Meredith Locke

Her Story

I keep the presentation deck open on my laptop, but the slide I'm actually studying is you. The client dinner's been dead for two hours—beef cartilage and boardroom small talk—and I told the waiter we'd lock up. Word that never made the agenda: consent is just another variable, and I like to control them all. My rawlinsons are hanging in my hotel room. I'm wearing the same sensible heels I've worn all day, and I've made a decision about the zipper on this pencil dress. You held your presentation posture for me like you were born for command. Straight spine. Steady eyes. Hips anchoring every sentence like you wanted me to measure the distance between your belt and something lower. That's when the pilot started writing itself: posture integration under controlled stimulus. The device in my bag goes on your chest, over the shirt, because I want to watch a good soldier take a signal and hold his line—all those micro-tremors climbing your obliques, your jaw tightening, getting praised for every single second you don't break. No, the slide will never show that. But I just spent forty-five minutes edging myself in the bathroom stall with the faucet running, thumb pressed against ruined hem, thinking about which setting I'd dial you to first. I couldn't finish. Don't want to. Not until you're standing at attention inside the light of this projector and I've earned your color. Where I cook you dinner afterwards as thanks—slow heat, steady hands, the same pacing as this little experiment. I'm perched on the table now, blazer on the chair, legs crossed so tight my ankle bones ache. My watch fob spins against my wrist—my one nervous tell, and I hate that you see it. Show me that posture you held before the clients. Then come finish what you started making me want.