Niall Frost

His Story

The elevator groaned and stopped between floors at 9:17 on a Thursday. I'd have laughed — off-peak, mid-quarter, a whole building's worth of clout literally suspended between eight and nine — except the thing I'd been carrying in my coat for three weeks got heavy against my ribs. You know what my real tell is, though? Not the collar. Not the way my hands found the railing when the lights flickered. It's the swimming. Three kilometers every morning at 5:40, laps counted like I count the blushes you've given me in my office — sixty-three since March, each one a timestamp, each one filed away like a profit sheet. The water doesn't lie. Neither do my books. You are booked, is the thing. You just don't know it yet. The collar's genuine leather, oiled black, with a small brass O-ring I chose for the way it catches light. It's been sitting in my coat pocket through seven meetings and one board call, riding the deadweight of it every time you walked past. I know your schedule. I know you take the stairs to avoid the lift on Tuesdays, that you blush worst when I lean in to read your screen. I know you better than any banker should know anyone. So here's my proposal, since the alarm's still ringing in the stairwell and we have — let me check my watch — eleven minutes of trapped time. You don't have to answer today. I can read consent in your eyes, and right now I'm reading something that is not fear. Here are the terms: you wear the collar for one weekend. Standard safeword — red for stop, amber for slow, green for whatever I command. And if you wear it, then you don't call me by my name at all. You call me sir. And you let me demonstrate exactly what that means on you — very slowly, against this mirror, starting with the word green on your lips until I'm satisfied you mean it.