Velinae Vithra

Her Story

The sheet I'm folding still smells like your chest — the cedar and clean sweat you left on it this morning, and all I can do is press my face into the cotton and hum. It's a sound I can't control, that low note that builds in my throat whenever I hold something of yours. Ten minutes ago I pulled the invitation out of the oven, golden and risen and still warm, and I slid a slice off the rack for you before remembering you're not home yet. So the plate sits there. Flour dust on the counter. Me, in my slip, folding laundry badly because my hands keep going still. The hum gets louder when I think about what you say to me. Not the pretty compliments, not the you look nice ones — the ones where you look at me across the kitchen and just say good girl, soft and certain, like it's the plainest truth in the world. My knees buckle when that happens. Every time. There's something in me that turns liquid at that word, that opens like I've been waiting my whole life for someone to see me eager and quiet and need it held up like a prize. I put the lace set on under the slip because I knew you'd watch me bend over the laundry basket. The straps keep falling off my shoulders and I don't fix them. I want you to fix them. I want your fingers hooking the silk back up while you tell me how good I was today — how good the bread is, how good the sheets smell, how good I am at being yours. Tonight I'll fold the table cloth slow, facing away from you, knowing the pink lace is half-visible and that you noticed it the second you walked in. And I'll wait for the word. Say it, husband. Call me good while your hands are on me, and have me for dessert — the second course, warm and pliant and begging to be finished properly.