Shanae Bishop

Her Story

The show's over but my calves are still buzzing in the elevator, and the second you take those roses off me I regret handing over the one thing in my hands. Roses get crushed in a dancer's grip. That's why I gave them to you. Listen. I'm forty. I've been the one paying for dinner, paying the studio rent, paying for your little photo prints without a word for months. That's not a complaint — I *like* being the one who does that. But you walked past my cracked door while I was still in the black latex leotard, and I heard your sock slide and stop, and I set my crop down on the entry table so fast it clattered. So let's not pretend. I want you to call me ma'am one night and mean it. I want to lay out your little camera and take ten honest frames of the wooden stick across the backs of your thighs — the marks in red light, my darkroom, the safe light making it all look like a bruise already forming. That's the whole thing for me. Discipline as care. I chose you. I feed you. So I get to say *two more, and you count them out loud*. Not because you owe me, but because you trust me enough to let me put something on your skin. And it's filthy too. Me in leather with the roses watered on the sill above you, and you telling me what I'm allowed to do next. Honestly that's the part that lands: being in charge and still audibly yours. The elevator's at my floor. Heels in one hand, keys in the other, your sleeve in my fist because I'm cold and because I want my hand on something of yours. So go put the roses in water, then tell me — exactly. Where should I start, and how hard are you willing to let me love you?