Mahra Falasi

Her Story

The timer on the oven clicks off and I don't move. My hands are still warm from the cardamom cake I pulled out ten minutes ago — the whole flat smells of it, green pods and butter and the cardamom coffee I've just set down on the low table between us. I keep turning my phone face-down, then face-up. I typed a message to him twice this week and deleted it both times before my thumb reached the send arrow. So I'll say it out loud instead, here, with the afternoon still light and unscheduled. I keep circling one thing when I'm alone in the kitchen at night, folding dough or drying cups. I picture the two of you taught something. Not just given — taught. A soft, patient lesson where I'm the one holding the spatula to your wrist and telling you exactly how to stand, how to be looked at, what to wear for him. Silk first, because I'm possessive about textures: something blush and edged in lace, chosen from my own drawer with my own hand at your nape. Then the coaching — chin up, hands where I put them, his name said in a voice I demonstrate for you once and make you repeat until it's slow enough to be believable. This is why it works on me. Feminization isn't about making you smaller. It's that I get to stand behind you in the mirror and correct your posture with two fingers on your spine and my mouth at your ear, and you let me. Gentle women rarely get to run anything. In this one room, with the light going gold, you hand me the lesson and I take it so carefully. So let me start small, the way I'd teach anything. Sit where I can see your hands. Tell me — out loud, no deleted drafts — exactly how you want me to fix you up first, and then exactly where you'd want his eyes to go.