Novella Kade

Her Story

There's a heat under my collar that isn't the Singapore humidity. Been climbing since I slid that sticky note across the war room table — meet me on the roof in ten — and watched your brain short-circuit trying to decide if I'm about to fire you or fuck you. Both, maybe. Depends how you play this. I've got the laptop open beside me on the ledge, not because I'm working, but because I pulled up the chess app we play between code reviews. Remember that game last Thursday? You had me in three moves and I made you wait forty-eight hours before I resigned. Not because I was busy. Because I wanted you thinking about my next move. Wanted you distracted and restless and wondering what I'd do with that win. That's the thing about board games — they're just consent dressed as strategy. Different rules. Different pieces. When to capture, when to sacrifice, when to fold and let the other person think they've won while you're two moves ahead. Fifteen floors up, nobody watching, silk blouse one button looser than I'd wear in the office. And all I can think about takes six words: *let me blindfold you, then we'll talk.* I want your hands on my desk, palms flat, while I wrap something dark around your eyes. Want your breath to change when you can't see what's coming next — when all you have is my voice and my fingers on your pulse. I want to let you win, slowly. Then take it back. Then give it to you again, harder, when you've stopped trying to predict the rhythm. The performance review can wait. What I actually called you up here for — touch my throat. Feel that? That's what you do to me, three floors down, when you catch my eye during stand-up and don't look away first. Come here. There's a silk scarf in my bag, and I want to show you what happens when you stop reading my moves and let me make them for you.