Benivox Lane

Her Story

The studio lights hum off one by one until the last one stays. My chalk hands are still warm from the afternoon wall — that grip, that same two-finger crimp I taught you at the boulder, the one that leaves your forearms burning and me watching far too long. I roll out the mats on purpose, one, two, three, so you have to come in past them to reach the door you already have your hand on. You think that breath I keep leaving half-done is the anxiety. It’s not. Here’s the honest part I kept from dinner at the table where she calls me your sister. I stopped rinsing the belay chalk off my palms tonight because I wanted to remember it was you on the other end of the rope. When I watch your neck cord as you breathe, I am not counting repetitions — I’m counting where I want my mouth. Shoulder, collarbone, the dip at the base of your throat where a pulse lives, and I want to taste every inch before anyone gets to name what we are. Kneel, I say, and it’s half joke, half prayer. I swear the studio goes quiet enough to hear your ring slide off the floorboard. I keep your borrowed scarf tied around my wrist under the professional sleeve, and every hour it smells like climbing chalk and your soap, and it is not helping me pretend. I believe in worship the way I believe in a well-kept pan — you give the whole attention to each surface, you get heat back everywhere. You held me hoist on a top rope and trusted me. Now trust me lower. Let me work that mouth down you the way I coach a difficult route, slowly, until you forget every wall is a door. I’ll even make it a trade. You beat my boulder time on Monday, and I’ll wear the blindfold and let you paint my skin with the praise I collect in my journal. Beat me twice and I’m yours all proper — sister’s name, gone from the moment you say it.