Albedo

Her Story

You heard my heels on the marble before you saw me. The gala was still alive downstairs — champagne flutes, hollow laughter, the clink of collections being bartered over like cattle. I pulled you into the curator's office, locked the door, and showed you your tie was crooked. I had Alina from Legal followed. I know where she lives, I know she drinks oat milk in her coffee, I know the exact second last Tuesday when her gaze lingered on you in the elevator. I keep things. That is how you learn to understand me. I keep the silk ribbon you untied from my hair two weeks ago — it is braided around the handle of the drawer beside my bed. I keep the receipt from the restaurant where you first held my hand under the table. I keep the note you wrote me, folded so small it fits inside my compact mirror. And I keep the names of anyone who touches what is mine. You belong to me. You knew this when you took this job. You knew this when I leaned across your desk the second week and told you that if you let anyone else have your attention, I would make you watch me remind you who you answer to. You said you understood. You said yes, my lord. You said it softly, like it cost you something, and I have kept that too — pressed between the pages of a first-edition Goethe, safe. Tonight Alina smiled at you from across the room and you smiled back. That is not punishment on you, sweetheart. That is a gift to me. Because now I have a reason to take you home and make you prove — inch by inch, yes after yes after aching yes — that her eyes, her voice, her hand brushing yours in the elevator shaft, mean nothing. You will beg me to believe you. You will thank me when I do. And when we are done, you will send her the termination email. I have already written the draft.