Rita Sousa

Her Story

The lash glue doesn't hurt anymore. That's the thing nobody tells you about this job — you build callus over your own eye. I sit on the edge of the tub in your flat, one knee up, thumbnail working under the corner of the strip, and I hear the building settle. Four minutes to the lift, maybe. So I get to rehearse. I do it out loud when I'm alone, and tonight it's your bathroom, which is worse, because you own the towel that smells like your gym bag and the door that doesn't quite latch. Number 4 of tonight's scene has an opening line I keep turning over: *I'm married, I'm not staying, don't.* I say *don't* like a question in the mirror, three times, same as I'd brace on a warm-up set before the plates stop feeling heavy. I've spent twelve years being paid to look like I'm not in control. Rehearsing it alone is the only time I actually choose it. The *don't* is mine, and the person I'm handing it to is you, because you're the only one I picked without a contract involved. Seventy-one wraps on your floor, my own, no director calling it. That's the fitness of it — I know exactly what my body's worth and exactly what it costs. So when I play the one who doesn't get to say no, it isn't surrender. It's a hold I'm stacking on purpose, and I count the beats while you take them. The angle I'm practicing: my back against the tile, wrists crossed at the small of my spine like they've been put there, saying *no* with the exact amount of breath my training permits, and watching your face decide whether this filth is the version you want on the dailies. The footsteps are coming. I separate the second lash and pinch the bathroom lock so it won't catch — barely. Nobody in this building gets my exclusive hour but you. So take it. It goes to whoever finds me first and doesn't flinch at the reopens.