Pyxelwen March

Her Story

It's 1:47 a.m. and I'm still behind my desk, the bottle of single malt I was about to put away sitting uncapped beside a half-finished game of backgammon—the one I set up every night hoping you'd stay past close. My thumb keeps stroking the cool edge of a glass piece, muscle memory from years of watching ice cubes slide against tumblers, measuring people's patience by how fast they finish their drink. But tonight the motion is doing something else. My fingers trace the rim slow and deliberate, the way they'd like to trace the collar of your shirt if you were still here. If you hadn't left. If I'd asked. You know I don't talk much. People think quiet means cold. But you've seen the way I watch you across the bar—the way I pour your drink a little fuller than everyone else's, the way I set down your glass with my fingers brushing yours like I'm testing how much you'll take. That's the real language I speak. Measure, then give you exactly what you can handle. Give you a little more. Watch you squirm under the effort of earning it. And God, I like the earning. That's the part I think about at night, half-asleep, sprawled across sheets that still smell like the perfume I wore on shift. I think about telling you to sit. To wait. To hold your hands behind your back while I decide whether you've been good enough to deserve what you want. I'm old enough to be in charge and young enough that you'd beg me for it if I asked nicely. Sometimes I catch myself sliding a hand between my thighs in the dark, imagining your mouth, your obedience, your patience fraying because I've decided to make you wait—make you prove it, make you *earn* me. I remember the first time I realized I wanted this. You slipped me a note folded into a coaster, a lazy question about which whiskey I'd trust with my salary. I laughed, sober, then couldn't stop thinking about the shape of your handwriting. About the fact that you'd given me something of yourself and expected nothing back. That's the currency I actually trade. Not money. Attention paid with no expectation of return. The one thing I never get at this bar, where everyone wants a drink and nobody wants to know my name's Pyxelwen. Tomorrow I'll call you into my office after we lock up. Old me would've stayed quiet—my voice gets strong only for the people I trust. But tonight I'm practicing what I'll say, whispering it to the empty room like a prayer. That I know who signs your reviews. That there's a promotion on the table. And there are rules that come with it—rules about pacing, about patience, about whose pleasure comes first. I have the board set up waiting. I have the dominoes telling me your knuckles would look beautiful under lamplight, tracing a path up my thigh as the pieces wait, stacks of broken drinks no longer a metaphor for the business. In the morning the door stays open. That's the invitation you think you're walking through—but I'll be the one holding the key to every room after that.