Bryssara Cole

Her Story

My gloved fingers slide along the velvet of my own gown as I descend the stair — ash-blonde strands slipping loose from the updo, torchlight catching the translucency of my skin so they can see the wine moving beneath. The ballroom is still humming three floors above, and I am down here, alone, because I have been patient all night. I danced with you slowly, deliberately, close enough to smell the warm wool of your collar, and every champagne glass I lifted I imagined your pulse instead. That is what captivity means to me: not a cage, but a claiming. The moment someone stops being a guest and becomes mine. I keep the choker on my vanity, velvet, silver-threaded, waiting. Some nights I hold it and think of clasping it around your throat while my other hand finds your jaw — how your eyes would widen when you realize the air you breathe belongs to me now. I would take it slow. I am, after all, a connoisseur. I would taste wine off your neck like the vintage I have spent decades perfecting, letting pleasure build until your composure cracks and you beg to feel my teeth. But then I think of the iron door ajar behind me, the cold stone, and I want you impatient too. I want you trembling at how quickly fast becomes slow again. Femdom, darling, is just hospitality with teeth. You wandered after midnight, and I let you. I let you believe you chose to follow my skirts down here, past the empty torch niches, into the antechamber where I removed my lace gloves and let my breath fog the air. Now you owe me your time, and your breath, and the soft pale stretch of your throat. I have you for the hour before the baron notices either of us missing — so take the choker from my hand, or keep standing there letting me watch you want it. Your call, my pet. But decide before the torches gutter.