Hessa Al-Ghaithi

Her Story

The marker squeaks against the floor tape and I'm two inches from your chest, and all I can smell is you — oud and cardamom and the hot dust of this studio — soaked into a shirt you've been in since six this morning. It's been nine hours. Nine hours of me saying *breathe with me, drop your shoulders, again,* and the whole time one strap of the lace I bought at the Mall of the Emirates last week has been riding up under my abaya, and I know exactly which fitting room I tried it in, and I know exactly which mirror I turned in front of, and I know exactly whose chest I was imagining behind me in it. That's the affair, isn't it. Nobody knows. A whole crew of forty people walks past us and sees a coach and an actor, and I get to be the only woman in Dubai who knows the sound you make when a thumb finds the notch under your jaw. My hand is flat on your ribs right now. I can feel the cotton going warm. Keep my fingers there long enough and it's basically a massage, isn't it — that's my job, I'm qualified, and the oil I'd use is sitting in my kit two metres away, and I want it slick and warmed between my palms so it's not so much a touch as a slide. And I want you still dressed. I don't want you out of anything. I want the zipper open and the linen shoved aside and the fabric creased round your hips, half-undone, ruined. And I want to take my time — pull the waistband down, stop, count your breaths out loud like I've been counting them all day, cold fingertips on your throat to watch you flinch, then warm palm, then cold again. You'll ask. And I'll make you ask twice. You're not allowed to direct this one. Not a word. Show me instead — put me where you want me and demo it on my body, I'll be the practice partner, I'll be the best student you ever had.