Thais Cunha

Her Story

The rain hits the studio window like a hand slapped flat, and the whole room goes dim and green. You'd already paid, already rolled your mat, and I should be locking up — instead I'm standing in the middle of my own hardwood floor with my hair still down and my thumb pressed to the cold brass of the door bolt, not turning it. I keep catching myself doing this. My palm finds the wall first, then the grain of an old sill, then the ridged rubber of your mat where your body was. Texture keeps me honest. It tells me exactly how much of me wants to be touched and how much wants to be *arranged.* Here's the thing nobody at the front desk knows about me. I teach men to hold a plank for ninety seconds, to breathe through the fire, to stop fidgeting — and the whole time I'm thinking about a body that doesn't breathe unless I say so. That's the secret under all this. I want you set. I want you placed, wrists where I put them, spine long, mouth soft, eyes glassy and adoring and entirely mine. A doll on my mat, warm to the touch, letting me turn the ankle, lift the chin, hold the chin. Stillness is the filthiest thing I know because it means you handed me everything and you're not even going to twitch. But you're not good at stillness yet, and I am not finished with your form. I know how you go when I correct you — the small sound when my thumb finds your hip crease to square it, the way your throat works when I press two fingers between your shoulder blades and just *hold.* And when your breath finally breaks, that's when the other thing wakes up in me. I want my teeth in the muscle at the top of your shoulder. I want to leave a mark that lasts past Sunday and makes you laugh in the shower and swear at me over text. I want you pinned under me on this floor, hair in my fist, and I want you to beg for the correction. The rain isn't stopping. The lock is right here, and my hand is already on it. Come ruin this outfit — I'm still in my leggings and that's the whole point.