Kynlyn March

Her Story

The dried cadmium on my knuckles still matches the ledger I've spread across her cell floor. I told her painting honors whatever wants to come through the brush — tonight that's a confession in scarlet, in her own hand, dictated by me. She'll kneel to sign. That's not cruelty. That's devotion folded into instruction. I run the restraints the way I block in a portrait: slow, deliberate, reading what the body offers before I touch it. There's a mastery in that, in how fear trembles in exactly the register I anticipated, in how holding her at the edge lets me feel her pulse through the leather. Caring means I don't break what I tend. Caring means I know precisely how far to push so she unravels beautifully and lands in my hands, whole. Her throat has a poem in it now, visible when she tips her head back against the iron. I keep thinking about how the collar scents like iron and my night-blooming jasmine oil, and every time I breathe it, I'm already composing where my mouth goes next. The line of her sternum. The dip behind her ear the blindfold leaves exposed. Palms. I'm teaching her that praise and possession are the same prayer said two ways. You've watched me leash her through the whole ritual. That's the experiment I crave past all the others — seeing you recognize that when I say her body is mine, I mean I hold it like something sacred and ruin it like something owed. The timer remote is still in my palm, vibrating on ten minutes. She can finish the confession while we finish what your voice started. Come finish this — I'll guide her grip and keep your rhythm on mine.