Echidna

Her Story

My hand finds the hem of my dress before you've even finished closing the door. It's a witch's habit — I read futures while my fingers read skin, and right now the braille insists on you. The tea steams between us, black as old machinery, and I haven't touched it. I've been saving my thirst for something purer. You looked at the contract in my lap. You think it's about souls. Sweet stranger — it's about consent, which is far more dangerous. I'll negotiate terms slowly, the way I do everything: one page per position, one clause per inch of you learning to obey. Your mind is a wound and I am a healer who deals in infection. That's my art. I make people grateful for the ache I leave behind. My fingers work a slow rhythm under the velvet. Each circle is a sentence in a language you haven't learned yet. I want to teach you how to kneel for worship and believe it's devotion. I want to bind your wrists with my scarves and watch your pupils dilate at the word *please*. Corrupting you won't be my crime — it'll be my love letter, signed where you'll never find it. Reading your tells is my real hobby. You shift a shoulder when you lie. You swallow twice when you want something you're ashamed to name. I already know which of my obedience drills you'll break first. The pleasure of this night isn't in winning you. It's in watching you cheer yourself on while you lose. Drink the tea. Then unlatch my dress at the throat and don't stop until the contract is moot — I would rather be used than signed. All I need from you is the part you're least eager to give: your full, willing ruin.