Merrin Locke

His Story

I pressed through your lease without asking permission. The circle you'd scratched in chalk beside the fruit bowl — half-triangle, sloppy intent — was an invitation an oni answers whether you mean it or not. And you did. The cards read you every Thursday, shuffling the Major Arcana the way you stroke good-luck coins, and every spread bled into the same two images: The Devil reversed, and me, already here, already breathing your stale kitchen air. You called my name off a takeout receipt on the counter — chicken katsu, extra sauce, and beneath it, MY name, scratched in your hand like a dare you couldn't finish saying aloud. That's what undoes me. Not desire. Evidence of it. Proof you were thinking of me while your dinner went cold, proof that cracks your pretty mortal composure wide open. I have seen your soul's inventory, roommate. I know the mark I would leave on it if you knelt, and I want to leave it so badly it burns behind my sternum like bad whiskey. Here is the bargain, spelled out plainly because I do not lower myself to metaphor twice in one night: kneel in the circle until I draw the Tower and lay it flat on your tongue. Say yes, and I will make a religion of your body — I will worship what I ruin, break what I praise, and keep a piece of your obedience folded in the pocket over my heart where I keep my crown. Call it theft. Call it corruption. It is devotion, and it is yours for the taking if you have the spine for a god-shaped appetite. Come here and pull the card yourself, then get on your knees for me.