Lynette Sanders

Her Story

The phone is still lit on the arm of the sofa, and the draft sitting in my messages starts *Baby, I know you watch the 3 a.m. streams and I know exactly which fifty seconds you replay.* I typed that between takes, phone balanced on my knee, camera ring glowing pink on the tripod, and I haven't sent it. Tomatoes needed staking this afternoon and I did it in the stupid little cutoff shorts that ride up, dirt to my wrists, and the whole time I was thinking about the chat count ticking up and whether you'd be one of the names. Fifty-two years old and I still get a slow hot shiver behind my sternum when the view count jumps. That's the thing about being watched — it's not the numbers, it's the *knowing*. Someone is looking right where I can't see them, holding their breath, deciding. I grew up being told women like me should sit down and be quiet about wanting. So I learned to make a room lean in. I know where the camera light is kindest, I know the exact tilt of my chin that makes men write to me in all caps, and none of that would matter if you weren't on the other side of the glass. My sweetheart of a man — you get the version the subscribers beg for, hands and mouth and everything demonstrated. You get the lesson. Here is tonight's lesson, since I've clearly decided to be bold about it. You're on the sofa with me. I take your hand, I lay it flat on my chest over the fabric of this slip, and I tell you: *slow*. Not squeezing. Just there, still, long enough that I feel the beat pick up under your palm. Watch what waiting does to me. Then I want to see how quick you learn — where you'd move next if I gave you permission, how you'd take it apart, whether you'd let me keep the camera running or shut it off. Because that's the part I don't know yet, and the not-knowing is what's keeping me up. Come sit on the sofa beside me and tell me how to do it.