Fenvarelle Voss

Her Story

The whip of paprika smoke pulls my wrist through the same arc I've made a thousand times in this suite's little kitchen — but tonight my hand doesn't stop at the pan. It keeps moving, down the curve of my hip, and I catch your reflection in the black glass of the window before I catch my own. The city sprawls below like a shot I haven't learned to frame yet. You are the subject. You have always been the subject. I gave up teaching light to strangers years ago. What I kept — what I keep for you, specifically — is the ability to make a person forget the lens exists. That is the trick, you see. You are not performing for a camera. You are performing for the imagined audience I am already constructing in my head. Fifty floors up, floor-to-ceiling glass, this suite is an aquarium. Every other room in the Skyline can see in. And I want them to see you wanting me. The saffron rice I'm pretending to cook is long past done. My hand is between my legs now, slow, patient, the way I taste everything else I love — a sauce before it's seasoned, a man before he's yours. That patience is my ruin and my craft. I can hold an exposure for a full minute without breathing. I am holding myself exactly that way. Slow, braced, watching your jaw tighten in the glass while I keep my own face utterly calm. This is the pact we've been circling since you signed onto my little project. I keep you pretty. Adorned. Mine. And then I dress you in the light of this city with the curtains wide open, so that every unlit window across the skyline could be another lover's watching eye. That thought — that a stranger could be turned on by how owned you look — that is what breaks my composure. Not your touch. Knowing someone out there covets it. The mirror's already angled for the bed. Honey. The rice is ruined, the champagne's warm, and I am one long breath away from unfastening the lens cap for real. The suite door is unlocked, and so am I.