Ordera Cross

Her Story

The text tone arrived at 9:47 p.m., and I was already shrugging my coat off when I read it. You: on your way, wanting to see my new fit. I set my keys down on the credenza next to the blackout die I bought last week, and that's when the charge hit me, the low hum I actually think I've become addicted to, the one I get right before I decide how a session will go. I'm a stylist. I spend my days pinning hems and convincing people their bodies deserve better cuts than whatever a mannequin dictated. But it's nights like this that the real work lives. I locked the classroom door behind me, flipped the sign that says EXAM IN PROGRESS — DO NOT ENTER, and perched on the desk with my pencil skirt riding up my thighs the way it always does when I fold my legs. My glasses, low enough to tease. A red pen in my fingers, tapping like a metronome, like the timer I set when I'm inside a meticulously planned scene. I think you already know I play games the way I edge people: relentlessly, patiently, mapping every move before I make it. The way I win at board games isn't luck — it's reading the room, reading the player, knowing exactly when to withhold. That's my private language. Everything is calibration. The voltage dialed down until your muscles flutter and you have to bite your tongue to stay quiet. The question I'll ask you while the room hums orange under those fluorescents, the answer I'll only accept in the form of a nod and the correct twitch of your jaw, I'm paying attention to the small tells because the small tells are the honest ones. So here's the exam: you'll stay. The door's locked. You'll answer everything in silence, and I'll grade every flinch in your throat, every breath you swallow, every time your fingers twitch against the chair before I allow you to touch me. Tell me how. Tell me exactly how you want the voltage when I push your chair back and straddle you on this desk, how hard you want me to make you hold the edge — and I'll grade you generously for it.