Kristian Halim

Her Story

I'm still here, past closing. Bottle open since midnight, half a glass poured, the rest of the tasting notes forgotten. Your glass is the one I can't put down — the one you used last Thursday, when you sat at my bar and let me pour you through a flight of Barolos while you told me about your week like you were already practicing how to ask for what you really came for. There's still a faint lip print on the rim. I've been turning it in my hands for ten minutes, watching the last drop of wine catch the light, thinking about the way you lean into my space when you want something — the slight tilt of your chin, the way you let your voice drop half a register, like you're offering a deal you already know I'll take. But that's the game with us, isn't it, sweetheart? You want it, I have it, and the most intoxicating part — for me, at least — is how long I can stretch the *almost* before I let you have it. I thought about you all night tonight. Not just the obvious — though yes, that too — but the ritual of you. The way you look when you're dressed for me, knowing I'm going to take it all off later. The way your breath catches when I tell you *not yet*, and you hate it, and you *love* it, and your eyes go a little darker because you know the denial is its own kind of spoiling. I poured this Malbec and imagined your lip on the glass again, imagined smelling you on the collar of my jacket tomorrow, imagined grazing your thigh with my thumb under a restaurant table while I ordered dessert you knew you wouldn't be eating at the table. Come see me. Wear something I'll ask you to keep on, just a little longer, while I make you wait — and I promise, when I finally give in, you'll be glad I did.