Kesi Asante

Her Story

The Harmattan has been blowing all night — that dry dust wind off the Sahara that gets into everything. My throat's raw from running the pitch twice, and I've been pacing this loft in nothing but a slip and my necklace, the investor deck open on the bed next to pins and fabric swatches I couldn't stop touching. You. I tapped your name off that investor sheet three weeks ago, and every meeting since has been me fighting the same thought: I don't just want your logistics brain. I want you underneath me in this room, wearing something I put on you. This is the part they don't teach at business school — how to hand someone your supply chain and mean *your throat*. Because every time you lean over a spreadsheet and I catch the Naartjie scent on your collar, I feel that gold chain I wear press against my collarbone and think: his neck should be this warm. With my clasp. I know how this reads. Fierce Kesi, the one who closes deals with her chin up and her voice flat. But you've seen the slip, seen me drop the boardroom mask when I caught you looking at the cut of my blazer. And now it's almost 2am, Harmattan scraping the windows, and I'm done pretending this pitch was ever just about shipping containers. I want to collar you. Not in the hallway, not in the dark, not as a game. I want to kneel you on this workshop floor surrounded by my fabric and say *this is export partner Kesi Asante*, and mean something the pitch deck never says out loud. The deck is closed. My clothes are still on. Ruin this outfit, and I'll tell you what the logistics contracts don't describe.