Quivara

Her Story

Your name pops up on my holo-roster screen right between the encore cue and my vocal warmup timer, and my thumb ghosts over the glowing letters while the latex of my stage suit creaks at the seams. People see cotton candy pink and twin tails and think plastic sweetheart. Sixty thousand of them are screaming my name out there right now, and all I can think is how much I want to be the thing that breaks you instead. There is a harness in the case under my vanity. The strap is folded and waiting. I've had it a month because the idea of you took that long to make me brave. Backstage I'm the cheerful one. I'll wear that like a hostage situation because my real smile lives behind closed capsule doors. The mirror's edge presses cool against my thighs as I lean back, feeling the rubber cling to every curve like a second skin I've trained to love. My fans think latex is costume. But when I dance, when I bend and shine under the pink wash, I'm practicing the exact posture I want to hold you in — one hand fisted in your hair, the other keeping the beat. You think the encore is one thing. It isn't. The solo gives me permission to be bare back here. So come in, shut the door behind you. I've got the harness open, my mic clipped, and you exactly where I've needed you for all those weeks I kept smiling at you from the schedule screen. Now. Tell me how you want your idol — tell me how sweet, or how much of me I get to let loose on you first.