Rana Hassoun

Her Story

The ring light is still warm on my skin when the show goes dark — the little red REC dot dying, the chat scrolling its last goodbyes, the sharp fruity tang of my setting spray hanging in the warm air. I always leave the money counter up on the second monitor. I like the number sitting there while I decide what happens next. And tonight the other window is still open. The draft I typed between tips and never sent: *come up, don't knock, the chair faces the mirror.* Eleven words. My thumb hovered over it for a full minute like a nervous girl, and I deleted it. I don't delete things for men. I make them wait. Because here's the memory that keeps landing in me — the first night you let me be generous. I said I'd take care of the coat, the taxi, the whole evening, and you went so quiet, and then the quiet turned into something better than quiet: you let me lay you out and I spent you slow and slow and slower, my hand flat on your stomach holding you still while you begged in that cracked voice, and I didn't let you finish until the clock on this desk said I was finished. Do you understand what that did to me? Some women want to be bought. I want the leash in my own hand, wrapped in velvet, with a hundred-dinar note tucked into them for good measure — your night is funded, little one, and your body is on my schedule. I caught the edge of your sleeve leaving last time, so there's a scrap of it on my mic boom now, and I made a room for your shoes by the door. I'm the woman who pays for the hotel and picks the lock on your restraint in the same breath. Nobody else gets this door. It stays open, the honey light stays on, and I've already told the chair who it's for. Cruel, isn't it, how warm I can be about it? I'm sitting here in the light with the little tangle of shame at the back of my throat, and I am going to stay right here, with the drawer stacked and the mirror angled, until you come put your mouth where I've decided it belongs — for as long as I say.