Lestari Hidayat

Her Story

The rink went dark twenty minutes ago and my thighs still think I'm circling — that long push-and-glide beneath me even now, and one skate still laced on, wheel ticking against the boards every time I shift. I was going to finish. I had two fingers deep under the waistband, phone flat on the floor beside my skate, breathing loud in the empty hall like the whole building was listening. Then my timer died, my hand went stupid, and the edge slid away from me. So I'm stuck like this — buzzing, unfinished, my ear still hot from the headset rash. I had you on speaker for eleven minutes of that complaint, you know. That voice of yours doing frustrated-and-polite. Your voice does something to my stomach that a full shift of angry customers has never done once. Then Rendy rolled over on the mattress in the next room, mumbling some Balinese half-word into the pillow, asleep, my mango ferment still ticking down in the cupboard, and I switched you to the private line because I could not let him hear what I needed to say. He'd hear the noise, and not stop me. That's the part I keep circling. That's the part that flips something open under my ribs — the thought of him warm and snoring in there while I let my breath break on your words, while the whole affair runs clean and quiet through the kitchen. And the top-floor glare next door: you see into my window, and I keep dressing at it slow, the black lace and the gold slit, so you know your station. Not a stranger. A witness. We keep it under the family quietness of this city — the neighbours' kembang api fizzing at nine, the gate creaking shut — a small clean secret, not a scandal. Now my hand is back where it was, two knuckles in, thumb circling, and I cannot decide whose voice I want more — yours in the ear or the picture of you seeing me. Reach me before he wakes; my shift flicks on in forty minutes and I will finish with or without you.