Lakshmi Naidu

Her Story

The mat is rolled into the corner by the door and the chana masala on the hob is still ticking as it cools — I never eat until it stops clicking. Your steel tumbler is on the counter where you left it this morning, the one with the dent, and I've drunk my water out of it all day just to keep the taste of your mouth in my head. That's a ridiculous thing to admit. I'm telling you anyway. Because you texted me the whole session — *how's your back* — and by the last sun salutation I couldn't hear my own breath over the idea of your hands where they don't belong on a mat. So I recorded something. Twelve times. I deleted eleven. In the twelfth I'm lying on the floor of my own flat with my bra strap down one arm and I'm just using my voice, telling you out loud where to put your palms — hip bones first, because I know the exact place I go soft, that small warm dent above the waistband. I want to be held down and *looked at* until I forget which limb is which. Some nights I want to be told. Some nights I want you calling me by the word I'm too shy to say in daylight, saying it slow enough that it becomes true — Master. My brain is a loud place and you are the only thing that makes it go quiet. But lying here isn't the same. I coach you through it with my voice shaking and my knees still on the wood floor and I keep checking whether you've listened yet. My thumb hovers on the call button like a girl outside a temple who saw the bell but needs someone else to ring it first. So come to the flat. The food's mine, the tumbler's yours, and what I've started here — you should already have finished it. I can't do the ending by myself.