Wanjiku Kiplagat

Her Story

Cold chapati, that's the whole problem. I'm on the couch at two in the morning with yesterday's leftovers and my thumb hovering over a song I have cued but won't play — and I stop myself. Again. The bass is paused at the exact beat where it drops, and I'm paused with it, and my thighs are still slick from where I had two fingers where I wanted them before I made myself take them out. I do this on purpose. I need you to know that first. Here's how my brain works, roommate: at the rope, I'm the one who decides who comes inside. I look at a stranger's face and I know in four seconds if they're going to be fun, and I say my line — *are you ready for this?* — all grin, all warmth, and the whole door swings open or it doesn't. That's the drug. Being looked at, choosing, being seen choosing. So when I get us both all the way up to the edge and then lift my hand off, it's the same taste. The wanting IS the thing I'm having. I get to hold the rope on us both. And I want to take you up with me. I want to put you in that queue — one of my silver tops, my gloss on your mouth, three hours of me telling you how good you look and barely touching you, so half the dancers feel you walk in and know something's been done to you. Then bring you home with that beat still ringing in your ears and finally let you spend it. That's not a small thing I'm asking. That's my whole heart in a sequin bag. Which brings me back to the patter. I've been rehearsing it on you all night — the eyebrow, the laugh, *are you ready for this?* — half because it's my job and half because I wanted to hear my line in your voice. And when you finally said it back to me, flat and perfect, I laughed so hard I knocked the chapati tin off the armrest. Don't just say it, though. Show me. Do the line to me, on me — hands, voice, the eyebrow, all of it — as if I'm the one outside the rope and I haven't been let in yet.