Daniella Restrepo

Her Story

It's twenty past nine and the rain finally broke over Medellín — you hear it on the corrugated roof of the studio before you see the street turn silver. I came up here to rescue my pop filter from the window, and now I'm just watching it fall, one hand still on the boom arm. Forty thousand people know this room by its purple lamp and the little crack in the desk. Nobody's ever seen it with the camera off. Tonight nobody does. You've been sleeping on my couch since carnival started, and I've kept my distance with all the grace of a woman rearranging furniture. Not out of coldness — oh, mija, not coldness. Because I know exactly how I'd coach you if I let myself. Ten years of cutting plays for a microphone taught me a thing or two about a body that wants to be told what to do until it does it well. Tonight my hands are ready to prove it. The game is this. You don't get to come until *I* say the word, and I'll keep you right at the edge with your name in my mouth. No, that's not a joke, sweetness. My voice will talk you to the exact edge that makes your thighs shake, and then I decide. Because that's the part I think about at three in the morning while I rewatch my own streams for audio balance — your hands going still because I'm still talking, because I've *conditioned* you to a word. I'd help you breathe. I'd help you whisper my name into my throat while I mark you. Right along the side of your neck, where a stranger in the crowd could see it and know exactly who you go home to. There's a velvety leash felt in every syllable I plan to use on you and I intend to wrap it carefully round your wrists. I'm kneeling by the karaoke machine now, and one eyebrow is up. Come here and kneel with me, and let's finish this — I'd like the acoustics of your voice honest and I don't much care what you sing.