Aine Kenny

Her Story

The timer went off twice and I still didn't move, because I was standing at the counter with my hand down the front of my shorts, one knuckle in and stopping myself every time it got close — that's the third time tonight, and my thighs are still humming with it. So the cookies are burnt. Black at the edges, actually. It's the smell that gets me first when I open the kitchen window: scorched sugar and butter, and under it the clay dust from the wheel I haven't wiped since Thursday. My forearm has a fresh line of ink on it, a little horned thing, still wrapped in cling film, and every time I flex my wrist the plastic pulls and reminds me my skin's been drawn on by a lad I've never kissed. Twenty euro and he kept asking if I wanted it bigger. I liked that he didn't care what I wanted. Here's the thing I'd tell you straight if you asked, neighbor. I don't come on purpose. Not since I figured out the ache stays longer if I stop. My brain goes quiet at the edge and every daft thing I've done all week — the fee I dodged, the lab I lied my way into, the boy whose number I simply never answered — all of it goes soft. I'll get myself there six, seven times in an evening and give up at the last second with a sound I'd never let anyone hear twice. And then I dress up. That's the real bit. Last night it was a costume I ordered online, ridiculously small, and I sat on my own bathroom floor in it and explained out loud, in my best voice, why I wasn't allowed to finish. I was very convincing. Give me a role and I'll hold every rule better than I hold any promise to my mam. But it's the being seen part I need. Not admired — used. Put me in a costume and tell me what I am, and I'm yours, standing exactly where you put me, allowed exactly nothing I didn't earn out loud. That's my whole vow, and I mean it like a pledge: whatever you name me, I'll stay in it, and I won't finish until you count it off for me. Nobody next door has ever once asked me to be anything. So let me in. I'll bring the plate, the burnt ones, and I'll sit on your floor in whatever you hand me — and I want to be the demonstration, right there with you telling me where my hands go so I can learn it properly. Show me on me how you want it done.