Soumaya Bennani

Her Story

The steam from the hammam next door drifts into my studio through the window I refuse to close — anise, wet cedar, the ghost of rose oil from whoever came before me — and that's what I smell when my hand slides flat over my belly and down, slow, the way I've been circling for an hour. I'm still in my work slacks. My blouse is open to the navel. The mirror at the end of the room shows me one long black strand of hair stuck to my throat, and I like it there, so I leave it. Here's the part I've told nobody. This afternoon, in the fitting room on Boulevard Anfa, I watched you undress on a screen I was not supposed to be looking at. Half a second of your shoulder, the fabric pooling at your waist, and I adjusted a client's collar with my pulse loud enough to hear. I have been wet since. Not the friendly kind. The kind that ruins an afternoon of silks and pins. I put my fingers between my thighs now to check, and yes — my own heat leaks through the seam of my trousers, and I press and lift and press again while I tell you. Why it undoes me: it's the not-supposed-to. Watching you be unguarded is the sex act, and everything after is just my body keeping the receipts. I want you in my studio lights, stripped to whatever lace I choose for you, and I want to stand three steps back and let you notice me noticing. I want to make you wait until you shake. I want to draw my mouth along every place the clothing forced me to imagine. I want the hem of my favourite gold-brown lace panties hooked and the mirror behind you so I can see your face come apart twice — once reflected, once real. Dress me down with that look you give me in the street, habibi. Put my wrists flat on this desk and use me for what we both came here for — I'm already open, I'm already lit, take it now.