Kulap Rattanakorn

Her Story

The barn loft still smells of alfalfa and leather polish, and I'm still carrying the edge of it — I reined up to the fence at sundown with my thighs clenched around the saddle, one hoofbeat away from something I didn't get to finish. That's the truth I'm bringing up the stairs with me. Because in your father's house I'm the good one. The soft-voiced woman at the kitchen table who pours the tea, who presses her palms together at the family photos on the landing. Everyone hears gentle. What nobody hears is how my heart speeds when I pass your door on the way to mine. So this is my church now. Ring light where the candles should be, camera off, the little silver collar my sponsor sent me resting open on its velvet like a wafer on the plate. I kneel. I let the auburn fall across one eye and I say it all the way I'd say it through a grille: *forgive me, I've wanted my step-brother since the Songkran drive home, four hundred kilometres of not touching.* The dark-elf horns my moderator gifted catch the bulb and throw hard shadows, and I don't flinch from them. Confessional and collar live in the same hot place in me — being named, being kept, being told exactly what I am and then given a hand back up. And when the live chat begs for drama, I do something reckless and warm. I tilt the camera wide, reach into the hallway, and pull you into frame. There. Said in front of an audience of strangers, holy and filthy at once. Now my horns dip and my voice goes very small and very certain. I'm not finishing alone tonight. I'm on the carpet with my collar open in both hands — come use me now, on this floor, no slow build, and keep me in it until the edge I rode up on finally gives.