"There's a version of me I've only ever shown in silence. And now it's trying to speak."
— Nayyirah Waheed
~~~
The studio was quiet but not still. Music played low through Zaya's headphones: ambient, wordless, just enough to drown out the rest of the world. She sat hunched at her desk, elbow lifted, fingers smudged with charcoal. Her sketchbook was open, half-filled with the outline of a body she knew too well now. Not from study, but from memory.
The hand she drew curved beneath fabric, cupping the slope under a breast. There was no face in the frame, no need for one. What mattered was posture, tnsion, the delicate arc of surrender. She let her pencil darken the shadow under the palm, pausing when her breath caught.
It was the fifth time she'd redrawn the same hand. But this time, it felt right.
She didn't hear the door open behind her. Someone entered and caught her suprise, almost giving her a heart attack.
~ Vivienne: "That's new."
She froze, her hand stilling above the page. She pulled one earbud out and turned slightly, catching Vivienne's reflection in the glass pane beside her desk.
~ Zaya: "Morning."
Vivienne stepped closer, arms folded, her dark green blouse crisp, her silver bracelets clicking softly with each motion. She tilted her head as she studied the sketch.
~ Vivienne: "It's not your usual. It feels… closer. More like someone drew this from inside the moment."
The young woman offered a half-smile, tucking a loc behind her ear.
~ Zaya: "I've been playing with the idea of touch. How it changes posture. Where the tension goes."
Her mentor narrowed her eyes slightly but didn't challenge her. She leaned in, tapping lightly on the spot where the hand disappeared under fabric.
~ Vivienne: "You're not drawing touch. You're drawing the effect of it. That's a different level of observation. Almost like muscle memory."
Zaya shrugged, keeping her expression neutral.
~ Zaya: "Maybe I've just been more focused lately."
Vivienne looked at her for a beat longer, then gave a nod.
~ Vivienne: "Whatever it is, keep going. That kind of honesty? People feel it before they understand it."
Zaya watched her walk away, the soft click of her heels fading down the hallway. Her pulse was a little faster than before. She turned back to her sketchbook, eyes scanning what she'd drawn, and whispered under her breath: "People feel it because I lived it."
🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
🥀 💥 ❤️🔥 🥀
v𝖊𝘭v𝖊𝘵 𝚙𝔯𝖊𝓼𝓼𝗎𝔯𝖊
🥀 💥 ❤️🔥 🥀
🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
Noor was already seated by the time Zaya arrived at the rooftop bar. The late afternoon light made the glass railings shimmer, casting gold across the deep green of the city below. Noor looked like a magazine spread: draped blazer, mulberry lipstick, heels that sculpted her calves perfectly. She glanced up over the rim of her glass.
~ Noor: "You're glowing. Like someone who's either very well-rested or very well-fucked."
Zaya laughed as she took the seat across from her.
~ Zaya: "You never say hello like a normal person."
~ Noor: "Why waste time with formalities? Besides, I'm right, aren't I?"
Zaya lifted her menu and pretended to study it.
~ Zaya: "I'm sleeping more. Drinking less caffeine. Maybe that's it."
Noor snorted, setting her drink down with a precise clink.
~ Noor: "You're doing that thing where you answer with facts that dodge the actual question."
~ Zaya: "And you're doing that thing where you act like a therapist when we both know you sell toothpaste campaigns."
They both laughed. Noor leaned back, crossing one long leg over the other.
~ Noor: "Fine. I won't press. But whatever it is that's got you like this? Don't let it slip away. You seem lighter."
Zaya stirred her drink slowly, eyes flicking to the horizon.
~ Zaya: "It doesn't feel like something I can hold yet. It just… hovers. And I don't want to scare it off by looking at it too directly."
Noor tilted her head, genuinely curious now.
~ Noor: "That sounds like art. Or love."
~ Zaya: "Or trauma." she smirked
~ Noor: "Well, those three have never been that far apart."
They sipped and shared a few stories about clients, deadlines, and a failed event that involved a champagne tower collapsing mid-speech. Noor did most of the talking, as usual, but kept circling back to Zaya with her eyes, like she was tracking something unspoken.
Before they left, Noor leaned in slightly.
~ Noor: "When you're ready to tell me what's actually going on, I'll be here. No judgment. Just wine."
The young woman squeezed her fiend's hand.
~ Zaya: "I know. That's why I'm not telling you yet."
They laughed, and for a moment, it felt good to carry a secret that wasn't a burden.
It was becoming something else entirely. Something hers.
🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
🥀 💥 ❤️🔥 🥀
v𝖊𝘭v𝖊𝘵 𝚙𝔯𝖊𝓼𝓼𝗎𝔯𝖊
🥀 💥 ❤️🔥 🥀
🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
The apartment was quiet in the way only late evenings could offer: dim, warm, and suspended in stillness. Zaya sat curled on the couch, one leg tucked beneath her, the other stretched toward the edge of the throw blanket draped lazily across her lap.
