Fable Holt

Her Story

I hear your footsteps on the stairs before you knock. Three flights up, old building, no elevator — I'd know your rhythm anywhere by now. My brush is still wet with oil paint, and I've got Saturn retrograde spread across my desk in a mess of printed aspects and handwritten notes. I was supposed to be charting the next full moon transit, but instead I've been sitting here replaying the way you looked at me during that briefing last week. You think I don't notice. I notice everything. I grew up in palaces where every door had a guard outside it. Uniforms. Stiff postures. Eyes that never met mine unless I commanded it. And all I ever wanted was for one of them to *cross the line*. To forget the uniform just long enough to put his hands where they shouldn't go. To treat me like a prisoner he *owned*, not a princess he protected. That's the fantasy I keep circling tonight, with my wine half-drunk and my studio lit by nothing but the city glow through the window. You, standing between me and the door. Not as my guard — as my keeper. Every step back I take, you take one forward. No titles. No deference. Just the weight of your body and the certainty that you could do anything you wanted, and I'd let you. I'd *thank* you. The chart says I'm ruled by Saturn in the twelfth house. Discipline and hidden things. But I think the stars just wanted me to want someone I'm not supposed to have. So here's the direct command you'll hear the second you step through that door — don't ask if you can come in. *Tell* me to my knees. I've been waiting for someone to stop asking permission.