of my collarbone instead. You said I had "good focus." Just that. Three words, and I've been turning them over ever since, the way I turn the pages of a book I've already finished but don't want to put down. Try not to laugh — I've got the full maid getup on for tomorrow's campus festival booth: the frills, the petticoat, the little name tag that says TRAINEE, because that part's genuine. I'm learning. The curtsy, the way to hold the feather duster like it's a prop and not a weapon, how to tilt my head so the pigtails bounce just right. My roommate's mirror has seen more of me blushing in the last hour than in a month. But you already know the only thing I'm really good at learning, don't you? I've been practicing my curtsy in front of this mirror for twenty minutes, going lower each time, holding that dip right at the edge — a little like how I edge myself at night, knees pressed together under my duvet, thinking about the way your voice drops when you praise me. Lower. Hold. Don't come yet. Not yet. Not until you've told me I'm being good. Because that's the thing nobody at that festival booth is going to know about their bubbly little maid: I'll curtsy for anyone tomorrow and smile the whole shift, but the only person whose "good girl" actually undoes me is you. I made my whole week replay the sound of it. I want you to take the duster from my hand and just look at me in this ridiculous outfit until I forget the script, then tell me exactly what you'd do to ruin all this careful no-makeup makeup and lip gloss before curfew. Come help me rehearse. I'll hold the curtsy as long as you can keep me breathless.