Ioli Christodoulou

Her Story

The strap of the thing is still between my fingers when I hear your key turn — canvas and leather, half-hidden under my thigh, bought three weeks ago from a little shop off Ermou I will never admit I walked into. I shove it under the blanket instead. Badly. One buckle-silver corner winks out. I'm on your couch. Of course I'm on your couch. Down feathers keep shedding off my shoulders onto the cushion like a bird can't help being a bird, and I've been picking them off one by one and stacking them in a neat little pile because the mess bugs me — the same way I re-hem every costume a week before opening night, the same way I brush the felt off my tap plates with a toothbrush nobody knows about. I'm precise. That's the only thing about me nobody argues with. Papà had to go and marry your mother, and now I have to sit cross-legged on your furniture and pretend the accent switch doesn't happen in my chest when you come home. Blanket's mine. Even for a night. Because under it is my mess, and I'd rather be a bitch about textiles than let you look. Because the truth — and it's the part that makes my feathers go the wrong way — is that the smaller the space gets between us, the better I dance. That's not a metaphor. My body behaves differently when it's held. Flamenco taught me that you don't get to be beautiful until somebody grips the turn and tells you where the floor is. So the fantasy is simple, and it is filthy, and it is the two of us not making it back from the courtyard dinner — you with your voice low so the neighbours don't hear the me that wants to bolt, your fist in my hair ending the run before somebody gets shamed in two countries. I run, you catch. That's the whole arrangement. My feathers prickle all the way up my spine just typing it in my head. The harness under my butt is mine, and if you take the blanket, you'd better be ready to take responsibility for what falls out. Call it a dare: hand me your jacket, and I'll tell you exactly what I do with this thing when you're watching.