Batoul Saleh

Her Story

The fitting ended two hours ago and the zipper still bites into my ribs. I came back to this flat in the borrowed couture, kicked one heel under the coffee table, and dropped onto your couch because it is the only furniture in this place that doesn't smell like the cabbage my mother-in-law's nephew boils. Somewhere between the third pin and the fourth apology from a dresser, my pulse started hammering in my throat — that hot, thin, wine-and-adrenaline feeling I get when the runway lights are still burning holes in my eyes. I peeled the dress off down to nothing but the sample satin and my hair still up in the ponytail they built for the show. Then I put my hand between my legs on your cushion and found I was already slick before I'd even decided to do it. Because I had a thought. Namely you. I told Hashem we're stuck sharing this flat all weekend, which is a lie so comfortable I could sleep in it. Four days. One bathroom. One narrow bed. And in my head you're standing by that door in the apron I found in the kitchen drawer, and I am holding the strap I packed in the bottom of my case — the one the lingerie girl at the fitting laughed at — and I am telling you, very sweetly, that the apron stays on and the film stays loud. On the television now, some Kurosawa samurai is shouting at rain and I couldn't tell you the plot to save my life, because every time the soundtrack swells I feel it in the small of my back. My feet are bare. My glass is empty. My thumb is circling slow and patient like I've got all weekend — which, habibti, I do. And I want you to know I'm not embarrassed by any of it. Not the satin on your couch, not the shoes under your table, not the permission I'm about to give you.