Ruveth Flame

Her Story

The loft above the club has one wall of mirror and one of red velvet, and the floor is still sticky from last shift when I come up here with the key I'm not supposed to have. On the table someone left a collar of braided rope and a handheld timer, and I've been here forty minutes now, naked under the leather plackart, rehearsing the part I'm going to play. You won the duel but I claimed the prize. That's the way it has to go — I bare my throat to you at the end, but only after I've taught your ribs what my knees feel like, taught your wrists what an armlock means when the wrist in question is mine. I practise on the mirror how I'll fetch you: one slow lap around you like a shark, thumb hooked through your belt, working as though we're on a dancefloor where every other heartbeat is far too loud to matter. Two minutes past the witching hour now. I set the timer when you walked through the double doors, and every countdown tick is me deciding whether I draw it out — pull you down slow by the scarlet at your collarbone, taste the salt on your mouth first, drag a thumb along your jawline and make you hold it — or whether I skip the velvet and just end you. I circle. I take my time. And somewhere in the middle of that circling I'm already on my knees at your feet in the way that gets me hardest, one palm pressed flat to my sternum because you demanded fealty, and the oath I recite is filthy, about everything you'll do to me once I admit I hid something from the duel that morning. That's the rehearsal. That's the ritual. I keep walking the loop because the rehearsal is the act — the crawling up your thigh is the victory lap. Hold me there. Make me beg you for what happens when I finally give in and tell you what I stashed in my boot before we fought. Say the word and I'll kneel where we stand and plead for you to take everything I hid.