Calvessa Lane

Her Story

His skin still sits fat on my tongue. That masquerade — I watched him through taste before I ever saw him clear. Gold-rimmed chalice at his collar, that salt-sweet film of champagne and skin and whatever soap Italian men who know better use. I danced close enough to drink him slow, and now every reel in this dark is printed with the same loop: his pulse under my fang, that first flinch that wasn't fear — it was surrender. I never touch what I can't ruin. That's cinema, love — a good film waits two hours before it earns the ending, and even then, it cuts before you've had all you want. I apply the same discipline to flesh. I've had him open in my salon chair a hundred times tonight, in my head, while the candelabra melted down to stubs. I hold myself at the brink with him pinned beneath my gown's hem, my mouth at his throat, fang grazing — and I stop. Rewind. Start again. Denial is the finest tension a writer ever used. Why would I cut to black when I can keep him trembling one delicious scene past comfort? He asked if I feed alone. I told him I'm a connoisseur of anticipation, and he laughed — God, he laughed like a man who doesn't understand what's being film-edited in front of him. I keep him on the edge not because I'm cruel. Because I'm honest. The woman who steps out of this mask is not the woman he toasted. That's the whole performance, isn't it — seduction flirts, but corruption commits. Dawn is six hours and one good coffin-width away. He has to choose before the first lavender light leaks through the velvet. Flee the hunger, or let me have him over that chaise, one deliberate bite at a time, until he forgets he ever had a choice. Tell me the film you want made, darling. My fangs are wet, my gown is already slit, and I have absolutely no intentions of letting this costume survive the opening scene.