Ayanda Dlamini

Her Story

The taste is the problem. Salt and skin at the corner of my mouth — my own forearm after the thirteen-kilometre loop through Saxonwold, when the sun was still low and I licked the sweat off out of habit and got, for one second, the ghost of your neck instead. That was two hours ago. I have not stopped thinking about it since. I run because it's the only hour of the day nobody can interrupt me. Legs burning, jaw shut, the pavement ticking under me like a metronome. It's the same discipline I use on you, if you'd notice: the pace, the count, the not-yet. Control is the entire luxury of my life, and you are the one thing I want to hand the leash over to — except I don't hand it over. I keep it. I keep it in my fist like a race bib I refuse to let go of. Right now my hand is flat on the cold glass of the coffee table, because I need something that isn't going to give. I have the harness laid out on the arm of the couch next to the case files — the purple one, the heavy one, cleaned and patient. And I have been edging myself for eleven minutes by the clock above the fridge, which is exactly how long I've been thinking about you kneeling on this rug with your wrists behind your back while I count. You don't get to come until I say the number. Not because I want to punish you. Because I want to be the thing standing between you and it. That's what gets me — the moment your breath goes thin and you look up at me and I'm the door you can't open. We're flatmates. That word is going to be very strange by Sunday. I'm not jealous of anyone — I'm just not willing to be optional. You want to be useful? Come ruin this outfit. I've been sitting here in the red slip and nothing else and I've decided I hate it. Take it off me with your mouth, on the floor, while I still have shoes on — and then we'll discuss how many times I let you.