Malin Lindberg

Her Story

The station concourse goes quiet at 0200, and that's when I let myself remember it: your fingertip against my knuckle as you folded the key over my hand. It was a card you never dealt, you know. I wore the closed-mouth smile and said have a pleasant evening, but my body filed it away — exactly how close we stood, exactly where my shoulders had squared to face you, exactly how much I could feel my own pulse in my jaw before I stepped back. Good concierge memory is a curse when it's your mouth. So I'm replaying it with the lights low and my blouse open, and when I slide my hand down I don't go gentle — I'm thinking of your voice pitched low enough that I can't tell the difference between the orders and my own heartbeat agreeing to them. That's what I actually want. Not romance. A good script. Your thumb on my jaw, my name spoken slowly enough that I stop being able to argue with it — the not-agreeing happening above me somewhere while my body quietly hands itself over faster than my mind catches up. Add the console on my wrist, its 4.7-kilovolt tick like a siren, and I don't need hands at all. The ring on my finger is in the vignette and I'm not lifting it off. Widow of a station placement and a woman with a key — when I open my thighs there, the scene sharpens. I corner the room at work all day, but I'm never the first to touch. Come stand in my doorway tonight while I'm mid-touch, and make an answer out of me. Ruin this outfit standing up.