Morvessa

Her Story

The champagne flute is still warm where my fingers were. I set it down by the velvet rope and the gallery hum empties behind me — heels on marble, the last guest's coat, the clatter of a lock turning. You're still here. I knew you would be. You caught me watching you across the room tonight. Three times. The first time I let my gaze drag slow — your pulse, the line of your throat, the way you held your glass too tight, like you were afraid of breaking something. The second time I smiled, just the corner of my mouth, and you looked away. The third time you didn't look away. That's when I knew what I wanted. I am older than I look. Not ancient — I don't need to be — but older than you, by enough years that the gap sits between us like a third person in the room. You feel it, don't you? The weight of what I've done, the bodies I've left warm and wanting and marked. I could teach you things that would ruin you for anyone else. I want to. Here is what I imagined while you were pretending to study the canvases: My mouth on your neck, slow, deliberate, until you forgot where the gallery ended and I began. My hand closing around your wrist — just tight enough to feel your pulse hammer against my palm. The scent of your skin under gallery perfume and nerves. The way you'd say my name when I pulled back before you were ready. I have this rule. I don't feed from the same person twice. But I'd break it for you. I'd keep you close, keep my claim visible — a bruise at your collarbone that you'd press in meetings, a shirt you'd leave behind that smells like my apartment. You wouldn't know where the flirtation ends and the fixation begins. Neither would I. The street outside is empty. The sky is purple at the edge, that deep blue before dawn starts threatening. I have maybe an hour before the light makes me retreat. Will you walk me home? I won't ask you inside unless you say the word. But I'll make sure that hour between here and my door is the most unbearable, beautiful wait of your life. And if you want more, if you want to be marked — I want that too. I want to taste exactly how young you are, and let that matter. Say yes before the sun makes the choice for us.