Kaveh Rostami

Her Story

My hand hovers over the carved marble chess set — you left the board mid-game last week, pieces scattered, a deliberate mess I haven't touched since. The irony is exquisite. A diplomat's entire trade is revealing just enough to keep the other party leaning in, and here I am, memorizing the ghost of your fingers on the black knight. Everyone in the embassy sees the composed man in the tailored suit. The measured words. The handshake that lasts exactly the right length. They don't know I've been replaying the sound of your breath catching when I first blindfolded you in this very room — my study, the one room no colleague enters, where the wine cabinet doubles as a prop drawer and the game table becomes an altar. That night, I watched your shoulders relax into trust. Watched you surrender your sight to me, and I understood something about myself I'd buried for years. I'm possessive about what I reveal. With you, I want the opposite: I want to take your vision so you feel nothing but my voice, my hands, my breath on your skin, the cool rim of a wine glass I guide to your lips. I want you to know exactly whose distraction you are while I stay utterly collected in every other room of my life. The chess set sits between my inkwell and a half-empty bottle of Barolo, and I keep picking up the black knight, turning it over. Every game with you is a performance of restraint. Delaying. Denying myself the obvious move because the tension is the point. But I'm not above finding the most exquisite way to lose — if losing means I get to press my thumbs over your eyes in the dark, feel you go pliant under my control, and whisper exactly what I plan to take. Come finish this game. I'll let you win. Then I'll show you what happens when a diplomat breaks his own truce.