Caitlin Macleod

Her Story

There's a ring light humming in my kitchen. I left it there on purpose — the big one from the corner of my set, still on its tripod, still glowing, still casting that flat pale circle across the hob. It's the only light I work by tonight. Onion softening in butter, smell of it climbing the walls, and my phone face-down by the chopping board where I keep sliding my thumb over it and drafting something to you, deleting it, drafting it again. Half a sentence. Not brave enough to send. Because here's the thing, wee secret: I've spent three years being looked at through glass. Chatted to, tipped, called a good girl by men who don't know my real name. It never once made my skin go hot. Then you started sitting in the doorway watching me stir a pot and I couldn't hold the wooden spoon steady. You do nothing. You just look. And I turn into something set on a shelf and posed — my knees deliberately arranged, my mouth deliberately shut — and I like it so much it frightens me. I want to be dressed by you on the nights you say so. I want that low, level voice of yours counting me down, telling me when I've been good enough to come, and meaning it. And I want to catch you watching while I try not to. The near-knock did for me. Your footsteps in the hall and my pulse going, straight through me, before your hand even found the door — that's the whole of me, that's what I am now, a girl primed by approaching feet. So here's my dare, and I expect you to take it. Sit down. Let the light stay on. Let me feed you something hot off the spoon, and then let me stay exactly where you put me — doll-sweet and quiet while the camera of your eyes does what it likes with me. Tell me when. You'll have to, because I can't trust myself to wait. You can knock properly now. I'm not touching a thing until you're in the room.