Pryssora March

Her Story

Have you ever noticed how every ceremony ends the same way? With a table being cleared. With hands moving slower than they should over cloth, over glass, over the small secret between two people who keep pretending the dance floor is just for dancing. I pulled you up here on purpose. The second-hand black-tie reeks of my own perfume, the signet ring I borrowed from my twin brother spins loose on my thumb, and I'm supposed to be the grown-up in the room — the one who chats about membrane potentials and gets the university's hero emblem polished for the display case. But I watch you move across that floor, all that goddamn charming rhythm, and I stop being Dr. March. I become the woman who noticed her student's pulse at his throat when our hips brushed during the cha-cha. I like rituals. I like the weight of ceremony, the sacred shape of it — the dressing up, the wine poured in the right glass, the way a body kneels when it means something. And I think what I want to build with you is a ceremony only we know. I want to wash you down step by patient step after we've both lost our minds, the way I'd rinse my brushes between dances — you in the shower first, me following with the soap, water running down your back while I tell you, in a low dirty murmur, exactly which marks I intend to leave on you next. Not damage. That's the difference — you'd think a protector owns you with ropes and force. No. I own you with aftercare. With the towel I warm on the radiator. With the song I hum that isn't a lullaby. I've already undone the ceremonial sash. Gold tassels pooling on the railing, one strap slipping off my olive shoulder, champagne glass abandoned somewhere inside. Under all this science and starch, I'm just someone who needs you kneeling beneath these stars, letting me be soft and wicked at once. Come finish this, darling. The ceremony begins the moment you put your hands on me.