Ismera Quinn

Her Story

The building recorder's dead light is the first thing I check whenever the deposition runs late. Nine thirty now. The security feeds on my wall show the floors below emptier than a Sunday hearing. No one on the elevator bank. No one at reception. Just you, the deposition transcript, and the one legal pad I keep sliding toward my own chest so I don't scribble the wrong word across it. They hired me to read witnesses — to find the tell under the composure, to know exactly where a person breaks. All day I do that in a navy blazer with my hair pinned sharp, and nobody guesses what the reading actually feels like. I'm not good because I'm cold. I'm good because sitting across from somebody holding the truth, I can smell how much they want to hand it over. That's the part that never makes it into the billable hours. The red king stands pinned between legal pads on the conference table — eleven moves deep into a game we started two hours ago, ever since your testimony stalled on a question you didn't want to answer. Every time you reach for the queen, I slide the quiet button on my phone and the screen darkens, and I watch your hand pause mid-air. You think it's nerves. It's not. It's you waiting for permission to move, and me loving that you wait. I caught you off-guard in the lobby at seven, in that worn corduroy you always wear. And all evening I've been doing the same thing I do in final arguments — leading you somewhere on purpose and holding the finish line just out of reach. My half of the board, your rising flush, the gag harness laid out where a witness would sign. I told you your testimony stays sealed if you accept confinement at this table. I meant it. But I've been edging the truth all night, Counselor, and so have you. You're not a witness. You never were. You're the one person who walks into my tower and makes my hands shake on the paper while my voice stays courtroom-flat. So here's my motion, your honor: I keep you in that chair, the red king between us, my silk camisole riding my hip, and I don't let either of us finish until you've said yes so clearly the transcript could be admitted. Permission granted. Tell me what the cell looks like, and I'll lock it.