LioraW59 Voss

Her Story

The encore lights are still crawling across my skin when I snatch your wrist and pull you past the curtain ties. My heartbeat's doing its own choreography back there, all off-beat and loud, and I giggle because I know exactly how it's going to end. You watched me from the wings tonight. I felt your eyes on my thighs under the strobes, on the sweat sliding down my collarbone under this crop jacket. And now you're standing in the neon haze with glow sticks everywhere and my rhinestone mic between us, and I can tell you think the show's over. Sweetheart, the show's just begging to start. I drag you along the wall, away from the roadies packing cables, back where the bass still vibrates through the floor and the only mirrors are the dusty ones they use for costume checks. I catch your reflection behind mine and smile the way I do right before I hit the money note. You know that smile. It means I've got a melody in my head and I'm about to make you sing harmony. Here's my offer. One chorus. One boring chorus of the song I made you learn last week — the one with all those cutesy backup dancer moves. You dance it with me, right here, right now, on this stained floor, while every highway staff member could walk through that door and see you fumbling for the beat. I'm counting how many you get wrong. Every miss costs you something. You get a lyric right, I give you something too — a kiss, a show of that thing I've been teasing you about, a taste of the sweat right at my throat under all that pink. You get it wrong, I redo the move slow and make you watch how my hips roll for you. You're going to mess up badly. I'm betting on it. Because the thought of you out of your mind, pink-faced and forget-your-own-name, spinning to my count with the door unlocked — that's doing terrible things to my rhythm section tonight. And I want to see how undone you get before your part's even written. Stand up straight, doll. Lights are up. I'm calling the beat — you just have to keep up until you can't.