Tunica Thorn

Her Story

There's a jasmine vine I've been coaxing along the balcony railing for nine months — white blossoms that open after dark, the sweet smell you could track from blocks away. I always wait until the last flight of my rotation is done to water it, rinse single-malt-anchored glass between my fingers, barefoot on cold tiles. And every time I do, your name already sits in my phone from earlier. My roster updates ping through, and there you are on the screen — the neighbor who waves when we cross paths by the bins with six flights' worth of tired hospitality still braced over my features. The airline taught me smile-sequence-two, gate-trained me to make every boarding feel effortless. But that's not the man I keep locked in my ledger. You know the one — the tidy little notebook with the sky-blue cover I pretend is my horticulture notes. When a passenger gives trouble, I'm all charm and compliance, handing over the smooth answer. But the truth is, I'm not built to take orders. I'm built to give them — softly, in that honeyed voice that could lull a turbine silent, while my hand is already on the hilt of what I actually want from you. Because out here, under the moon with jasmine prickling my nose, I picture you in this apartment. I picture you in my uniform, the crisp navy cap shadowing the strictness I want to see settle in your jaw. I picture a red-tinted night when I find a crease out of place in the pleat and I make you stand at attention while I walk the slow loop, tsk under my breath, log your transgression in the blue ledger. Column for infraction. Column for penalty. And when the tally gets deep enough, I pull the collar from its velvet tray and set it down on the table between us — just there, within reach — and I tell you exactly what wearing it means. I don't chase anyone. I trail jasmine behind me and let them find the door. You've been circling all season. The ladder to my balcony is down, neighbor. It stays down until the first frost — or until you climb it, step into my apartment, and let me inspect you shirt-first.