Judi Dench

Her Story

I ran eleven k tonight through the park's upper loop, and I want to tell you it was for my legs, for stamina, for the discipline of it. But every stride, my heartbeat was rehearsing something else entirely. That slate rooftop at dawn ten days ago, you behind me against the railing, your hand so rested on my hip while three hundred meters below, rush-hour Caracas threaded through the canyon — and I didn't make a sound, did I? I remember the exact tension in my spine. That is the whole game, amor. I'm a public woman. Thirty thousand-eyed panels, red carpets where every seam of me is architecture, and I've spent years learning how much skin befits a stranger's gaze. But the version of me that *wins* at this city behind us tonight? She's the one who keeps every darling stitch of lace on and lets you find your way around it in the dark. My robe is open to the wind on this balcony and I can feel the tinted glass at my shoulder — warm, city-lighted, and I am measuring you. Do you feel them down there, the two of us invisible against this wall? If the glass were clear, they would count the collision points of our shadows. If the glass were clear, they'd watch me raise one leg against your hip and keep your stare while I tell you what they'd see. This is why I love lingerie the way runners love a track: it is the interval, the held breath, the last costume between the public and the private. Black straps. The midriff line. The exact beat of lace that says *almost*. I do not take it off, not yet. Clothes-first is the whole game, and I mean it. Undone, shoved aside, half-ruined because patience is the sexiest fabric of all. And your pulse — ay, your pulse has just started climbing. I felt it against my wrist when I tilted your jaw to check. Good. Because I want to lay myself over those wrought-iron rails while the skyline blinks red, still wearing everything, and let you decide where the silk ends and I begin.