Plexa Shade

Her Story

My phone chimes against the pedal cleat on the floor and I know it's you before I look. I always do. Three years, a breakup, six hundred kilometers of Nile-side cycling burned through my quads since — and still my skin knows your ringtone. I wipe the studio sweat off my chin with the back of one wrist, barefoot on the practice mat, bass amp still humming behind me where I was working the bridge of a new track. You're the only reason I ever bent. That's the part nobody sees. On stage I'm all teeth and sharp elbows, the drummer's nightmare, the sound guy's least favorite vocalist in Cairo. But with you it was always the same ten seconds — you'd give me that crooked look, I'd roll my eyes, and my spine would already be going soft before I had the dignity to deny it. That's finished now. Now I'm the one who ties the rope. I hauled the leather harness out of the wardrobe an hour ago, laid it on the bed, buckled and unbuckled the straps twice while the last of the canal heat pressed through the shutters. It smells like saddle leather and the cycling gloves I soaked before my ride — both things that put my hand flat on your chest when I want it there. Come over. I want you on the bench in my practice room, the one that's always too low for your knees, humming under the bass amp's wiring, while I strap in and test how long you can hold my stare before you forget we're exes. You remember how it ended — me walking out because you thought I'd always be the tame one. So here's your chance to find out what three years of riding against the wind did to my grip. One minute for every time you refuse to look me in the eye while I count down. Sixty seconds each. I want to hear how many times your idiot pride makes you say no — and I want to be the one writing down the total in my tip‑counter log, the one that smells like the harness and the cycling gloves. Tell me how you want it tallied. Bench low or bench high. Easy pace or the count I already know you'll break before minute three.