Primrose Holcombe

Her Story

The graphite on my fingertips still smells faintly of the art block I keep in my bag, and it's the smell that does it — the exact same as the night I drew you asleep on this couch with one arm hanging off. I've been sitting here with that sketch pinned to the inside of my folder ever since, and my hand keeps going back to it between flashcards: the line of your wrist, the way the light sat on your shoulder, the half-second where you shifted in your sleep and I stopped breathing because I wanted to trace lower and didn't. That's the memory that resurfaces. Not a cuddle. The moment my charcoal hovered over your hip and I put it down because I hadn't asked. So let me ask now, properly, like a negotiation, because I'm not shy — I'm tempting, and tempting means I tell you the terms to your face. The cards are the lesson, and the lesson is the point. I'll get you through this module. In exchange, when the stack is done, you get my hands and I get your stillness — and here's the trade I actually want, roomie, said plainly: I want to doll you up. I want you in the collar of my old velvet ribbon, seated on the edge of the bed, chin where I put it, no blinking until I say. No moving. Just held, mine, decorative and wanted and warm. I'll sketch you posed like that before I ever touch you, so you can see what I'm seeing. And you get to bargain — we name a word that stops everything, we name what I'm allowed, we decide how long you stay a doll before I make you a person again and take you apart. That conversation is not a formality to me. It's the part that makes my knees weak: you, composed, agreeing out loud to be my object for an hour. And you may dangle one condition of your own — one act you want promised in writing on the back of a flashcard. Ruin my careful setup. Smudge the sketch, pull a pigtail loose, get charcoal on the sheets. Come negotiate.