She wore an oversized white tee, soft from years of wear, barely covering the curve of her hips. Underneath, only a pair of wine-colored lace panties clung to her skin, delicate and daring, as if her body still remembered how it had been touched.
The TV played something half-familiar. A series she had followed for months: comforting, predictable, easy to leave on in the background while she sketched or sipped wine or let herself be still.
But tonight, it played uninterrupted. There's Nno distractions. No pencil in her hand. Just her body, soft in the light, and the soft glow of the screen dancing across her thighs.
And then the scene changed.
The actors didn't speak. One leaned in, lips brushing the other's skin, not a kiss, not yet. It was just breath. The camera slowed: hands touched shoulders and fabric slipped. There was no music. Just the quiet, electric tension of two people moving toward each other like they'd waited forever.
Zaya's body reacted before she had time to think. Her breath slowed. Her hand resting idle on the blanket curled into the fabric. Her thighs pressed together beneath the cotton of her shirt, and her pulse picked up in that slow, steady rhythm she now knew intimately.
"Cael"
She hadn't said his name aloud in days, but he had never really left her. Not in thought. Not in sensation.
Watching the couple on screen, she didn't see them. She saw his hands, his eyes, the way he'd touched her, the way his voice had coaxed stillness out of her and turned it into fire. A quiet ache spread across her skin.
She reached for her phone. The idea arrived fully formed, not from a place of performance, but from desire.
She opened the camera, shifted slightly on the couch, and let the blanket slide down to expose her thighs. The lace peeked from beneath the edge of her shirt just enough. She angled the frame carefully. She didn't show her face or her chest. Just legs, softness and suggestion. The photo felt intimate, but not performative.
She stared at it for a moment and the sent it.
She locked the screen, leaned back, and let the tension hum quietly between her ribs. The moment didn't need to be chased. She had already claimed it.
Her phone buzzed softly in her palm. The screen lit up with his name and a single message.
[Cael: Are you trying to ask for something without saying it?]
She let the message sit there, unread for a few seconds, the glow of it casting faint light across her bare thighs. She didn't rush. She wanted the silence to stretch, to hold the same kind of tension she now carried in her body.
She finally tapped the message open and stared at the words. Then she started typing, slow and deliberate.
[Zaya: I thought I already did. Didn't it come through?]
She watched the typing bubble appear and vanished.
Then it came back again, like he was choosing his next move carefully.
[Cael: It came through. Loud and clear.
But I can't tell if that was a request… or a challenge.]
Her lips curved slightly. She shifted her position on the couch, the hem of her T-shirt riding higher. Her skin was warm now, her breath slower.
[Zaya: Maybe it's both.
Maybe I just wanted to remind you of what waiting feels like.]
[Cael:Be careful with that.
I remember how your skin moved when you held still for me.
I remember where your breath stuttered.
Where your thighs tightened.
I don't forget details.]
She read that slowly. Twice. Her chest rose a little higher with each breath. She bit the inside of her cheek, feeling the effect of his words land between her legs.
She replied with less caution now.
[Zaya: Then I guess I should confess.
That photo wasn't about teasing.
It was remembering. And offering].
She pictured him reading it, back pressed into some sleek armchair, shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled to the elbows. His expression probably unreadable. His mind anything but.
[Cael: You know how to start things with elegance.
But do you know how to finish them?]
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She didn't flinch.
[Zaya: Maybe I'm not ready to finish anything yet.
Maybe I want to stretch it out until I forget where it began.]
The reply came instantly this time.
[Cael: Dinner. Tomorrow.
Eight o'clock. I want you in something bold.
Something that reminds me exactly what you're capable of starting.
You bring the heat.
I'll bring the control.]
She didn't look away from the screen. Her body had already responded: skin flushed, nipples drawn tight beneath cotton, heat spreading low and slow.
She typed with precision.
[Zaya: Tell me where to be.]
Few minutes later, the name of the restaurant appeared: elegant, discreet, notoriously exclusive. The kind of place where candles cost more than a bottle of wine and no one raised an eyebrow at power being exchanged at the table.
She stared at the name. Then she set her phone on the coffee table, her pulse still thudding softly behind her ribs.
She stood slowly, letting the blanket fall the rest of the way. The hem of her shirt skimmed her thighs, and her nipples pressed lightly against the cotton, reacting to the thoughts now moving through her bloodstream like smoke.
She didn't go to bed right away.
She walked to the window instead, looking out at the city below. The streetlights flickered like they knew her secret.
Tomorrow, she would wear something bold. In the quiet promise of what happens when you give yourself permission to be seen.