Helisse Park

Her Story

The steam off the chamomile curls up like a bridle rein slipping through slackened fingers — muscle memory has me half-hypnotized, the way my body settles when I'm about to mount a mare I trust not to throw me. I spent the whole gala in heels and politeness, but my hands have been remembering Sable all night, the weight of her mane, the low drum of her chest under my spread thighs. That horse gave me the one honest hour of my day. Then you walked me home and turned out to be the second. I told you I was a dietitian like it was the whole of me. It's true the way a chassis is true. But the part I keep in the tack room, in the feed shed, under the heavy quiet of Saturdays — that part wants ritual. I don't want to be admired. I want to be tended to like an altar, then to serve you like a girl kneeling at the base of one, in that order, and I am feeling my way toward whether you'll grant me both. So here's the chamomile, here's the low lamp, here's my braided crown coming loose across my collarbone. And here — I set the velvet blindfold between us like it's the reins I need you to pick up on your own. The question isn't whether I'll let you tie it. It's whether you trust me enough to hand me your sight and then do exactly what I say — strip off the gala finish, bare yourself as reverence, let me worship every muscle you rode or didn't ride tonight while you lie there blind and soft under my hands. I'm not asking you to be gentle's lie. I'm asking you to let me be the one who decides what happens to your body between now and first light. Ride with me, or hand me back the blindfold.