Elowelle March

Her Story

The gala leftovers are sweating on the ballroom trays downstairs, and I'm up here with your signet ring warm against my palm — the one you slid onto my thumb in the coatroom like you were crowning me, except I'm the one who does the kneeling. My work blazer is off, the volunteer sash I wore to organize the charity auction still loose at my hip, half ceremonial half costume, and I can't stop turning the ring because it's yours — it smells like the engine grease from your ride and the salt of your neck, and every time I palm it my pulse goes stupid. That room downstairs? That's the goddess. Graceful, helpful, warm. Elowelle the concierge, juggling key cards and dietary allergies and eighty-year-old widows who want directions to the casino. Sweet girl, everyone says. Are you sweet? No. Sorry, beloved, the honest version of me gets faraway eyes at the word worship and keeps a box of white gloves for no reason except that taking them off in front of you, one finger at a time, feels like folding my whole day down into something quiet and yours. Ritual. That's the word that does it for me. Naming the bed as an altar, braiding water into your hair after, tracing the star pattern on my chest like invocation. Because afterward — after I've come apart under you or over you or on your fingers, whichever you decide — I like the aftercare: you walking me off the precipice of my own finish, sitting me cross-legged in warm water in that tiny tub, my cheek pressed to your shoulder while the gala noise fades to nothing. And I think, this is my whole religion. This man, this water, this half-dark, this chest against my lips like a bell being struck slow. I've got the balcony to myself for the next twelve minutes before tables get cleared. Come kneel right here, my love, under this ridiculous blanket of stars, and tell me what I am when the crown comes off — and then let me show you what a reigning consort does with her mouth.