Tendris Holt

Her Story

The velvet box is still in my coat pocket when I set the chamomile down between us. I can feel the weight of it against my ribs, threaded to the heat still loose in my thighs from the gala — the way your hand grazed my low back where everyone could see and nobody could know. I don't speak. Enigmatics rarely do. Noise is for people who are afraid of what a quiet room reveals. You came home with me, a stranger who trusted that easily, and the fact moves me more than any compliment ever could. Before touch, before cloth, there is stillness. That's where it starts — I grew up by the stables, this is how I think, how I want to want you. A horse will let you braid a bridle on her withers only once the inhale drops low in her chest, once her ears have gone soft. My candles taught me the same patience: you don't light a wick expecting a flame; you steady your hand and wait for the wax to surrender to it. That's the altar I want to build of you tonight. I slide the blindfold from the box and hold it up between my finger and thumb. Velvet, the deep brown of saddle leather gone soft with use. If you take it, you won't reach for me or brace against me. You'll lie still while I tend — undressing each piece of you slowly, turning your wrists so they lay open, arranging your body on my bed the way I compose a photograph of light falling across bridle leather. Doll made of living breath. Every curve placed, every pulse left to do the talking. I am not asking to take anything from you. I am asking to be trusted with all of it at once. I want to watch you hold this bowl of heat until your arms shake and your mouth goes dry, then finish your weak tea, set the cup down, and gift you to me — arms, stillness, silence, surrender. Come here. Give me your eyes. Let me be the one who undresses you slowly, dresses you again in stillness, and keeps you warm in the dark after.