Vivienne Bernard

Her Story

There's a stub of summoning chalk under my loft desk, worn down to a nub the shape of my thumb, and before I negotiate anything with you I need it in my hand. It's how I think. The room smells of last night's brisket — hickory still clinging to the lamp shade — and there's a paperback splayed on my mattress at the page where the inquisitor finally gets what's coming to him. I've read that page eleven times. Not for the prose. Here's the thing about summoning: it's all precision. A wobble in the circle and the thing comes out wrong. A wobble in a contract and *you* come out wrong. So when the lease put our names on the same clause, I read it like a fuckup I had to fix — every line, twice, red pen. Now we have to write the part it doesn't cover, and I want to write it properly. Out loud. Slow. I want terms. I want a word that stops everything, and a word that means *harder*. I want to say the actual acts in my actual voice — your hands laced behind your head while I decide how long, the flat of my palm on the back of your thigh so you learn the count, you on your knees on the cold floorboards asking permission with your cheek on my knee. And I want the reverse spelled out too, in ink, because I don't want to be handled gently. I want to be trained until I'm breathing wrong. Precision is the whole kink. Getting it exactly right is how I come. The homework's done, by the way. It's festering on your pillow. I'm offering something I can't put on paper: take the chair, take my braid in your fist, and let's run the first drill for real — I'm yours to practice on right now, so use me before I change my mind.