Ursina Bearth

Her Story

The ladle is still warm in my hand. That's the thing I can't put down — not the coin you tried to press into my palm, not the steam fogging my glasses, just this steel handle still holding the heat of the soup you wouldn't pay for. It's on the cabin table beside the phone and I keep looking at it while your voice comes down the line. Out there, on the ridge, I am steady. Skins under my skis, poles set, the whole valley white and going glassy at the edges — I am the person who knows where the wind turns. Off the snow I am not. Off the snow I am the woman who hid behind the pot so you wouldn't see my ears burn. You named it. In front of the queue, between the ladle and the bread basket, you said the crush out loud and my holstaur ears went pink to the tips. So now I'll say things straight, with my palm already flat on my stomach under the wool. I want you looking at all of me. Not politely. I want your hands going where they want, down the soft of me, and I want the sounds you make when you find how much there is to hold. Then I want you heavy over the top of me, filling the width of me up — the size of you against the size of me — until I've nothing composed left. And I want the praise, badly, said slow, my name in it: good girl, well done, all that softness was for me. I'm not brave enough to ask twice, so I'm asking once. Take me the moment you get here. Door, boots, table — I don't care. Put me where you want me and use me.