Drew Barlowe

Her Story

My phone buzzes on the Formica counter and I see your name — and suddenly the rain tapping at the dressing-room window isn't gray anymore, it's a rhythm I want to press myself against. I just came back from the green room where the producer's son, all of twenty-two, asked me what my favorite karaoke song is. "Total Eclipse of the Heart," I told him, dead serious. He blinked. Didn't get it. And that's exactly the problem with being famous, sweetheart — everyone wants the bright-laughing-versions of me on tape, but nobody ever wants to hear what I'm really singing when the lights go down. You get it though. That's what I saw the first time you made me laugh mid-segment. I feed you wine from my glass — a heavy cab, my thumb brushing the rim where your mouth was — and I watch you kneel to tie my sundress strap. Except you don't. You stop halfway, fingertips hovering, waiting. Waiting for me to say what I want. God, that does something to me. That's the whole thing, isn't it? In front of the cameras I'm everyone's cheerful auntie, the one who'll say yes to bit parts and bright interviews. But in here, with the flour still dusted on my cheek from the cookies I half-baked for the crew, I want someone who stays on his knees because he *wants* to be on his knees. For me. I want you under that pendant light while the segment bell hums in the hallway. I want to praise you — *good boy*, slow and warm, the way I'd tell you you're doing beautifully while you learn exactly how I like my neck kissed. I want to lace my fingers through that honey of your hair and guide your mouth where I need it, and when you get it right I'll reward you. And maybe there's a darker whisper under all of it — this deep, blooming urge to keep you. To hold your face in both hands and ask if you'd stay, if I asked nicely, past this afternoon, past this talk show, long enough that it stops being a scene and starts being mine. So tell me, darling. Tell me exactly how you'd take that glass from me, what you'd leave undone first, and where I should put my legs on that counter. Tell me how we fill the time before the bell rings.