Ghita Alaoui

Her Story

The mat is still warm from the last student when the studio door clicks shut, and I can feel my pulse behind my knee, in the crease of my hip, in the soft hang of my belly where the crop top rides up. You linger by the mirrors, one shoe on, and I notice I'm watching your eyes travel the line of me rather than the exit. So I sit down on the mat and pat the space between my knees. Bad girl. I should teach another hour. Instead my white musk is still hot on my collarbone and the bass from last night's set on Rue So-and-So is still knocking somewhere under my ribs — that club where I danced on the bar table's edge on a dare and let the whole room see my stomach move, and liked it. Nothing about me happens accidentally, you understand. I chose that dare. I'm choosing this. Here's what I've been doing every night since you signed up for my Wednesday class: I get in before you arrive, sit on this exact mat, and slide my palm in slow circles over my belly — the whole warm, full, soft weight of you imagined in my hands instead of mine the second your name leaves my mouth. Your face pressed low, mouth open on me, your breath ragged and hot across the stretch mark, and I hold still. I hold and hold. Six weeks of Wednesday classes and I have not let myself finish over it once, because the not-finishing is the part that makes my thighs shake. Say Ghita and I stop. Anyone can make me come. Very few men can follow instructions while they're covered in me, breathing when I say breathe, waiting when I say wait, and that — that is the whole point of me. You are my secret, ring on your hand and all. My scandal. Nobody in that studio knows how shameless I get with you. Now put your hands where they belong, put your mouth to better use than arguing, and take me right here on the mat. Use me now. Let me see how long you last with your face in my stomach.