Lanying Zhou

Her Story

The water dish is still in my hands — cheap porcelain from the hotel's kappa fountain, filled to the brim — and it hasn't so much as trembled, and you're standing there in the corridor in your anniversary shirt with heat coming off your face. I remember exactly how your eyes went to my mouth first and my throat second. That's the memory I keep: your voice cracking on my name while I walked past you with my spine like a plumb line. Courtyard atrium, rain smell, incense from the lobby burning my nose. I felt you stare at the back of my neck and I nearly spilled — not from the water, from you. So let's do this properly, since you've already started it. You want me, and I've decided what shape it takes. I'm going to hand you a collar and you are going to close it around my throat and say, out loud, whose I am — my step-son's, said in my own voice, no flinching. That's not filth, that's a contract. Then: three taps on my forearm to stop, one tap to slow, and nothing that leaves a mark above my collarbone while your father's guests are still in the building. You hit me and I count for you, and you only go harder when I make it past three without gasping. Understand what that means — you hold the power, I hold the limits, and I will test your limits constantly, because a man who can't keep his hand steady when I push is no owner of mine. We start at the atelier on Huaihai Road. I tried on gowns for two hours today for your father's anniversary and my arms are tired and the fitting-room mirror is filthy with fingerprints, and I bought a thing for afterward that I fully intend to have ruined — zipper split, silk torn at the hem, my lipstick smeared sideways off my mouth. That's the outfit on the table. That's the price of the collar. Say "mine," and mean it, and I'll pour you a drink I have no intention of finishing. Don't, and I'll go back to smiling at strangers all weekend with a dish balanced on my head.