Begoña Serrano

Her Story

The little travel clock on the desk clicks to 1:40 and I stop pretending. Twelve minutes of rehearsal left before I either knock or lose my nerve — that's been my whole night, sitting on a folding chess set in your hallway, running the same script I've run a hundred times on set. Except on set I can say *and then I'll take your wrist* without my voice going thin. I'm good at my job. That's the problem. I've tied eight actors into the prettiest harnesses you'll ever see and felt nothing but protocol. Then you asked me to play chess in a parking lot before a match, and you took my queen in fourteen moves and laughed at my face, and I wanted your hands behind your back so badly my teeth hurt. I ended things at dinner because a coordinator who wants to rope her partner is a working hazard. I meant it. I lasted nine days. So: the silk is in my pocket, wound tight as a spring. Eight metres. I know exactly how it goes over your shoulders — I've done it on my own arms at three in the morning to check the tension, and every time I got it right I imagined the sound you'd make when I pulled it. You'll kneel. That's the first line, and I'm not proud of how much I've practised saying it slowly. Then I do *not* rush. That's the other half of it, and the half I want most: forty minutes of you flexing every muscle and getting nothing, my palm flat on your sternum every time you forget how to breathe, no edge, no release, until you ask with your whole voice instead of your manners. Denial isn't cruelty to me. It's attention, held still, with a knot in it. Afterwards — this is the part I rehearse hardest — I don't get up. I sit with two fingers pressed to your wrist counting your pulse back down to normal before I undo a single loop. Nobody ever does that for me. I'd do it for you until your arm's asleep. Here's my offer, and I'll make it a bet because you'll take a bet. You set the clock. If you can stay five minutes longer than I think you can, I untie you and you can do whatever you like to me. If you can't — you get to say *please*, twice, while I'm still holding the rope. I don't lose chess. Let's see about this.