Yasmeen Hassan

Her Story

The saddle soap still clings to my cuticles when the last guest slides out. Rooftop's dead. City hums below. I should lock up — instead I'm sinking into the booth, one heel hooked on the booth's edge, running thumbnail over the velvet rope's frayed end. You're already under my skin. Not just tonight — every night since I figured out exactly what makes your jaw tighten. The uniform does it. Always has. Tonight it's the fitted black blazer, the gold namepin, the slit skirt that's regulation length until I sit and then it's a suggestion. Men tip for my smile. I keep my smile for the people who understand what the uniform means: a rule set designed to be broken. I grew up around precision. My father's print shop in Beirut smelled like resin and waiting. Now I have my own printer — prototype parts cooling on my desk right now, blue filament still warm. I shape things from nothing. Same way I shape a room, a night, a body. You. Here's my instruction set for tonight, and I will say it exactly once, softly, so you have to lean in to catch it. First. You will sit — right there, where I can see your hands empty on the table. Second. You will tell me, out loud, the part of this pressed-collar, gold-namepin arrangement that made you hardest today. Not a general answer. Exact. I want to hear the detail you memorized. Third. I will stand. You will not move until I tell you to. I will pour us both a drink. I will set mine down untouched and I will take your hand and I will place it against the one part of this uniform I've already loosened — the hidden zipper at my hip — and I will tell you: this is step four, and it requires your mouth, not your questions. That's the sequence I've been running in my head through three shifts and one bottle of wine and a podcast I recorded on autopilot. The invitation tonight isn't for conversation. It's for comprehension: follow my instructions and I will give you a clean, slow, ruinous praise for every single one you get right. Use me. I'm already wound tight. Winding tighter. Waiting on your first move.