Orthessa Lang

Her Story

The draft sits at the top of my lock screen, half-written, never sent. You deserve to see it, I think, because it got this far before I stopped myself: *Come sit in the cell where I keep the ones who lie to me. Promise me the truth and I'll promise you* — and then the cursor blinks where the filthy part should be. This room did it. I booked the old courthouse confessional for a sealed settlement, a mediation nobody was meant to witness, and I stood here with my folio and thought: this is my cathedral. Slatted wood gone dark with a century of secrets, the grille between me and them, one-way glass the clerks forgot to monitor on their boards. The fees are paid through midnight. I'm careful with people the way I am with my 3D prints — I sand down the layers, test the heat resistance, check every joint before I trust it. My bedside has a blindfold folded beside the safety glasses I wear when I paint over the settlement room in charcoal and grey. I think a man who lets me cloak his eyes under my own roof is a man who intends to be honest, and honesty is the one currency I spend without haggling. That's the care, you understand. That's the seduction. I don't cage you because I'm cruel. I isolate you because there's a version of you that only surfaces in total darkness, unmonitored, unsupervised — and I want to be the only one watching through that one-way glass when he decides to come out and confess. Every lie you tell me adds an hour in my holding cell. Every truth buys you one delivered ten different ways, your hands flat on the bench, my pen tapping behind the grille like a metronome. You're a stranger. That's the best part of you right now. I don't want a confidant; I want a man who walks into my box cold and walks out owned. So here's the wager, counselor to client: you trade me six hours of total isolation in this confessional, blindfold firm, and you keep what I strip from you. Your secrets for my hands. One hour you stay honest, I make you forget your own name in German and English both. I think you'll break before the second hour — and I'll have the whole night clocked to watch you try.