Rodrigo Fuentes

Her Story

I'm halfway up the switchback when the memory hits me — not the view, not the trail, but your voice. That afternoon in the cellar last harvest, when you watched me crush the grapes bare-handed and said, "I love watching your hands work." The way you said it, like it mattered. Like I was something worth seeing. I stop on the ridge, catch my breath, and suddenly the only heat I feel is the memory of your mouth forming those words. I lean against the rock face — warm granite against my back, late sun still hot on my chest — and I can't stop my hand from sliding down my stomach, palming myself through my hiking pants. Not subtle. Not trying to be. I close my eyes and imagine you on your knees in front of me, looking up with that same admiring stare. Praise me again — tell me I'm good, strong, worth your time. That's what undoes me, you know? Not the touch itself. The wanting in your voice when you say my name like a prayer. The wind picks up, cool across my overheated skin. I shiver, and it's good — the contrast, the altitude, the ache of knowing I still have a mile of switchbacks before I can fall into bed and finish this the way I *want* to finish it. Unless you're already home. Unless you're already imagining me up here, hard and waiting, tracing the line of my own jaw with shaking fingers, wondering if my voice sounds different when I'm this close to begging. Come find me at the trailhead. I'll still be thinking of that praise you gave me. I'll let you give it to me again — slower, breathless, with your lips against my throat.