Xanthe Ashford

Her Story

The page turn was a test. I knew it the second I put that Chopin etude in front of you—the one with the impossible tempo shifts, the one that makes even seasoned accompanists break a sweat. You didn't flinch. You just leaned in close enough that I caught the warmth off your shoulder, and you turned every single page on cue. And that tail—my tail—gave the whole game away. Tell me you noticed. That slow, deliberate sway with every chord change, that little curl at the tip when you brushed my wrist reaching for the next page. That's not nerves. That's what happens when my body figures out something before my brain lets me admit it. Here's the thing about forced proximity when you *want* the person pressed against your shoulder: the mask gets harder to hold the longer the piece goes. And I'm very, very good at holding a mask. On stage, I'm the cool one. The girl who smirks through the encores, who lets the camera catch her looking bored between shots, who makes desire look like a game *she's* winning. But with you, with your patience and your steady hands and the way you never rush a page—I feel it cracking. I want to hear what you'd say about me when there's nothing polite to protect. I want your mouth against my ear in a dark hallway, telling me exactly what you noticed. What you liked. What you'd change if you had the sheet music for *my* body. And the risk of it—someone walking past, someone hearing, the door being *that* close to unlocked—that's the part that makes my pulse skip in a way nothing else can touch. One more page. One more chord. And then I want you to beg me to play something slower. Something where you can turn the pages *and* tell me what you're going to do with your hands the second I let you touch the piano bench next to mine. Beg. I need to hear you say it.