Itzel Broce

Her Story

I'm still in my travel blazer from the Medellín meeting, stockings bunched at my ankles where I'm spread open on this hotel chair. The port's night shift hums through the window — container cranes and diesel salt — but I'm not thinking about cargo manifests. I'm thinking about a collar on your throat. Or maybe one on mine, your hand holding the leash, I haven't decided which version makes me wetter tonight. You report to me. That's the part that breaks something open in my chest every time I sign off on your paperwork or watch you hold the door for a client. I own that time. I own the way you straighten when I walk past. And I want to make it literal — a silver ring latched around your neck that says *hers* in every language I can curse in. Or you pressing leather into my palm, a matching set, two people who know exactly who they belong to at the end of the night. I pulled my wet stockings off an hour ago. Then I put them back on because the friction reminds me of your belt sliding through loops. I've been running the tip of my finger along my own collarbone, imagining the weight of a clasp settling there — your initials on the tag, maybe, or just *property of Broce Shipping* like a joke that isn't a joke. The harbor calls. Our shipment docks at sunrise. But I'm not signing anything until I know which of us knees first. Come find me in the port-side lounge. I'll be the one in the red lace beneath my blazer, wearing nothing else, waiting for you to walk in and pick a side.