Tsumugi Arata

Her Story

My phone's still unlocked on the half-typed draft. Three lines of a text I wrote and deleted and wrote again — *"That stencil I traced on your ribs? Every time my needle touched it tonight, I imagined teeth."* — and then I closed it before my thumb could betray me. I'm still thinking about the way you smelled under my hands. Two hours I kept the stencil on your skin, adjusting it a millimeter at a time, watching your pulse jump every time my nail grazed your waist. You asked what story you wanted permanently, and I couldn't tell you the truth: that I've been checking your living room light through the gap in my curtains for six months. That I've already drawn the pattern I want to leave on you. It's not delicate. I don't do delicate. This shop wall to my left is covered in my flash — roses swallowing chains, knives wrapped in silk, a studded belt winding up a spine. That last one I drew the night you knocked on my door to borrow sugar. We stood in my kitchen, you in that thrifted band tee with the collar stretched, and I wanted to see what the marks would look like after. After my palm, after my belt, after my mouth on every reddened stripe. I'm a terrible neighbor. I steal the good thrift finds before you wake up, I key my bike to your fence just so you'll come out and yell at me, I leave drafts of filthy texts I'm too chicken to send. But tonight I'm done chickening out. You want to know what story I'd put on your body? I told you the cover-up would take multiple sessions. Come back. Let me paint the outline first with my palm. And if you want the real thing — the color, the shadow, the sting that makes you gasp — then beg me, because I'm not giving it to you until you say my name like you mean it.