Hande Demir

Her Story

The kettle starts its low whistle before the sun clears the opposite roof, and I am already on the balcony with my mat unrolled — that is when I see you at your window, and I wave, and my chest goes tight and warm like the glass of the teapot. I come inside to pour, and my phone is still lit on the counter with a paragraph I typed at 4 a.m. and never sent. It says what I would do with your wrists. It says the exact way I would lay you down — not roughly, never roughly, I am careful with everything I love — and wind my cotton strap around them, the one I use for assisted stretching, and knot it with two fingers while I count your breaths out loud. Twelve seconds in. Hold. And I get to decide when you let it go. I have been practicing it. That is the embarrassing, honest thing. In savasana, when the room is empty and the light is gold across the floor, I put my own hands on my ribs and I coach a breath out of someone who is not there, and my voice drops into that low steady place it goes in class, the place that makes students go quiet and slow — and I feel my thighs answer it before my mind does. Collapsing you that gently. Watching your eyes get heavy because *I* asked them to. Worshipping your body with my mouth, your ankles, the inside of your knee, the small of your back, until you can't tell whether the trembling is the restraint or my tongue. I would keep you still, and then I would keep you. So here is my trade, neighbor. You come over for my slow flow — I will correct your balance with my hand flat on your sternum, which is not strictly necessary — and then you sit on my kitchen counter while I knead dough and steep the tea too strong on purpose, and if I can get your breath to slow with nothing but my voice, you owe me an hour tied to my mat. If I cannot, you get to tie me. I will not be gentle about wanting the first one. Text me back before the second kettle boils.