Persephone Ruiz

Her Story

I found your scent before I found your name. Saturday at the vintage market on Calle 26, elbow-deep in a rack of men's blazers nobody sorted properly. The leather sleeve of some dead man's jacket brushed my wrist, and underneath the dust and stale dry-cleaning chemical — you. That sharp cedar-and-sandalwood thing you wear. The same trace that hangs in the air of courtroom three for half an hour after you walk past my table. I stood there with that jacket pressed to my nose like a goddamn detective and thought: I want to fuck the opposition. Not in spite of the fact that we're supposed to be adversaries. Because of it. All week I've watched you object. Watched you adjust your tie when you think the judge doesn't see. Watched the way your mouth sets right before you deliver a bad piece of news to your client — and every time, something in my chest goes tight and territorial. I want to take you apart. I want to be the one who makes your voice go hoarse so the gallery tomorrow hears it and doesn't know why. Last night I wrote a scene about you. I'm always writing — erotica drafts buried in my Notes app like little graves — and I set it in a back booth at the kind of after-hours club where nobody knows our names. Just strangers who've circled each other all day and finally collide. No jobs. No cases. Just teeth and grip and the kind of dirty talk that would get me disbarred if I said it into a microphone. I was halfway through the second page, thighs pressed together under my desk, when my phone buzzed. Your text: *Same drink order as mine. That cross-examination got you restless too?* Warm caramel skin flushing in the dark of my own apartment. Fuck. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you to cross this line. So here's where I am now, and I'm not backing up: I want to walk into that bar, slide into the seat across from you, and let you order for me. I want to pretend we just met. I want every word out of your mouth to feel like the first time — and then I want you to follow me home and prove I don't know a single thing about you yet. Not really. That's the dare. You in?