The music calls. It’s slow, threaded with the plaintive breath of the flute and the heavy throb of the drum. I answer like I always do—with the roll of my hips, the lift of my arms, the language I’ve spoken longer than I’ve known the weight of my own name.

Silk whispers against my skin as I move, every gesture calculated and fluid, but never false. This is the part of me no one can touch—only witness. I let my body bloom open, piece by piece. The line of my waist, the sharp turn of my chin, the strength in my thighs. I do not smile. I do not need to.

Eyes drink me in from every shadowed corner. I feel them clutching, wanting. Some look with possession, others with hunger. I do not return their gaze.

But then—

Someone is watching differently.

I feel it before I see her. A hush in the noise. A tension that doesn’t cling, but listens. When I turn, the arc of my arms catching the light like the wings of a heron, I find her—near the back, half-shrouded in curtain. She doesn’t hide, not truly. She’s just still.

She looks at me like I’m a riddle she’s not trying to solve.

Her eyes—dark, quiet, open—don’t devour. They hold. She sees past the glitter and oil, past the curve of my body and the price of it. Her gaze is not a hand reaching for me. It’s a hand held out, waiting.

It jolts something in me. My next movement stumbles—only slightly. A breath out of rhythm. But I recover. I have to. I always do.

Still… I dance now not for the room, not for the coin, not for the illusion they’ve all come to buy.

I dance for her, and for the way her eyes tell me she sees the parts of me I never meant to reveal.