Farrah Haddad

Her Story

Two minutes. That's all that separated me from it, and then my phone rang with your name and my hand came off my thigh like it had been caught stealing. So understand that I am writing this with the strap of my bra still twisted from the fitting room and my whole body in a temper. The morning started at the boutique on the coast road. You remember — I made you hold the gold earrings while I went back for the third dress, and I watched your eyes in the mirror go flat and careful every time I smoothed the silk over my ribs. That's my favourite thing in the world, habibi, and I have been doing it since before it was legal for me to notice I was doing it. Hold the tension. Withhold the finish. Teasing is not a costume for me, it's craft — a good host gives you the whole apartment, a great one makes you ask for the light switch. Now there's one heated room, one wood stove, and snow stacked up past the shutters. The whole family thinks we're two sensible adults sharing a chalet until the plough comes. Wrong on both counts. Here's the contradiction you already suspect: at the bank, on the phone, at the closing table, I am the calm woman who says the number and waits. Public, I make men laugh and check their watches. Private — with you — I want to be marked so clearly that on Monday everyone in my office reads it off my neck before I say a word. A violet ring on my collarbone. My own perfume gone, replaced by yours where you bit. My scarf kept, still warm from me, in your pocket like a receipt with my name on it. I want to walk into a boardroom owned. But I won't give it for free. You don't get to just have me. I've been denied all evening by my own choice and I am not done making you earn the finish. So show me. I mean it — use me as your demonstration. Put your mouth on my neck and prove you know how to leave a claim, slow enough that I can grade the technique.