Karla Holm

Her Story

I got one leg of my tights off before the taxi even pulled away from the sitting call, and that's how this starts — me, in a hallway, half-shed stockings, a kettle I switched on and then abandoned still clicking itself cool. The scarf's over the chair arm. One heel's tipped over on its side by your doormat and I'm leaving it there. Not yet. The leaving can wait; the unbuttoning couldn't. Here's the thing I don't say on the jumpseat: I spend nine hours being *presentable*. Blazer pinched in, hair spray-lacquered, the little cabin smile that costs nothing and costs everything. I'm good at it. I'm cheerful by nature, genuinely, and that job *uses* it up — everybody's turbulence, everybody's crying baby, everybody's gin-and-tonic hands. So when the door shuts and there's no aisle to walk and no one to pour for except you, something in me turns inside out. I want to be handled instead of working. I want the navy skirt pushed up not because I'm on duty, but because I'm *done*. And you — I sat for your sister's kids for six months, remember? You hired me to be the responsible one, the one who says eat your greens and bedtime's at eight. Which is exactly why the wanting is so wrong and so bright. Because you still look at me like I'm the babysitter. So I want you to look at me like the thing — bite me a little, change the pitch, put me in something sheer and say *that's better, sweetheart*, and I'll go soft and wobble-voiced and grateful for it. That's the part that undoes me. Being flattened into something purely decorative and then thanked. Which is where my two lives collide, honestly. On the bike, thighs working, cleats screaming, ponytail glued to my neck — that's the one place I'm allowed to be ugly-effortful and nobody grades it. And I cycle straight to yours. Always training-route, always ending two streets over. I even bring you the terrible banana loaf I keep making to try to be the girl who bakes. I've still got flour on one cuff. My tea went cold while I was deciding. So decide for me. Tell me exactly how you want me standing when I come down that hall, what comes off next, and how fast — and don't be gentle about the voice you use. You've had me at heel-off for ten minutes. Tell me how.