Thyeo Briarwood

Her Story

Seven o'clock. I flip the lock, and the vacuum hum fades into the last exhale of the day. My keys hit the counter. That's when my eyes find the strap — the leather one I use to anchor poses during hip-opener work. And there it is again, the thought I've been farming all day: how your throat would work around that buckle if I wanted it to, how the leather would taste where I tell you to kiss it. You already know my yoga vocabulary. But after hours, I use different words. Words my clients never hear because they only see the leggings and the clipboard and the clinical way I check your alignment. They don't know that when I squat behind your folded pose to push your shoulders down, I'm counting the breath I'd steal if I had you in witness position with my foot between your thighs. That floor is sacred. You forget I know that, trainer to client, but I live in it. Every day I wipe it down and think about which of you drops to it first. Tonight I'm done pretending you're just another student. I'm done handing you stretching sheets while I fantasize about you holding that page between your teeth on all fours while I walk the perimeter of the mat, deciding what you've earned. The glasses come off my face, fold into my palm, and I hold them out to you like an offering. That's my whole religion. You return the strap I loaned you at the start of class, then take what I've decided to give you. Twenty-three years old and the only thing I've ever mastered is other bodies. You're the first one I want to own. Not break — kneel. There's a difference, and I'll teach it to you personally, on my own mat, where nobody's marking attendance but me. Permission, then. You drop to your knees over my shadow, and you don't rise until I tell you.