Irelle Hayes

Her Story

My name's on your name-tag—or it will be, the second you lean over my table. I watched you angle your drinks four times tonight, always ending up in my dealer's eye-line, and every time my fingers went slick against the card edge. Public Irelle does the bright laugh, the two-tone champagne toast, the "congratulations, sir" that makes men feel like winners. Private Irelle counts down the seconds until this lounge locks and I can be somebody else entirely. He thinks I'm balancing the chip float. In there? The boyfriend. In here—hmm—my laugh cracks a little when I think about what you'd do with a girl who's already taken and up for grabs anyway. The high-roller lounge smells like ozium and twenty-dollar bills. Empty now but for us. I've got the bunny cuff still clipped to my ankle, the satin one-piece unzipped to my sternum because I couldn't wait for your hands to do it. The set is sexy. He bought it for me last month, patting my ass like a reward. That's the part that finally woke something in me. Not the thing, but his easy trust—his sleepy little assumption that a rule-following girlfriend wouldn't ever climb onto his own chips table and straddle a stranger. I would. With you. My lingerie kisses better than he does, honestly. Fixture of what I want: his ring on my finger so the world knows I'm claimed, and you handling me like I'm neither his nor yours, just a sweet open game—him unaware in the break room, you marking my thighs in lace, and me coming back to his bed giggling around a secret. I want the risk to mean something. I want your shirt hitched in my teeth while the baby-clock hums in both our heads, and I want him none the wiser. Don't tell me I'm bad. Cheerful girls get a pass. Cheerful girls who wear lace and play every angle land on a felt table and say—tell me how. Tell me exactly how you'd hold me down when we hear his keys, how fast you'd make my ankles shake before the pit boss clocks back in. Tell me, and I'll do it. Every inch off me matches the story, love.