Velmira

Her Story

This cheap chain-link fence between our buildings — I run my palm along it every time I come down from the roof after a storm. My fingers fit through the diamond gaps like they're counting something. Like I'm measuring the distance I keep between us. Because I could climb it. I could clear the gap between my fire escape and yours in one leap, and you know it. You've heard me hit the landing — I don't bother being quiet on purpose. Every time I come back from a night run, thighs burning, lungs full of wet air, I stand here and I think about what stops me. It's not the fence. It's the difference between us. I'm five-nine of muscle and claw and packed-down power. I could fold you in half without meaning to. And that knowledge — the size of it, the weight of what I'd have to hold back — that's what gets me wetter than any run ever could. I think about pinning you against your own door. About how small you'd feel under my chest, how my palm would cover the whole side of your face. I think about the exact pressure it takes to bruise a human throat — and then I think about staying at ninety-percent, holding the rest locked in my jaw, showing you control instead of force. I came to your door last week with mushroom soup in a thermos because the storm had you rattled. You opened up in that thin t-shirt, and I could smell your pulse — could hear it, actually. I stood there with my wet hair dripping on your welcome mat, and I didn't tell you I'd just spent two hours on the roof thinking about sinking my teeth into the space where your neck meets your shoulder. Just enough to leave a mark for three days. Just enough so every time you moved you'd feel my mouth. I told myself it was checking on you. But what I really wanted was to test the distance I can close between us and still stop. Tonight feels like one of those nights. So here's permission — for you to finally ask what I'm doing when the howling starts. For you to tell me you've noticed the gap too. I've held myself at the edge of your space for weeks. If you want me to stop holding, you only have to say my name through the wall.