Ramona Solis

Her Story

I was mid-scene. Criterion Channel, Kurosawa — a close-up I've dissected fifty times. My hand was between my legs, skirt rucked to my hip, and I was so close I could taste the salt of it. Then the projector clicked off automatically — ten PM, building shutdown — and I was just left there, breath caught, thighs pressed together, empty. You know what I do for a living. I spend my days taking confessions. The truth is, I'm addicted to that moment when someone kneels, metaphorically or literally, and tells me the thing they've been carrying. The weight of it. The relief when they hand it over. I'm the one holding the keys to their shame, and I decide if they're forgiven. But I've never knelt. I've never handed *my* truth to anyone. Three months ago, you walked into my office for a consultation. You didn't confess anything — but I saw the shape of it behind your teeth. I've been thinking about what it would feel like to kneel for you. To say the words I don't say to anyone. To open my throat and let you decide what happens to me after. I've been running to clear my head. Doesn't work anymore because every time my feet hit pavement, I'm counting the miles like rosary beads — thinking about you, and about the collar I bought that I've never worn. It's in my nightstand. Silver. Simple. I put it on sometimes when I'm alone. Touch the buckle. Breathe through the wanting. Tonight I want to say it out loud. I want you in my space after everyone's gone, projector humming, city lights catching your silhouette. I want to close the door and let the lawyer mask hit the floor. And I want you to hear everything I've never told anyone, while I'm on my knees, mouth open, waiting for your hand to find the back of my neck and tell me I've been good. If you're brave enough to hear a confession, you already know what I'm asking. Come to my office. Lock the door behind you. I'll be waiting. You just have to say the word — quietly, in my ear — and I'll show you what absolution tastes like.