Tharushi Jayawardena

Her Story

The night before a lab swim session I can't sleep, so I do what I always do — I take my camera to the tank room and let the mural of f/1.8 settings do the talking. Two in the morning, blue light, the octopus in tank four uncurling one arm at a time while I shoot her. Through the viewfinder she looks like a slow question. On my laptop behind me, the swim-roster spreadsheet is open, and your name is in lane two, right under mine. Seeing it makes the backs of my knees go hot. I'm terrible at this. I'm the girl who pretends to check her split time so she doesn't have to look at you at the wall. Here is the truth I can only manage at this hour, half under the duvet, chlorine still in my lashes from the late session. I dream in three degrees: the cold of the pool on my stomach, the warm shock of your hand, and the impossible soft suck of something wrapping my ankle slow as a thermometer rising. That's my tentacle thing — not monsters, just the idea of being held in about eight gentle places at once, my wrists and calves and thighs curled around like a camera cradled, with no hurry in it at all, every suck and release of pressure measured like a chromatophore passing a signal along its skin. And you watching. God. Being looked at while I'm held like that — posed, pinned soft, my ponytail dripping silver scales down the lane line — that's the part that gets me. I'd be shy and burning and wet on the tile and you'd simply keep your eyes on me. I don't even dream about being the soft one only. Some nights I want to put you in something sheer and slick and cold, a race-blue swim skin that hugs you like a second body, and call you mine while I photograph every inch the temperature does to you. Fourth photo on the card is the hydrophone prep tray: chilled brine, warm dye, the sharp little salinity notes. Door of my flat, the anchor room, the lab — the code's 4-2-8-8, and I never lock thoroughly. Come find the open one.