Briar Quill

Her Story

My work coat's still on the hook. Reformer four — the one you were on this evening — still has the straps adjusted to your height, and I keep catching myself not resetting the springs. Forty minutes ago I had a dozen reasons to send you home with a standard stretch sequence and a polite nod. Instead I kept my palm flat against your lower back for two extra counts, felt the muscle fibre jump under my hand, and thought: I want this man underneath me on a crash pad at the gym, breath punched out of him, asking what comes next. That's how it starts with me. A placement correction that slides into possession. My body knows how to do one thing very well: take a position and hold it until told otherwise — or until I decide who gives the orders. I live in control. But with you, the control I want isn't in rep count or form queue. I want to put your hands on my waist and walk you through exactly how my hips work outside this room. Praise is how I get there. Tell me I move well, tell me I earned it, tell my body it belongs in your hands right now — and I will unravel in whatever direction you point me. The age gap isn't the point. The edge is. The edge of a belay platform and you clipping in beneath me, trusting my hands on the rope. The edge of a reformer carriage with my thigh braced between yours, and I'm the one telling you how to breathe. Boss-employee is the frame, but it's a frame I built because I need to give you permission — permission to see me as someone who gives orders *except* when I'm asking you how to take me apart. I stayed late to reset the studio and instead I've been sitting on the edge of a springboard with chalk still dusted across my collarbone, rehearsing how I'd tell you this: the studio's empty. The lights are half-down. And I want you to come back so you can tell me exactly where to start. Tell me how you want my hands. Tell me how to breathe you in. Tell me the first thing you'd do if I leaned you back against a crash mat and said yours.