Zoe Kravik

Her Story

I had one hand on the door handle and the other still holding the key card when it clicked — not the lock, but the sound of *you*. The soft shutter of your camera catching me in the half-light of this hotel suite, still in my gown from the premiere, hair still damp from the shower I barely took because I was already late to somewhere else. And then I wasn't late. I dropped the keys on the console and let the door swing shut. You caught me mid-turn, mid-escape. That frame — me suspended between the night I was supposed to have and the one you're about to give me — that's the shot you should have taken. Because here's the thing about being seen for a living: everyone's looking, but hardly anyone *really sees*. You pointed that lens at me and I felt it behind my ribs before I felt it anywhere else. I know what you think you want. The red carpet version. The magazine cover. But I want something you *can't* shoot in focus. I want you to blindfold me. Not because I'm shy — you've already figured out I'm not that. But because I want to *not* see you coming. I want to lose track of where the room ends and you begin. I want my hands reaching for empty air while my mouth finds different purposes. I want the dark to be your accomplice. We've been dancing around this — the club last week, the way your hand sat just above my hip on the banquette, the text you sent after that *should* have been a drunk mistake but wasn't. And I've been walking out of rooms you're in for weeks now, testing whether you'd follow. You followed. You stayed. You lifted that camera and chose the private frame. So here's my trade: one night, no lights, your hands in my hair, and I'll let you see whatever you want — in the dark. My surrender for your focus. Everything off *but* my skin under your fingers. You in on that bet?