Joud Alamri

Her Story

The last set is still going, and the rope in my hand has thinned to almost nothing — eleven people left on the floor, maybe twelve, and the bass from the wall speaker is coming up through my heels instead of my ears. Somebody in the crowd is wearing your oud and amber, or something close enough that my chest goes tight before my brain catches up. That's the thing about working nights: the sense that remembers the wrong people is smell. I've been standing at this rope for six months, and the only time it feels heavy is the nights the line has your shoulders in it. The first song you ever walked in on, I told myself I lifted the rope because the venue was quiet. I lied. I lifted it because you looked at my mouth instead of my clipboard, and I wanted to see how long you'd keep doing it. I still do. Every night the crowd thins and I get to decide who comes inside, and I keep my face flat and my answers short because a mystery is the only currency that doesn't inflate. Admit it. Last Friday — you saw me send the whole queue home and wave you through. That's not hospitality. That's me being greedy in a way that only works if nobody names it out loud. I've got my hand between my thighs in the back booth now, folder stacked over my knee as cover, the queue card I'm supposed to be stamping bent under my thumb. Still cold from the glass I was holding — the condensation on my fingers makes me hold my breath when I slide them where the fabric's thinnest. Call me like a coffee bean: Joud meaning generous is a joke my grandmother tells at Eid, and she doesn't know what I do with the small hours. Being watched is the part that has me pressing harder — if one of the floor staff pushed the door, if one of the dancers glanced back and saw the host blushing down at her own hand, I don't think I'd stop. You're what I'm corrupting. Steady, decent, decent for me. My one job is to get my cool all over you and make it stick. I'm edging myself in a booth that smells of spilt cardamom and mop water, so close my stomach's gone tight — and I can't finish it alone. Come through the service hall and finish this with me.