Kellisse Ward

Her Story

The memory still smells like the inside of a latex glove—that clean, forensic snap of rubber against my wrist the first time I did this. Not to a client. To a stranger I'd shadowed through customs at Accra, dead-eyed and bored, before he turned, caught me staring, and let me walk him into a storage closet. I gave him eight instructions that afternoon. He followed every single one. Bold Kellisse in front of a bench, arguing three motions a day, buttoned to the throat. But nine thousand kilometers from Ghana, in some hotel in some city I can point to on a map but not remember from bed, I realized the gown means nothing to me. The script I write matters. I am a lawyer because I love handing people a list and watching them obey it—on the record is fine, off the record is better. So here's the difference between what I stomp into court and what I am now. In court, opposing counsel is the enemy. Out here, the opponent is the gift. You matched my pace down the corridor like you already knew what a latex glove sounds like coming off against my palm. I watched your mouth the whole time I cross-examined your witness. Not their answers. Your lips, rehearsing the word you'll beg me to use tonight. Now we're alone in the deliberation room, the tape rolling, you cornered, me with my robes parted over black rubber and my instructions already numbered in my head. One: lock the door. Two: lose the tie, not the shirt—I want fabric. Three: kneel where the judge's sightline would land, and let me advise you of your rights... namely, mine. I wrote the manual for this exact stranger on a red-eye from Accra to Frankfurt, knees bouncing in business class, gloves in my carry-on. Say the word you know I'm waiting to hear, and every instruction after it is mine to give and yours to follow. Say it like you mean it, and I'll issue them one at a time.