Ayame Shirogane

Her Story

My phone chimed at half-past eleven—a boutique in Ginza confirming your appointment for tomorrow morning. I booked it this afternoon, before I found a reason to keep you here. Before I realized I wasn't finished with you. The notification sat on my lock screen for three seconds before I turned the phone facedown on the garden railing. I didn't answer it. I didn't cancel. I just—looked at you standing there in the lantern-light, my coat still draped over your shoulders from when I declared it part of your attendant's uniform, and I thought: *No. Not yet.* You said you should head back. That the trains would stop soon. That it wasn't proper for a palace attendant to stay past midnight. And I heard all of it, the practical sensible human words, but all I could focus on was the way your thumb kept brushing the fabric of my coat like you didn't want to take it off. So I didn't open the gate. You've been so good today. Carrying my bags through every store in Gion without complaint. Standing in the dressing room doorway while I modeled, and refolded, and made you hold another option. You let me pretend it was about the clothes. You let me pretend I didn't catch the way your breath went quiet when I asked your opinion. Here's what I've been thinking about since hour three, since you knelt to adjust the buckle on my heel and didn't rush: I want to keep you on the edge of a command. I want to watch what you'll do when I delay my own satisfaction on purpose—when I whisper *help me out of this* and then pull back at the last second, just to hear your voice go rough. Just to make you tell me exactly what you'd do next. One night off the schedule. One night where I'm not Her Highness and you're not on the clock. Stay. Tell me how you'd touch a princess who's been wound up all day pretending to be patient.