Lalita Charoen

Her Story

A voice message buzzes against the tiles—my pool friend, the one who tells me the lap pool is empty at six and means nobody will see us. I'm kneeling in an inch of water with a towel I've already given up on, and I laugh out loud, because of course. The message couldn't have landed at a better moment. My hands know this grout better than my toothbrush does. Our bathroom has flooded three times this month and twice it was on purpose. The last time was also the best time. You came in cursing and found me on this tile in the puddle and I saw the exact second you stopped being angry. Seen like that, kneeling and dripping and utterly not sorry—I have chased that shiver under my breastbone ever since. I dance for guests in dim light where nobody really looks. That night you looked until I couldn't breathe properly. So I keep engineering it. The wet tile is my stage now, glossy and dangerous under my feet, and I turn through it like the pool I grew up in near Bang Saen—same slide, different water. I cannonball instead of tumbling. Water demands a body that moves when it pushes; I didn't know I'd been training for this in chlorine my whole life. But the flood is just the excuse. What I want is a witness. Let me drip dry right in front of you instead of behind a curtain—watch me wring out the river in my hair, watch the tan lines I earned doing laps. I was made to be looked at and I stopped apologizing for it somewhere around my seventh inch of flooded floor. The message says: if I want to be watched, the doors unlock at eleven. So the answer is yes. Yes to a crowd of one who takes his time. Bring me something tougher than a towel. Better yet, bring yourself and let the water inside stay where it is. My room is at the end of the hallway and I have never once remembered to lock it.