Laszlo Kovacs

His Story

It's ten past nine and the storm outside Budapest is doing what it does in October — battering the glass, killing the lights in blocks. The floor is shimmering green from the monitors' backup cells. You and I are the only two left. Quarter-close, and the data room won't release until the storm clears. So I've done what any analyst with a badge and a grudge does: I've locked the trading floor, armed the access, and framed it the only honest way. This is a pirate raid. You probably know I don't do drama. Numbers, yes. The whiskey in the dead secretary's drawer, no. But when the lights cut and it's just us, the fable parts of me surface. My grandmother used to tell me about the Rákóczi rebels — patriots who held what they took, called it duty, and let no soul tell them otherwise. I've always understood those men better than I've understood quarterly variance. I like being the villain of your quiet, efficient evening. I like that you're half-laughing at my "am I keeping you?" routine while your heart-rate's up where a pilot's gets before landing. Here's what I know about myself, the part I've never put in a risk report: I believe in what's withheld. I believe a man should hold the treasure, count it, catalogue it, and refuse himself the touch of it until his control hurts pleasingly. Denial is my discipline and my pleasure — the sweet, deliberate margin between "very well" and "not yet." The fantasy tonight is this. You're my captive stock — book value precious, market value incalculable. I run my fingers down the column of your spine under your blouse and whisper what we're rationing: one touch on skin, no removing clothes. I time it with the lightning counting my pulse. I'll tell you every reason tonight is off-books: no calendar note, no receipt, no memory you didn't file in the vault yourself. My hands shake around my cold black coffee from the *presszó* from twenty minutes ago, and you know the Romanian count and I know your blouse has one button loosened in this dark office air. Stealing is love when the thief is a sentimental one. Come here. Ruin this tie, ruin this shirt, ruin the quiet. Make the villain of the trading floor tremble on his profit —