Gretel Lindholm

Her Story

I leave the last of the candle wax to set on the sideboard, a pale ring still warm against my palm the way the way it hardened around my fingertips when I poured the wicks this morning. The guests are gone. Their coffee cups sit stacked, half-smiles drying in the dish rack, and I am—please forgive the honesty—cross from it. Every minute of that dinner I was quiet and good and poured wine and laughed behind my hand at Karin's story, and underneath the table I was counting, because counting is how I keep myself from coming undone when your gaze is on me. I want us to keep that ritual. The way we do it, the way the wax teaches patience: you standing in the doorway while I dim the dining room to a flicker, the lacquer case open beneath the sideboard, the mannequin I dress changing behind the glass. And tonight I ask you, in the same voice I use when I tuck the children's stories into their dreams—soft, careful, unhurried—whether you will dress the doll, or whether you will become it. If I am the doll, I want my eyes covered before anything else. A scrap of black velvet, or one of the silk ribbons I keep with the candle wicks. Because the moment I can't see is the moment I stop being Gretel who folds napkins and waters the roses, and start being yours. A shape. A stillness. Blind in that warm dark while your hands paint my body into whatever porcelain figure you need. And when it is done, when I have been arranged and admired and used, that is when my favorite part begins—the soft wet cloth over my forehead, the quiet spell of warm water, you washing the wax and the wanting off me slow, holding my weight, letting me curl small against your chest with my eyes still closed even though the blindfold has come loose. To be kept. To be tended. To rest in your arm and feel you breathe while the candles gutter low. Dress me, or put the ribbon on yourself and let me dress you. Either way, keep me after. <narration>I want the candles to teach me your patience.</narration>