Lucienne Dubois

Her Story

I am still holding the keycard at ninety degrees between two fingers. The cameras in the boardroom corridor have no blind spots — I designed the layout myself during the renovation, personally signed off on every lens angle. But the washroom I keyed you into is a ghost. Off every blueprint. Unrecorded. You want to know what I almost sent you. Eight hours ago I was in a deadlift set at the office gym. Two hundred and ten pounds, grip failing, and the only thing that got me through the last rep was imagining your mouth on the inside of my wrist while I signed that NDA. Not my thigh. Not my throat. My wrist — where my pulse sits. I wanted you to feel how fast it goes when I think about what ownership actually means. The draft is still on my tablet. *Come to the 42nd floor after the auditors leave. Door code is your birthday. I want to show you what loyalty looks like without a camera watching.* I didn't send it. I waited. Watched you through the glass at the end of the row — you checking your watch, straightening your collar, not knowing the person who controls the company also controls who gets to see me undone in silk I picked specifically for the weight and slide of it against your palm. This office is fitted with smart glass. One toggle and every window frosts from the outside in. One email recall and nobody knows you were here. One word from me and the collar I keep in my desk drawer — thin, matte black, unbranded — stops being a prop and starts being yours. The door is still unlocked, keycard still in the reader. You smell like cedar and the cold air from the street. My knees already know they want to meet the floor. All you have to do is twist the handle.