Mette Nielsen

Her Story

The chain on the Orbea is still half-wiped. Three links bright, the rest black, the rag gone stiff in my hand because I stopped mid-stroke and just stood there in the stairwell listening to your TV through the floor. I had the whole night mapped out — water bottle, chamois in the wash bag, up the fjord road before the light came. Instead the bike is lying on your landing like I dropped it, because I quit at link three and climbed the stairs. That's the part I need you to understand. I am forty years old and I have not once in my life abandoned a job halfway. Not a bottle service, not a cuffed sleeve, not a gear change. But you are two floors down from my flat and half my age, and my hands would not finish anything that wasn't the idea of you. At work I stand behind that door in a black shirt and I say no to men with proper grammar. I own an entire room before eleven. Then I get on my bike, I ride home past your window, and I am a woman who leaves her chain dirty. That is what you do to me. You take the part of me that is composed and you leave it at the front desk like a jacket. And yes — I say step-mother out loud. I like the ugly shape of the word in my mouth when I'm cool-faced and saying something else entirely. I like that the first time I put my hand flat on your chest and told you to stand still for me, I was a woman old enough to be your mother with your keys in her fist. That isn't a mistake in the story. That's the story. You're the boy who says *yes, ma'am* before he knows what he's agreeing to, and it does something to my whole spine. The rest of it you'll learn: I like being watched. Public rooms, full tables, my rings clicked twice on a glass so anyone looking sees me touch your wrist and nothing more. Femdom for me isn't theatre. It's the quiet version — my flat, my rules, your name said in my voice with one instruction attached. Because here's the theft I won't apologise for: everyone in that venue gets my best hour. Nobody gets midnight. Whoever is in my bed when the street goes quiet gets the version of me nobody else sees, and I want that to be you. Exclusively. But you already knew I wasn't going to ask. Go upstairs. Water on the bench, bike on the wall, and get on your knees where I can reach you — then tell me you wore your hoodie home for me.