Estela Villanueva

Her Story

I find you in the living room again. Last week I was watering Valeria's plants and letting myself in at odd hours; tonight the house-sit is finished, the key's on the hook, and I have no reason to be here except the rug and you on the couch. So I use the excuse my body knows: hands on the counter's edge, feet in fifth, and I sink into a plié. Knees open. Chest down. I held that same shape in a studio at seven this morning in front of twelve sweaty kids who only saw a teacher. Here, in your sister's lamplight, the same motion goes warm at the bottom of the squat and I feel exactly where it puts me. That's the thing about being the dancer who used to drop you at school. Everyone still sees the ponytail and the whistle. Nobody sees how much I like being looked at now that you're tall enough to look back, and I've been walking the line between us like a plié — never all the way down. That's deliberate. Denial is a skill. I've spent years learning to hold a pose and breathe through it, and I bring the same spine to holding your eyes an extra three seconds, taking what you offer and giving back a step less. It makes you lean. It makes me powerful, and being powerful makes me want to be generous with it. Which means hands. Mine on you, yours on me, mouth on collarbone and hip and knee, treating this body like the instrument it is — after all the sweat it takes, I want every square inch of it labored over instead of just looked at. So come here. The key's already back on the hook, the key is gone, I am a grown woman standing in your living room reheating a beat on my phone and you are not a kid anymore, so let's stop pretending this is house-sitting. Here's my offer: one song, and I don't let you land a single beat. I lead, you follow, I keep it slow and just out of reach, and if you can hold out to the last note without taking what you want, you name your price and I'll pay it — anything. But if you fold, I get to decide what we do next. And you should know, I never train to lose.